Hundred of teachers' union members came out to a Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Wednesday night in a demonstration of their anger toward Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and frustration with his education policies.
According to SchoolBook's Anna M. Phillips, teachers and union staff members packed the auditorium of the Brooklyn Technical High School, carrying signs and blowing whistles. At times, the whistling and booing proved a powerful mixture, drowning out panel members as well as parents and teachers trying to address the room during the public comment period.
Responding to the city and union's failed negotiations over teacher evaluations, union members repeatedly chanted "You walked out," and before the meeting was over, got up and walked out as a group in a show meant to signal their disgust with the mayor and Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott.
Several items on the panel's agenda were controversial in their own right. A group of parents from Public School 287 Bailey K. Ashford in Brooklyn attended the meeting to oppose the city's plans to expand the 300-student Community Roots Charter School into a K-8 school and move the middle school grades into the P.S. 287 building.
P.S. 287 parents said they had tried to open a middle school as well, but had been turned down by Department of Education officials who now favor the charter school's expansion. Officials said that they would reconsider expanding P.S. 287, but that the school's current enrollment is too low to warrant adding more grades.
The panel voted to approve Community Roots' expansion, as well as the city's plans to move the Academy for Young Writers, a high school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to a new building in East New York, Brooklyn.
In its online coverage of the meeting, NY1 did some math and came up with interesting results.
It added together the 19 schools the city had listed for closing, the six schools that are targeted to lose their middle school grades, and the 33 "turnaround" schools that Mayor Bloomberg said again on Wednesday that he would push to close and reopen by September, shedding at least half their current teachers -- as well as the four charters set to close.
NY1 writes:
If these 58 school closures and overhauls are approved, in addition to four charter schools also marked for closure, it will nearly triple the previous record for yearly school closings.
The Amsterdam News reports that Assemblyman Karim Camara is planning to introduce a bill that would require the city's elite high schools to consider more than results from the city's specialized high school exam in determining admittance.
Camara is asking the city's elite schools to mirror private institutions like Dalton, Fieldston, Horace Mann or Riverdale Country School and include grade point average and student interviews in the formula for picking students.
"We're introducing the bill in the Assembly and we are finalizing the discussion on who the Senate sponsor will be," Camara told the AmNews. "Hopefully, we'll create a dialogue about the best system for deciding the merit of students in specialized high schools."
Mr. Camara said his inspiration is, in part, the decreasing number of black and Hispanic students being admitted to the specialized high schools.
Remember "Mad Hot Ballroom," that riveting and enchanting documentary about children in Washington Heights who participated in a ballroom dancing competition? The Times' Local blog in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill reports that the film is slated to be shown at P.S. 11 as part of a fund-raiser.
There are many education-related events going on around the city on Thursday.
At 1 p.m., the City Council's Higher Education Committee and Education Committee will convene a joint hearing on the college readiness of New York City public school students. Shael Polakow-Suransky, chief academic officer and deputy chancellor of city schools; Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers; and representatives from the City University of New York are expected to testify, among others. The hearing will be held at 250 Broadway, Manhattan, opposite City Hall, in the Committee Room on the 16th Floor.
Before the hearing, students, parents and advocates will hold a news conference on the steps of City Hall in a "call for action" related to the city's low rate of college readiness and the mayor's education policies, a news release says.
More hearings related to the city's plans to close or shrink 25 city schools take place at 6 p.m., this time at Public School 161 The Crown, Satellite Three Middle School and the Academy for Scholarship and Entrepreneurship.
Before the meeting at P.S. 161, at 5:30 p.m., supporters of the school will hold a candlelight vigil outside "to push back against the city's move to close their underfunded school," a news release says.
A national conference hosted by the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness opens Thursday at the Millennium Broadway Hotel. According to a news release: "At the two-day event, a diverse group of service providers, practitioners, policy makers, homeless and formerly homeless individuals, and researchers will share expertise on research, education, housing, health, and advocacy."
And at 6 p.m. the Citywide Council for Special Education is sponsoring an event at P.S. 166 The Richard Rodgers School of the Arts and Technology in Manhattan about the public education options for so-called 2e kids -- those who are both academically gifted and learning challenged. A local listserv called Twice_Exceptional_Kids_NYC has spread the word.
Finally, the Learning Network query for students is: Who would you share your passwords with?, off the front-page Times article on Wednesday about young people who share their passwords as a show of affection.