Coalition for Educational Justice

By Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times

Hoping that New Yorkers will think of “Romney” as a dirty word, a coalition of labor unions and liberal advocacy groups is beginning a campaign on Thursday to tie the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to defenders of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s education policies.

The coalition, New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, said it planned to highlight donors who supported both Mitt Romney and StudentsFirstNY, a political group formed as a counterweight to teachers’ unions that oppose much of Mr. Bloomberg’s education agenda.

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By Geoff Decker, Gotham Schools

Not satisfied with simply railing against the Bloomberg administration’s education policies in the lead-up to the 2013 mayoral election, more than 20 community and advocacy groups have formed a coalition to urge a different path.

And if the coalition, called A+ NYC, is successful, that path will be lined with education research.

A+ NYC is the latest entrant into a crowded field of education advocates aiming to influence the mayoral election. It is driven by many of the same advocacy groups that just four months ago signed on to New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, which aims to oppose Mayor Bloomberg’s schools policies.

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Recent report shows closing schools are packed with high-needs students, but City hasn’t released data showing where those kids ended up

Elected officials ask: What happened to the kids who didn’t make it into the new schools? Is “warehousing” of high-needs students at other schools dooming them to fail?

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By Colin Campbell, Politicker

Earlier this afternoon, four of the five top-tier mayoral candidates stood on the steps of City Hall to criticize recent school closures. City Comptroller John Liu, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio took to the stand to criticize Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s education policies.

The four candidates applauded and supported one another as they spoke, and their messages were largely similar. They all generally indicated the Bloomberg’s administration enjoys closing schools or fails to appreciate the significance of such actions.

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By Rachel Monahan, NY Daily News

Four of the five top Democratic candidates for mayor took to the steps of City Hall Tuesday to criticize the mayor’s school closing policy.

As the city moves to close a record 62 schools this year, the Democrats said Mayor Bloomberg needs to account for what happens to the highest needs kids when a school is closed.

“It’s very easy to close a school. It doesn’t take real leadership,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “For too long, school closing has been the easy way out.”

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By Beth Fertig, NY Times

To Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, the city’s policy of closing schools and replacing them with new ones is akin to the movie “Groundhog Day.”

“We’re going to be back here next month, we’re going to be back here in six months, the kids will not get any smarter, the system will not get any better,” he told a cheering throng of activists on the steps of City Hall Tuesday.

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By Azi Paybarah, Capital NY

For a few moments this afternoon, four of the five leading 2013 mayoral candidates were gathered together on the steps of City Hall.

They were there to protest Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s practice of shutting down failing schools and, according to critics, opening up smaller charter schools in those facilities which cater to more selective student bodies that are, collectively, easier to teach. The result, according to charter-school critics, is a false impression of progress.

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By Philissa Cramer, Gotham Schools

A press conference about the city’s school closure policy looked a lot like a campaign stop for four men eyeing 2013 mayoral runs.

Four leading mayoral candidates — Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, and former comptroller and 2009 mayoral runner-up Bill Thompson — spoke at the event on the steps of City Hall. The press conference was organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice, a nonprofit that has spearheaded protests against many of the 25 closures proposed this year.

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By Anna M. Phillips, NY Times

The latest statistic bedeviling Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s efforts to show progress in the city’s public schools during his tenure is a startling, but well-known one: one out of every four students who entered high school in 2007, and graduated four years later, was not ready for college-level work.

Concern about the validity of the city’s increasing graduation rate, which the mayor often points to as one of his greatest accomplishments, grew last year after state education officials revealed that most students were graduating unprepared for college. (more…)

by Rachel Cromida, Gotham Schools

By 2016, the proportion of students who graduate from city high schools ready for college-level work will double, Department of Education officials told skeptical City Council members today.

The ambitious projection, made during a hearing on college and career readiness, would require growth that far outstrips even the most liberal assessments of the Department of Education’s recent record of improvement.

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