EdVANTAGE Blog

Last week we reported that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had warned that states’ chances to win a share of his $5 billion “Race to the Top Fund” could suffer if they cap the number of charter schools they allow to operate.  New York is one of those states, with a cap allowing 200 charter schools to be approved.

But a leading national charter advocacy group takes a more subtle view, and ranks New York State as having the 6th strongest charter school law in the nation, despite its cap. Read the rest of this entry »

All three major dailies in New York City — the Times, Post, and Daily News have now run editorials praising the City school governance bill advanced by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Education Committee Chair Catherine Nolan.

The latter two publications have sometimes been harsh critics of the Speaker.  But the Post titles its editorial, “A Ray of Hope,” and the Daily News writes, “Silver delivers big time on school-governance plan.” Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an interesting piece by cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham disputing the idea that school choice is a sure-fire strategy to improve schools.  He speculates that parents are quite likely to choose schools for their children based on factors other than their performance.

We’ve reported on comments by State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch suggesting that state tests should be made more difficult.  Last week the New York Daily News explored the issue in more depth.

The paper argues, “Soaring scores on the state math test don’t necessarily add up to better schools or smarter kids.”  It concludes that it has become easier for teachers to “teach to the test” as it has become easier for teachers to predict what questions will appear on the tests. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend New York State United Teachers decided to endorse U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s candidacy to win election to fill out the remaining two years in Hillary Clinton’s term.

The New York Daily News reported that, “The union will formally announce today what its president, Dick Iannuzzi, called an ‘unquestionably unusual’ endorsement of Gillibrand that is coming ‘unquestionably early in the process.’” Read the rest of this entry »

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned that some states will be handicapped in the competition to win a share of $5 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funds because of state laws capping how many charter schools may operate and restricting the use of student test results in teacher evaluation.

New York was among the states Secretary singled out on both scores.  He is off-target on both criticisms. Read the rest of this entry »

After its leadership upheaval on Monday, the State Senate failed to convene on Tuesday or Wednesday and cancelled all committee meetings both days.

Today, a brief session was held involving only the 30 Republican Senators and the two dissident Democrats.  But it lasted only 10 minutes and no bills were passed.

Now both houses have left Albany for the weekend and are scheduled to reconvene on Monday. Read the rest of this entry »

Merryl Tisch, the recently elected leader of the Board of Regents, amplified her criticisms of state assessments in an interview with the Buffalo News. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, I did a presentation on the education finance outlook at the annual conference of the New York State Association of School Business Officials.

You can view my Power Point presentation (24 slides) here.

I covered what happened in this year’s state budget, including the role played by federal stimulus funds, and projections for future state budget deficits and school aid levels.  I also discussed patterns in local budget proposals and budget votes and how those might affect state-level discussions of school finance.

South Orangetown superintendent Ken Mitchell today wrestled a gun out of the hands of an armed suspect in the South Orangetown Middle School. See news article. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

The incident brings to mind recent incidents at East Greenbush (where two teachers wrestled a shotgun away from a student) and in Fallsburgh, where superintendent Ivan Katz was assaulted twice while protecting administrative staff from a violent parent.

UPDATE:  Here is today’s (June 10) lower Hudson Journal News article about the incident.  The local town supervisor said, “What we witnessed today was an act of bravery and heroism by South Orangetown Schools Superintendent Ken Mitchell.”