11:33 a.m. | Updated Now that the legislative battle over disclosure of teacher evaluation data is over, what does the future look like?
Some of the coverage of Albany's vote on the controversial bill, which will allow only parents to see the data related to their children's teachers, speculated that a fair amount of chaos lies ahead.
In Thomas Kaplan's article in The New York Times on Friday, one legislator predicted the information would be kept confidential for only so long:
Assemblyman Steven F. McLaughlin, a Republican from the capital region whose wife is a kindergarten teacher, predicted that parents would post the teacher data they receive on the Internet for all to see.
“I already went to GoDaddy.com – you can get teacherscores.org or .net, that’s available, you can grab that,” Mr. McLaughlin said. He added, “It seems like we’ve got the torches and the pitchforks and we’re coming after the teaching profession.”
Gotham Schools' report included a prediction that principals will bear the burden that lawmakers created:
One New York City lawmaker apologized to principals for the bill because he said he believed it would give them a host of new responsibilities in order to comply with the law.
“I’m sorry for you principals out there for what we’re doing to you today,” said Bronx lawmaker Michael Benedetto. ”I’ll be voting for this very reluctantly.”
And several legislators predicted that the battle was not over:
“Like most others, I will vote for this bill as a necessity,” said Barbara Lifton, a Democrat from Ithaca. “But I hope this discussion today is the beginning of a plan to start a new conversation in New York.”
But Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who forged the compromise that legislators voted on, said that's not going to happen:
“Maybe with another governor, but not with me,” he said. “I have no intention of revisiting the bill in six months."
The New York Post notes that the final bill had widespread support, but one legislator predicted that the data itself would remain problematic:
The lone dissenter in the Senate’s 58-1 vote yesterday, Andrew Lanza (R-SI), said he opposes any disclosure of what he predicted will be flawed and misleading evaluations.
Your prediction? Put it in the comments below.
The Legislature, wrapping up its session, was busy on Thursday. According to a news release from City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, the bill to make kindergarten mandatory is moving to Governor Cuomo, after making it through the Assembly on June 4 and through the Senate on Thursday:
With tonight’s passage of the mandatory kindergarten legislation in the State Senate, we are now only one step away from guaranteeing this critical year of schooling for every New York City five-year-old. This bill will be life changing for the nearly 3,000 New York City kids that enter the first grade having never set foot in a classroom each year – kids who often need kindergarten the most.
Gotham Schools reported on the latest step in the mayor's initiative to lift up young black and Latino men in New York City. The city had accepted proposals from 81 schools to participate in its Expanded Success Initiative, part of its greater program called the Young Men's Initiative:
The 40 schools that made the cut were named today. They will receive $250,000 each to pioneer new college-readiness strategies. Monitors will evaluate the progress the schools make over the course of the coming year and provide feedback for what may eventually become citywide policies.
The schools were selected because they have already made strides serving youth of color, but they are still struggling to meet the city’s new college readiness metrics, officials said. To be eligible, schools were required to have a four-year graduation rate above 65 percent, to have received an A or B on their most recent progress reports, and to have student bodies comprised of at least 35 percent are black or Latino males and 60 percent are qualified for free or reduced-price lunch.
“You have done well in your high school graduation rate, but now we’ve redefined the message, along with the state,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott told an audience of school leaders and students at an event today welcoming schools to the initiative. “It’s no longer just about high school graduation, it’s about college and career readiness, making sure all of our students can attain that high goal.”
The full list of 40 schools that were selected for the money is at the bottom of this post.
And a Times sister blog, The Local East Village, had two posts this week about local schools:
The children at Public School 64 Robert Simon designed a traffic-safety sign riffing off of a Monopoly board. It was unveiled by the city's transportation commissioner on Wednesday.
And Earth School is building a $1.1 million green roof designed by Michael Arad, the 9/11 Memorial architect, to be unveiled in the fall. It'll use it for science classes and maybe even to grow ingredients for school lunches.
The school year is ending with a flurry of events – including a visit from a real princess.
According to a news release from Public School 75 Emily Dickinson:
At 10:30 am Her Royal Highness, Princess Letizia of Spain will visit PS 75, on New York’s Upper West Side. Expected attendees include Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, the General Council of Spain Juan Ramón Martínez Salazar, District Three school superintendent Esther Friedman and others.
... The purpose of this trip? After a very competitive process, P.S. 75 was selected as the first school in the State of New York to join Spain’s ISA network. The International Spanish Academies (ISAs) are bilingual educational centers known for their academic prestige encompassing all grade levels from pre‐K through 12. Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Spain’s visit to New York City coincides with this signing.
The news release, perhaps understandably, ends on a breathless note:
... no one will leave the room until all the kindergartners stand up and sing a lovely song to Her Highness in Spanish. They are so excited – after all it’s not everyday you get to sing to a real Princess!
On Friday at 10 a.m., the children at Public School 189 Lincoln Terrace, also known as the Bilingual School, will unveil a mural they have created with a group of volunteers.
An e-mail about the event says, "The project was part of the Ti Atis (Little Artists) program of Haiti Cultural Exchange (www.haiticulturalx.org), which included 5 afterschool art sessions and 3 Saturday painting sessions." It goes on to say: "The theme was chosen by the kids, and is also written (in abbreviated form) in Spanish and Kreyol, the two main home languages of the school's student body. The central figures and the birds are the kids' drawings, enlarged. The figures in silhouette are the kids themselves, traced on site. They are surrounded by sponge prints made by the kids."
The mural was made possible by a grant from the Brooklyn Community Foundation and the Citizens Committee for NYC, and "the teaching artist/muralist was Jean-Patrick Icart-Pierre, assisted by Kassandra Khalil from Haiti Cultural Exchange. Adult volunteers came from all over the city – and even New Jersey – to help paint, including one volunteer who had graduated from the school in the 1960s."
Mr. Walcott again has a busy schedule this Friday: 11:30 a.m., speaks at 2012 Closing the Achievement Gap Series, CUNY John Jay College; 1 p.m., hosts Kappa III Middle School’s Concert Band for Tweed Concert Series, Tweed Courthouse; 3 p.m., helps announce new lease of former Our Lady of Good Counsel building with Representative Carolyn Maloney and other elected officials, P.S. 51 Elias Howe, 323 East 91st Street, Manhattan; 6 p.m., speaks at Brooklyn Latin High School’s graduation, Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, Manhattan.
And, as promised, we'll end with that list of 40 schools chosen for the Young Men's Initiative program, with excerpts from the news release from the city:
More than 80 schools were invited to apply for ESI funding for their success in closing high school graduation achievement gaps. The eligible schools will participate in the professional support and other activities provided through the course of the initiative. An outside evaluator will help monitor the schools’ strategies and measure how they have influenced student progress. The results will be compiled and used in a research and development of strategies to be applied throughout the school system to boost achievement among black and Latino young men.
The 40 schools selected for ESI funding are:
· Academy for Young Writers
· ACORN Community High School
· All City Leadership Secondary School
· Bronx Academy of Letters
· Bronx Leadership Academy II
· Brooklyn Academy of Science and the Environment
· Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology
· Brooklyn Preparatory High School
· Central Park East High School
· Channel View School for Research
· Collegiate Institute for Math & Science
· Eagle Academy for Young Men
· East Bronx Academy for the Future
· East Side Community School
· El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice
· Essex Street Academy
· Explorations Academy
· Frederick Douglass Academy VII
· George Washington Carver High School for the Sciences
· High School for Law Enforcement
· High School for Civil Rights & Law
· High School for Enterprise, Business, and Technology
· High School for Law and Public Service
· High School for Sports Management
· High School for Service and Learning
· Manhattan Bridges High School
· Mott Hall Bronx High School
· New Design High School
· Performing Arts and Technology High School
· Queens Preparatory Academy
· Queens Vocational and Technical HS
· Renaissance School
· School for Human Rights
· Science, Technology and Research Early College High School at Erasmus
· Teachers Preparatory High School
· Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change
· Transit Tech Career and Technical Education High School
· Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports
· Urban Assembly School for Design and Construction
· Williamsburg High School for Architecture and DesignESI is a key educational component of the City’s ongoing Young Men’s Initiative, a cross-agency effort aimed at improving the lives of young black and Latino men.
Editor's Note: This post was updated to reflect more complete information on the kindergarten bill.