Speaking at the National Action Network just now, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said he always uses a simple formula to see what the education scene is like in whatever city he’s visiting.
He asks how many 9th graders there are, and how many 12th graders.
In New York City, Duncan said there were Read More
Everyone knows that signing a lease in New York City is a lot easier than buying, but that’s doubly true if you’re opening a new school. Ordinarily, the city’s Department of Education needs City Council approval to construct a new school, but Council members recently discovered that schools have been opening up in leased buildings Read More
City Comptroller Bill Thompson isn’t finished whacking the city’s Department of Education.
He released a letter earlier today essentially accusing one of the department’s high-priced private consultants, Alvarez and Marsal, of professional laziness for creating a plan for city schools that looks eerily similar to the one they created for hurricane-ravaged New Orleans.
That’s Read More
The Department of Education’s latest five-year capital plan proposes building 1,600 fewer seats than projected in 2004, according to a new report from the city’s Independent Budget Office.
According to the plan the DOE adopted in June of 2004, the goal was to build 39,204 seats for elementary and intermediary schools (pre-K to 8th Read More
The good news: the city’s Department of Education has achieved $89 million in cost-cutting measures, thanks to some advice from an outside consultant.
The bad news: the consultants, Alvarez and Marsal, cost the department $15.8 million.
That’s pretty expensive advice.
So in an attempt, perhaps, to wring every last cent of value out of Read More
Last night, Community Board 8 approved plans for two new greenmarkets on the Upper East Side. The first, at P.S. 6, on East 81st Street between Madison and Park, still needs approval from the school’s principal and custodian, and then authorization from the city’s Department of Education. The second, at St. Stephen of Hungary Read More
Reporters today, this one included, got a press release about what looks like a fairly extreme educational mess: a kid, Ashanny Williams, who has been out of school for 150 days in a dispute with the Department of Education, and whose mother is demanding that Joel Klein show up at a hearing tomorrow.
Interesting on Read More
Outgoing Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz chaired her final Education Committee this morning and provided several reminders of why her departure will create an enormous attitude vacuum in the chamber. There’s her demanding questions, eye-roll to coffee-swig combo, piercing stare and unique ability to condescend to just about anybody the Department of Education sacrifices to testify.
This Read More
Council Member Eva Moskowitz showed this morning that her recent endorsement of the Mayor was a calculation between the lesser of two evils, and that she was by no means going to give him or his much touted Department of Education a bye when it comes to her bread and butter subject.
In a council Read More
A story not to miss today is the Sun’s questioning of Mike’s school numbers.
I haven’t entirely teased this out, but the question seems to be: Are there any tests on which New York City students are outperforming other students around the state and nation, as well as students in parochial and charter schools Read More
