Talk Bronx New York

Angry parents protest the closing of schools at a Department of Education hearing at Brooklyn Tech High School.

 Over the objections of thousands of protesters, the city Education Department’s panel voted early Wednesday morning to close 19 failing city schools.

After more than eight hours of testimony, the Panel for Educational Policy gave the go-ahead shortly after 3:00 a.m.

The four panel members representing the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan voted against most of the closings.

Mayor Bloomberg’s eight appointees along with the representative from Staten Island supported the decision.

At the beginning of the hearing, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the proposals.

“The sad reality is that the schools we must close tonight are not meeting the standards,” he said, barely audible over boos from the crowd.

At one point he left the stage for several minutes, and the crowd interrupted testimony, repeatedly chanting, “Where is Klein?”

Only after he returned did the crowd allow testimony to continue.

Renee Donaldson holds up a sign as she yells against the closing of schools. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

Two schools created as part of the Bloomberg administration’s effort to replace large, failing high schools with collections of small ones have been added to the state’s list of failing schools.

The state list, officially known as Schools Under Registration Review, includes schools that the State Education Department deems to be performing so poorly that it has the authority to shut them down if they do not improve.

But the list has become less meaningful as Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has, in recent years, acted on his own to close dozens of struggling schools — some of which have been on the SURR list and some of which have not.

In fact, in announcing the newly named schools, state education officials noted that there were three more New York City schools that would have been placed on the list had they not already been scheduled to close. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

Many teachers and parents at the 14 New York City schools marked for closing so far this year are puzzled that their schools were chosen. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

 At Junior High School 123 in the Bronx, Jerome Johnson, a seventh-grade math student, also received cash awards.

 Ruth Lopez gives her student Abigail Ortega a certificate showing her earnings from test scores.

Schools Offer Students Cash For Good Grades 

The fourth graders squirmed in their seats, waiting for their prizes. In a few minutes, they would learn how much money they had earned for their scores on recent reading and math exams. Some would receive nearly $50 for acing the standardized tests, a small fortune for many at this school, P.S. 188 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

When the rewards were handed out, Jazmin Roman was eager to celebrate her $39.72. She whispered to her friend Abigail Ortega, “How much did you get?” Abigail mouthed a barely audible answer: $36.87. Edgar Berlanga pumped his fist in the air to celebrate his $34.50.

The children were unaware that their teacher, Ruth Lopez, also stood to gain financially from their achievement. If students show marked improvement on state tests during the school year, each teacher at Public School 188 could receive a bonus of as much as $3,000.

School districts nationwide have seized on the idea that a key to improving schools is to pay for performance, whether through bonuses for teachers and principals, or rewards like cash prizes for students. New York City, with the largest public school system in the country, is in the forefront of this movement, with more than 200 schools experimenting with one incentive or another. In more than a dozen schools, students, teachers and principals are all eligible for extra money, based on students’ performance on standardized tests.

Each of these schools has become a test to measure whether, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg posits, tangible cash rewards can turn a school around. Can money make academic success cool for students disdainful of achievement? Will teachers pressure one another to do better to get a schoolwide bonus?

So far, the city has handed out more than $500,000 to 5,237 students in 58 schools as rewards for taking several of the 10 standardized tests on the schedule for this school year. The schools, which had to choose to participate in the program, are all over the city.

“I’m not saying I know this is going to fix everything,” said Roland G. Fryer, the Harvard economist who designed the student incentive program, “but I am saying it’s worth trying. What we need to try to do is start that spark.”

Nationally, school districts have experimented with a range of approaches. Some are giving students gift certificates, McDonald’s meals and class pizza parties. Baltimore is planning to pay struggling students who raise their state test scores.

Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post