Wikimedia

P.S. 244Q in Flushing is known to students, teachers and parents alike as "The Active Learning Elementary School." It was opened five years ago by its principal, Robert Groff, as an experimental institution focused on nutrition. The school is the Bloomberg administration's educational dream, placing a heavy emphasis on learning and public health.

In January, the school began to limit the meat in breakfast and lunch meals to specific days of the week. But, yesterday, the school made an unprecedented move: now, it will be the first public school in the United States of America to serve an all-vegetarian menu.

More »

"These tests are harmful. They do nothing but stress us out and take away precious learning time. They don't make learning fun, they are all-consuming. ... We do not learn from these tests. Do we not go to school to learn?"

Owen Hotaling, a freckled fifth grader in a sweatshirt and a bright red knit cap, read his open letter to Chancellor Dennis Walcott in a rapid but clear voice. His highly appreciative audience: about 60 parents, educators, and activists in the auditorium of the Earth School, PS 364 in the East Village, on April 14, two days before statewide standardized tests were to begin.

More »

The City Council urged Mayor Bloomberg to postpone the negotiations of school bus driver contracts yesterday in a letter that called for "restoring much needed normalcy to the thousands of students and families affected by the strike." The stakes get higher for workers today as health insurance for the striking members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1181 expires.

44 members of the 50-person council signed off on the letter, which encouraged the mayor to accept a "cooling off" period proposed by retired Justice Milton Mollen, which would allow drivers to return to their routes while the union renegotiates its contract with the city. The council members pointed to the impact on school attendance as reason enough to stop the strike.

"Unnecessarily prolonging this strike puts the education of thousands of students, especially special needs students, at risk," the council wrote. It's not just a claim intended to tug the heartstrings -- the Department of Education reported that attendance has dropped since the strike began. Regular schools had a 89.4 percent attendance rate yesterday, while District 75, which serves special needs and disabled students, was at 70.6 percent.

More »

Advocates from across the nation to meet with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (above) to demand school closure moratorium.

New York City education advocates, along with activists from 17 other cities, are bringing their fight against school closures to the U.S. Department of Education today.

The advocates have filed complaints with the Office of Civil Rights arguing that school closure policies in their cities have disproportionately impacted poor students of color, English Language Learners and special-education students. Thus, they are demanding a national moratorium on all school closures.

Zakiyah Ansari, a public school parent and founder of the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, filed complaints in July and earlier this month with the OCR documenting the failed and discriminatory results of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 12-year reign of closure on city public schools.

More »

It's Day 2 of the School Bus Driver's strike or "If It's Yellow Let It Mellow 2013". Many parents are working themselves up to a white hot rage that is almost as bad as when you threw that party and your friends left beer cans in the microwave.  Many children are psyched to finally be able to silence their parents' "I walked to school and it was uphill both ways" stories.
More »

Marlboro Township Public Schools

Marlboro Township's Defino Central Elementary School

Amid the backlash NRA President Wayne LaPierre received after calling for the installment of armed guards in U.S. schools, one New Jersey district began the new year with the NRA's preferred method of security.

Students attending Marlboro Township Public Schools returned to class this morning with armed police officers patrolling their campuses. The district's board of education has partnered with Marlboro Township Police to institute a 90-day pilot program in which every school has one armed police officer on duty.

District leaders moved to implement the measure in response to last month's shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children and eight adults dead. After a week of remaining "respectfully silent" about the tragedy, LaPierre dropped a masterfully timed call to arm all schools with "a good guy with a gun" to protect against "a bad guy with a gun."

More »

Jason Lewis/Village Voice

Principal Bernard Gassaway urges the community to play their part in ensuring that kids get educated.

Those advocating to preserve the current structure of Boys and Girls High School say the New York City Department of Education has failed to calculate the role it has played in contributing to the school's drop in performance in recent years.

The historic Bedford-Stuyvesant high school is facing the prospect of being phased out, radically redesigned and divided into several different district or charter schools -- after receiving poor performance grades from the DOE for the last three years.

Members of the Boys and Girls family, politicians and members of the surrounding community passionately reminded the DOE -- at a community meeting held at Boys and Girls last night -- that the school has admitted nearly 2000 underachieving students from around the borough in the last three years.

"You cannot ask a school to absorb 1800 students from all over the borough, who themselves have been dislocated, and expect that they will come together under one roof and...really function at optimal capacity," Congressman-elect Hakeem Jeffries told District 16 Superintendent Karen Watts and another DOE representative at last night's forum.

More »

Two days ago, City Hall released its 'Progress Report' for the country's largest public school system. In it, 217 of New York City's public schools were blacklisted for receiving either an F, D or the third C in a row on the Department of Education's report cards.

It was the highest amount of academic centers for youth so far to be considered 'failing' institutions -- last year, only 116 schools were scrutinized for underwhelming achievement. However, after immediate scrutiny from teachers and parents alike, the DOE has scratched a bunch of schools off of its 'hit list.'More »

The last thing hardcore right-wing conservatives need is more cannon fodder for their whole "America is burning to the ground" argument. But, whatever; we're not worried about them here -- that's fellow Voice scribe Roy Edroso's job.More »

Bronx parents and students met with reps from the DOE and NYPD to discuss high number of student arrests in the borough

Bronx parents, students, representatives from the New York State Department of Education, and officials from the NYPD School Safety Division had a roundtable Thursday evening to discuss the high number of suspensions and arrests in the borough.

The meeting, organized by the New Settlement Parent Action Committee, was a follow-up to the first People's Hearing on School Justice in the Bronx, which took place June 25.
More »