New York Daily News
June 17, 2010
By Meredith Kolodner
Press
Successful education program faces ax even though it helped turn middle schools around
Monday, June 21st, 2010City Council Endorses School Transformation Zone
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010City Limits Magazine
By Helen Zelon
The New York City Council passed a resolution this week unanimously endorsing the proposed School Turnaround Zone (STZ), a strategy designed to help struggling schools improve their performance and avoid closure.
Developed by the parent-led Coalition for Educational Justice, the STZ would integrate school-improvement strategies with strong leadership, giving schools three years ‘in the zone’ to demonstrate progress.
The STZ also has the support of Council speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio. But the decision whether to adopt it ultimately rests with the Department of Education (DOE), which is independent of the City Council.
If adopted, the STZ would represent a significant departure from the DOE’s current approach to struggling schools. To date, the DOE has closed 91 schools and is attempting to obtain court approval to shutter 19 more.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has met with education advocates to discuss the STZ proposal, and has referred the matter to Deputy Chancellor Marc Steinberg, says Megan Hester, spokesperson for the Council for Educational Justice.
DOE spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld would not comment directly on the Council’s resolution.
In an email to City Limits, he repeated verbatim an earlier response to City Limits’ inquiries about the STZ: “President Obama agrees that in order to prepare all of our children for college and the workplace, it is critical that we turn around our lowest performing schools. This can include, in some cases, transformation. We will continue to engage parents and community leaders as we work to turn around our lowest performing schools, win federal dollars for our students, and build on the progress we’ve made in improving student outcomes.”
City Council: Fix, Don’t Close Schools
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010Queens Chronicle
by Lisa Fogarty
The City Council took a stand against school closings Tuesday by unanimously passing a resolution that calls upon the Department of Education to fix, and not give up, on low-performing schools.
The School Transformation Zone, proposed by the advocacy group NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, calls for the use of federal School Improvement Grants and other funds to implement reform plans in the city’s lowest-performing schools.
Since 2002, the DOE has closed 91 schools. Ten Queens high schools risk closure because of low graduation rates and Progress Report grades: Jamaica, Beach Channel, August Martin in Jamaica, John Adams in Ozone Park, Flushing, Newtown in Elmhurst, Grover Cleveland in Ridgewood, Long Island City High School, Queens Vocational and Technical High School in LIC and the Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship Magnet in Cambria Heights.
Struggling schools would have the opportunity to turn themselves around by applying five school improvement strategies: expanding the school day and year; providing a rigorous curriculum that includes access to Regents courses and Advanced Placement or other college-level classes; taking steps to attract, train and maintain quality teachers and principals by reducing class size and offering professional development and mentoring; giving students strong support services that include small group and individual counselors; and ensuring active parent and community participation by including them in policy and decision-making.
“Resolution number 157-A reflects the view of many parents, educators, advocates and elected officials, including myself and many other Council Members, that DOE has a responsibility to help struggling schools rather than just taking the easy way out by closing them,” said Education Committee Chairman Robert Jackson (D-Morningside Heights).
The CEJ said the resolution is timely because state school districts must submit their plans within the next two weeks for how they will use School Improvement Grants to transform their lowest achieving schools, 34 of which are located in the city.
The DOE has maintained that school closings are a last resort and that the department is open to turning around schools.
“President Obama agrees that in order to prepare all of our children for college and the workplace, it is critical that we turn around our lowest performing schools,” DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte said in a statement. “This can include, in some cases, transformation. We will continue to engage parents and community leaders as we work to transform our lowest performing schools, win federal dollars for our students and build on the progress we’ve made in improving student outcomes.”
Bill Offers Transformation Zone to Save Schools
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010By Lina Berezovska
Epoch Times Staff
Created: Apr 28, 2010 Last Updated: Apr 28, 2010
NEW ZONING NEEDED: Parents and advocates rally for the creation of a School Transformation Zone on Wednesday at City Hall. (Aloysio Santos/The Epoch Times)
NEW YORK—Over 50 parents and advocates assembled in front of City Hall on Wednesday to voice their support for the creation of a bill that would save schools on the verge of closure. The bill would establish a School Transformation Zone for low performance schools where parents and teachers will work together to increase the quality of education.
“We think that we can come up with the ideas like the school transformation zone, like the extended day, ensuring that every child gets individualized, differentiated instruction that meets their needs, and this is what is going to turn the schools around,” said Daniel Dromm, city councilman and former city public school teacher.
If the bill is approved, schools in the transformation zone program will have three years to improve their performance through federal grants and funds. In the zone, teaching and learning will be redesigned to improve student achievement. Buildings that are normally closed down at the end of the school day will operate longer to provide extended pay for teachers and learning time for children.
The city’s Department of Education did not return a request for comment on school transformation zones.
Speaker Anita Gomez-Palacio of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators said she was concerned with how the schools end up on the closing list and what role the superintendents of the schools played to try and avoid it.
“Where is the process that [Department of Education] is using? It is not obvious to us how these schools got on the list to begin with,” she said.
Among the advocates stood parents from the Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) who spoke of the consequences their family and their children face after a school shuts down.
Carol Boyd, a parent leader with CEJ and mother of three, was able to transfer her children from a school under registration review in their neighborhood into better schools. Others, she said, are not so lucky.
“I am outraged because the child who lives next door to me, the child who lives above me, the child who lives below me or across the street—they don’t have those opportunities. They are the ones stuck in all those school that are on that closing list.”
In a letter to Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, over 70 advocates, allies of CEJ and 14 city council members have signed to support the school transformation zone bill.
Lower East Side parents in charter school battle
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010Parents Will No Longer Be Divided! No more pitting of school against school and parents against parents! CEJ calls for a moratorium on co-locations until an independent analysis can be made.
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Press Conference: Our Kids Need College Prep, Not Just Test Prep!
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Gotham Schools
New York State is months from knowing whether it will win coveted Race to the Top funds, but already community groups are offering ideas for how to spend the money.