Blog In
Chat with other parents and compare notes. A blog is a user generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.
The term “blog” is derived from “Web log.” “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog
January 16th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Will fourth grade parents have an opportunity to meet with counselers before entering 5th grade? Can the Parent Coordinators be more involved in organizing serval tours with middle schools so that indididual families are not shut out?
January 16th, 2007 at 9:10 am
What is the status of the new East Side Middle School construction on 1st ave. and E. 91 st.? What is it’s estimated completion date?
February 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
STOP THE REORGANIZATION AND LISTEN!
Join elected officials, parents, teachers, and students to tell Chancellor Klein to “Stop, Look & Listen,” and halt the Schools Reorganization.
Meet Wednesday, February 28, 2007, 6:30 PM at St. Vartan’s Cathedral, corner of 34th Street & Second Avenue (take 6 train to 33rd Street). For more information call: 718-222-3796, extension 210, or alizawfp@gmail.com
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Mr. Propper,
Really enjoyed your meeting on Wednesday as we got more information they I get at my son’s school - Ms. Grimm provided some info, I wish she had more details and I agree “what’s the rush”.
Keep up the good work!
March 3rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Barbara:
We are attempting to organize every middle school, high school and (eventually)elementary school’s website to link with our newsletter and blog. The idea is to have school tours and , if possible, video to give parents time to look over schools, tour schedules, possible criteria, and culture, prior to entering 5th grade. We will attempt to have an article or two from guidence counselors and other authorities, in the field, to outline what a family might look for in making their school choice. It is beginning this year and we hope to have it completed in the next year.
Thank you for writing in.
Rebecca Daniels/Mary Silver
CECD2 Newsletter-Communications Committee
March 7th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Important Notice: The NEW DEADLINE FOR FEEDBACK for the Chancellor’s Children First and Fair Student Funding plans is MONDAY, MARCH 19TH. Look for the CECD2’s letter-writing campaign organized through District 2 School Leadership Teams and PTA Executive Boards. Make sure your school’s SLT generates feedback to halt the Chancellor’s Schools Reorganization. Contact Rebecca Daniels and Mary Silver, Communications Committee of the CECD2.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
FYI Lonnie Hameson is wrong - your blog at CECD2 is the first parent blog in the city- don’t let them take your credit!
March 7th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Thanks for noticing that. We did get there first. Now, we just need to make sure our blog takes root.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
To understand why parents need to challenge the Chancellor’s Schools Reorganization, don’t miss Diane Ravitch’s perspective on Mayoral Control of the New York City Public School System on her Education Week blog. f
From Diane Ravitch’s blog on EdWeek (with Deborah Meier).
The link is: http://blogs. edweek.org/ edweek/Bridging- Differences/ And, here’s the entry in full:
March 2, 2007
Power Struggle in New York City
Deborah,
In your introduction, you referred to your history of engagement in
political action. Unlike you, I have not been involved in political
organizing or protest movements. I do what I can with my pen but
generally stay arms-length from political action. So it was a
departure for me when I attended a protest rally on February 28 in
New York City, called “Put the Public Back into Public Education.”
This was an extraordinary microcosm of the groups that are outraged
by the takeover of public education in the city by the mayor,
lawyers, and business groups. It was the first such public event
since the mayor took complete control of the public schools in 2002.
This is a big deal, because few people outside New York City really
understand what mayoral control means. For that matter, not many
people inside NYC do either. Few people realize that it means that
there are no public boards, no central board, no local boards, no
public voice whatever. The mayor controls everything. Decisions are
made behind closed doors by a cadre of lawyers, with no public
discussion or public review. Today, there are no educators included
among the decision-makers, only lawyers. The discussion comes only
after the decision is made and there is no changing the decision.
With this crowd, public discussion means telling the public what was
already decided.
Not knowing any of this, or perhaps not knowing why it matters that
all democratic governance has been eliminated from public education
in NYC, reporters and mayors come to NYC, get the Potemkin Village
tour, hear the Department’s claims, and go home to talk of the
“miracle” in New York City.
Unfortunately there is no such miracle. The people at the protest
rally”well over 1,000 parents, teachers, and students”know it.
The editorial writers in NYC don’t. The business community doesn’t.
The mayors and their helpers in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and
elsewhere don’t.
So the rally was important, because it was the first time that the
simmering public rebellion had a face. Speaker after speaker got up
to talk about overcrowded classrooms; about schools that were
bursting at the seams because the Department, without consultation,
dumped a new small school or a charter school into an already full
building; about teachers and parents who felt disrespected, excluded,
marginalized by the powers that be.
Interesting how the Mayor and Chancellor Joel Klein reacted to the
rally. First, they scheduled a press conference on the day of the
rally at which they announced the appointment of a director in charge
of family engagement. She will earn $150,000 a year. The woman they
chose has apparently a good reputation among parents, but at the
rally it was clear that the parent leaders saw this as a blatant
attempt to buy off their discontent and they were not selling. Too
many other parent leaders have been hired and silenced. Second, the
Mayor said before the rally that most parents were happy with his
reforms, and only “a handful” were not. This statement attracted much
hooting and derision at the rally. Even his new “family engagement”
person respectfully disagreed with him. Third, the New York Post
wrote two vicious editorials denouncing the rally and saying that
anyone who turned out was a “shill” for Randi Weingarten and the
teachers’ union, having been bought and paid for by them. Apparently
any elected official who dares to challenge mayoral control is a
shill for the teachers’ union.
When the New York Post editorialized that the rally was a showcase
for Randi’s puppets, it insisted that the reforms have been
incredibly successful. As proof, the editorial included these
statements by Chancellor Klein. “Our fourth-graders have gained
almost 19 percentage points in math over the past four years,” he
said. “In English, our fourth-graders have gained almost 12.5 points,
compared to only 3.5 points by students in the rest of the state.”
The Post, the Daily News, and the New York Sun dutifully report such
claims in their editorials without bothering to look at the website
of the New York State Education Department. How hard would it be for
them to check their facts? (Let it be noted that the reporters for
New York City’s newspapers, unlike the editorial writers, tend to
have a more skeptical frame of mind.) *
I know you are opposed to testing, but here is an example where it is
useful to say, “Let’s look at the facts.” The facts are on the state
website. (You have to dig to find them, listed under archived press
releases”see the bottom of this entry for links and how to access
them).
Klein’s program was launched in September 2003, so it is appropriate
to compare the test scores for 2003 (when he started) and to the
scores in 2006 (the latest available). Have our fourth-graders gained
almost 19 percentage points in math? No, they have gained 4.2
percentage points over those three years of testing. In 2003, 66.7%
of fourth graders met state standards, and in 2006, the percentage
was up to 70.9. How did he come up with the idea that the scores have
jumped by almost 19 points? He is using 2002 as his start date, when
the scores were only 52.0%. But he cannot fairly use that date as his
starting point, because his program was not launched until September
2003 (he announced his program in January 2003). In fact, the biggest
one-year jump in fourth-grade math scores”14.7% “occurred between
2002 and 2003, the year before his program was installed. Since then,
in three years, the scores have gone up only 4.2%.
In English, did our fourth-grade scores go up by 12.5%? No. The
proportion of fourth-graders who met state standards increased by
6.4% from 2003 to 2006. The figure was 52.5% in 2003 and is now
58.9%. Once again, the chancellor is taking the data from 2002 and
adding it to his gains; the rate in 2002 was 46.5%. But this is just
plain wrong, because he can’t take credit for the 6-point jump that
occurred from 2002-2003. That was before he took office and before he
started his programs.
Note that he does not mention the eighth-grade scores. That is
because in both math and English, 60% of students don’t meet state
standards. Despite small upticks and downticks. the eighth grade
scores have remained flat over the past three years. So the
Department doesn’t mention them. And this, despite the fact that the
Department allegedly ended social promotion in grades 3, 5, and 7.
One must wonder why scores in eighth grade remain so abysmal if
social promotion was eliminated.
Why does the media allow the Mayor and the Chancellor to claim credit
for the phenomenal gains that occurred the year before the Mayor’s
program was implemented? I don’t know, but I have long believed that
in the end, as the saying goes, you can’t fool all the people all the
time.
Diane
*For anyone wanting to check the NY State Education Department
website for themselves, here is some guidance. For some reason it is
not easy to find the scores. They are archived with press releases
and contained in a Power Point presentation by the Commissioner of
Education when he released the scores. Here are the URLs (it took me
hours to find them!):
For Grade 4 English:
http://www.emsc. nysed.gov/ irts/ela- math/ela- 06/grade3- 8ELA-2006_ files/800×600/ slide15.html
For Grade 8 English:
http://www.emsc. nysed.gov/ irts/ela- math/ela- 06/grade3- 8ELA-2006_ files/800×600/ slide16.html
Grade 4 mathematics:
http://www.emsc. nysed.gov/ irts/ela- math/math- 06/math3- 8_files/800×600/ slide16.html
Grade 8 mathematics:
http://www.emsc. nysed.gov/ irts/ela- math/math- 06/math3- 8_files/800×600/ slide17.html
March 8th, 2007 at 6:43 am
MSilver congratulations on being the first blog - Great job!.
I am not sure why parents from District Two should “challenge the chanlleclors school reorganization” - has your council officially taken this position?
March 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am
TJSparks,
The Council wants to hear from D2 parents on what their opinion is regarding all aspects of the reorganization and how it may impact District 2 schools negatively and/or positively. The Council has not voted on a position regarding the reorganization because we are learning more detail each day of the options available to D2 schools and what they will entail. Our only voiced concern has been the pace at which the new reorganization is travelling but as a Council we have not yet drawn any official final conclusions regarding its potential impact on D2 schools.
Paul Walsh
CEC D2 Vice President
March 16th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Dear Shelley:
It is wonderful to read your words of wisdom. Putting money in the classroom shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Thank you for your years of leadership, creativity and inspiration. My children have certainly benefitted by your efforts.
Best regards,
Rebecca Daniels
Thank you for contributing to our newsletter! We are proud to have your comments on our blog.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Who’s Shelley I can’t find her on the newsletter - I want to read her words too.
TJ
March 17th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Please see “Improving Schools” by former District 2 Community Superintendent Shelley Harwayne: http://ncteelem.blogspot.com/index.html
Or see “IBM Contract” under the “Did You Know?” category above.
March 17th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Found it. Thanks
March 21st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Is there any update on the cell phone issue?
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Welcome to all new council members. It looks like a promising year ahead. (TJ Sparks we will miss you).
September 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Thanks for the well wishes, but my son just graduated to a middle school in District Two so I’m still here. Look forward to the CECD2 work for this school year!