NYC Coalition for Educational Justice

By Mary Ann Giordano, NY Times

If it seems that the protests to prevent the closing of struggling schools are becoming a regular thing — that is because they are, GothamSchools reported on Tuesday.

Julian Vinocur of the Alliance for Quality Education told Gotham that more school protests are planned for this fall, as part of a strategy to prevent any school closings.

As Gotham reports, the Alliance for Quality Education and the Coalition of Educational Justice, two advocacy groups, have been saying for years that “struggling schools would be better served by additional resources,” rather than the city’s policy of closing ones that are deemed too flawed to prop up. Continue reading →

By Erin E. Evans, NY Times

Students, parents and staff from Public School 256 Benjamin Banneker in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Tuesday protested the Department of Education’s recent failing grade for their elementary school.

Jerry Jones, a school aide, gave a speech to approximately 80 protesters just before they marched around the block chanting: “Fix our school! Do not close it!” Students on nearby basketball courts joined the protest; onlookers honked their horns in support. Continue reading →

By Ben Chapman, Daily News

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott vowed Tuesday to shut down the city’s failing middle schools, in his first major policy speech since taking office in April.

Walcott also promised to open 50 new middle schools across the city within two years – and remake others. He chose to focus on the city’s 405 middle schools, he said, because students in grades 6 to 8 are falling behind.

“We have a responsibility to do something about our middle schools,” said Walcott in his policy address at New York University, noting that middle school students perform worse than other kids on state exams. Continue reading →

By Fernanda Santos, NY Times

In his first policy address since becoming schools chancellor in April, Dennis M. Walcott announced on Tuesday that New York would open 50 new middle schools in the next two years, many in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

The city will also apply for about $30 million in federal money to replace teachers and leadership, while keeping students in place, at five struggling schools for each of the next two years, the chancellor said.

While the plan, outlined in a speech at the Kimmell Center of New York University, got a warm welcome from educators in the audience, it drew a more guarded response from others, including the president of the teachers’ union, Michael Mulgrew, who said Mr. Walcott was not going far enough. Continue reading →

By Sharon Otterman, NY Times

City students posted modest gains on elementary and middle school statewide tests this year, showing more improvement than students in the state as a whole and in New York State’s other large cities, officials said Monday.

But test scores in the city and the state remained far below where they were two years ago, when high achievement levels made it seem that an education miracle might be at work. State officials toughened scoring last year after determining that the tests had become too easy to pass. Continue reading →