U.S. Department of Education

Everyone knows that signing a lease in New York City is a lot easier than buying, but that’s d  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 problematic because, as Thompson notes:

"The glaring dissimilarity, however, is that the New Orleans public school system has a student population of 26,000 as opposed to the 1.1 million New York children in public schools.

"Whether the New Orleans plan is scalable to work in New York and whether it is appropriate to implement the plan without public recognition of its origin is questionable. If A&M is profiting from marketing as its own the plan of others, then that also leaves much to be desired."

The full letter is here [pdf].

-- Azi Paybarah

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 grade) citywide. According to plans the department is proposing now, the goal is to build 37,181. That's a reduction of 2,023 seats.

In schools for grades six to twelve, the department boosted the number of seats they want to create, from 26,402 to 26,754.

The area that saw the biggest projected increase in school seating was Manhattan's 2nd school district. That's where the department wants to create 1,890 additional seats, thanks mostly to rezoning on the West side, where the Mayor originally wanted a stadium but got housing instead.

-- Azi Paybarah

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 the firm's work, City Council Education Committee Chairman Robert Jackson said at a hearing this morning that he wanted copies of every recommendation made by Alvarez and Marsal -- even the ones that weren't put into practice The DOE refused.

The recommendations that were accepted by the DOE, they said, have already been made public. And turning over the full list of proposals from A&M would breach the confidential communication the DOE has with consultants and would make it harder to get candid information from outside advisers in the future, they said.

Jackson's attempt to get copies of those recommendations is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

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 Parish (how apropos), on 82nd Street between First and York, needs the official green light from the church, which is expected to be given shortly.

Both greenmarkets, if approved, will operate from the beginning of July through mid-November. P.S. 6's will be held every Saturday, and St. Stephen's will be held every Sunday. Leftover food from the St. Stephen greenmarket will be donated to the church's soup kitchen, according to a greenmarket official.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

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 its face, but there's a backstory as well. The press release went out from Gur Tsabar, the Times's favorite unsuccessful Council candidate, who has been pushing the case for the family and on a new blog, Mister Pink. It's an unusual, interesting project, basically a constituent services blog for a guy who, technically speaking, has no constituents.

The site includes email correspondence between Klein and the kid's mother:

Klein: "I received the mail and asked my staff to look into thematter and they have done so."

Williams: "With all due respect, I cannot believe what I just read. Are you 100% satisfied with how your staff looked into the matter of my child, Ashanny Williams? Because my son is still sitting at home without a proper education, and has been for over 150 days."

Brave new world.

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 morning's swan song highlights included: "What happened to teaching quality in the abysmal 8th grade?" "I don't want to go further, this is an absurd statement." "So you don't know the effectiveness of your own policy?" "So this statistic is useless!?"  read more »

Ah, they're going to miss you, Eva.

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 hearing this morning, Eva grilled Jason Henry, and other DOE officials, on the lack of textbooks and copy paper in the city's schools.  read more »

Highlights of the slow coal dragging included, "I thought we had a bullpen approach - that the Mayor and the Chancellor had a bullpen approach. That the textbook person could shout over to the copy paper person," "We're still in a Soviet style mode," "Your answer is, we don't have a clue?" and "Let me ask the question another way. You have to be very lawyerly, I find."

"Is she always like this?" a woman new to City Hall asked.

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 here?

Because if not, it's not clear that the test scores are actually getting better.

As Eva Moskowitz has noted, flat test scores wouldn't necessarily mean some things about the school system aren't getting better. But the Department of Education's lack of interest in her attempt to pursue the point during this hearing (search: "parochial") is not exactly heartening.  read more »

And as the Sun reports, a number of experts aren't convinced.

The Politicker heard some complaints from Bloomberg supporters about an item yesterday repeating Freddy's contention that crime is up on Staten Island.

The complaint was that Freddy was using numbers going back only to 2003; Mike should be judged by his record since 2001.

Two points: First, those same numbers show murder and rape up, if not as sharply, since 2001.

And second, Mike is at least as liable as Freddy to play fast and loose with statistics, though his better-funded campaign does it more smoothly.

The Sun not long ago outlined one of the most striking (no link available): A mailing claiming "Mayor Bloomberg created 62,000 new jobs" in fact "refers to the period from July 2003 to May 2005." There's a case to be made for starting the count then, but you can't have it both ways.

And the ads released immediately after the first round of good test scores this year failed to note a point that calls the results into serious question: parochial and charter schools, which obviously don't follow the uniform curriculum, saw gains on the same tests, suggesting that the test, not the students, had changed. (The Department of Education's test expert, Lori Mei, notably failed to deal with this issue during a City Council Education Committee hearing, which you can read here.)  read more »

All in all, it's an element of Mike's campaign that may deserve even more scrutiny than his unfortunate choice of photographs.

Perhaps Gifford has been sharing fond reminiscences with his colleague, the veteran Brooklyn radical Al Vann, about Vann's glorious youth in the bitter education/race wars of the 1960s.

We're not sure how else to explain Miller's comment at last night's Three Parks Independent Democrats mayoral forum on the Upper West Side.

"There's no reason we can't be the school system we were 40 years ago," the 35-year-old Speaker said.

We think he was trying to conjure up a nostalgic image of public education. But forty years ago, the schools were really on the brink, building toward the Ocean Hill Brownsville fight, where racial tensions and control over schools divided minorities, the Department of Education, the teacher's union, and City Hall.  read more »

That didn't seem to bother one middle-aged woman from Three Parks who was heard whispering to a friend during Gifford's speech, "He's so cute!"