(Photo: Wikimedia)

This morning at the New School, Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave a sweeping speech on reforming New York City's education system, where she rolled out ideas like tablets replacing textbooks and online service programs for both students and parents. Creatively using the online shoe company Zappos.com as an example, Ms. Quinn also pressed the case for how more should be done within the city's existing educational framework.

"Now, not everything we're talking about here requires a new program, sometimes it's just about recommitting to doing things better," Ms. Quinn said, quickly pivoting to a her shoe-based explanation. "I don't know ... how many of you are familiar with the online shoe company Zappos? Now, for those of you know me, I know you're shocked I figured out how to work shoes into the speech. But I will say, 50 percent off online and they're good, okay?"

Ms. Quinn, who's one of the all-but-officially-announced leading candidates for mayor this year, reportedly showed off her own burgundy heels as she proceeded to explain the company's famed customer service should be able to be matched by something as large as the New York City Department of Education.

"A pop of color never hurt an education speech," she mused. "Anyway, Zappos is recognized as a stand-out in customer service. They're known for being obsessive. I think being obsessive about things like customer service is a good thing. Their operators are instructed to stay on the phone as long as it takes to get a customer what they need. The longest call has been logged in as ten and a half hours. That caller may have had other challenges, but neither here nor there, the operator stayed on the phone. If Zappos can bring that level of commitment and urgency when they're dealing with shoes, the greatest city in the world should be able to do the same thing for our parents and children."

Ms. Quinn expressed optimism the tools are available for such a level of dedication.

"We already have the infrastructure in place, parent coordinators and district family advocates, and some schools are actually doing this really well," she said. "But we still have a long way to go before every family feels like their concerns are being heard and their problems are being solved."

While there were numerous reviews of the event, in case you wished to view the full forum in all its glory, we filmed it with the assistance of Capital New York's Azi Paybarah:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Photo: Getty)

Though the bluster of the Chicago teacher strike calmed down last week, the tensions between teacher’s unions and prominent mayors have not ceased. For his part, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is siding with his Second City counterpart, Rahm Emanuel, who pushed for changes to Chicago's public school system despite opposition from the local teacher's unions. Mr. Bloomberg discussed the situation this morning at NBC’s third annual Education Nation Summit at the Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library.

“I think Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, was quite right to move towards a longer school day,” he said. “I also think Rahm was right in pushing towards evaluations as a reform that the Obama administration made as part of Race to the Top.”

Mr. Bloomberg noted that, as in Chicago, the teacher’s union in New York had not signed off on teacher evaluations. However, he pointed to the Race to the Top funding that requires evaluations as reason for the City's educators to change their tune.

“If the teachers do not meet with the city on an evaluation system we stand to lose a half a billion dollars in state and federal funding and I think it would be a catastrophe for our students if that happens,” said Mr. Bloomberg.

The summit, which continues tomorrow and will feature an address by Barack Obama and an interview with Mitt Romney, brought in speakers to discuss education reform, such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

At the end of his address, Mr. Bloomberg, a strong proponent of charter schools, summed up his hopes for the summit.

“We have to make sure that our school systems are run for the students and not run for the people working. No business that doesn’t focus on its customers and getting more for them survives," he said. "Education, I don’t want to think of it just as a business, but in terms of management, from an objective point of view, it's exactly the same.”

Mr. Bloomberg also used the summit to announce two new education initiatives focusing on pre-K, expanding access to pre-K enrollment by 4,000 spots and opening an Educare charter school.

Mayor Bloomberg explaining test score improvement.

Announcing that today is a day for all New Yorkers to smile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference this afternoon highlighting significant improvements school test scores. The strongest gains came from chartered schools, and Mr. Bloomberg vowed to continue educational policies to expand their presence in the city.

"I'm happy to report that this year's results are very positive, and they are not only a celebration for our students, but also the parents and educators that worked day in and day out to bring out the best in them," he proclaimed.

"The fact is that this year there has been an increase in every grade and for every single group of students, especially in our chartered schools but also in our non-chartered, public schools," he continued. "I think we can do better and I will continue to do everything that we can to ensure every single New York City student graduates for college and the working world. But we can be very encouraged, I think, by the story being told today."

Mr. Bloomberg proceeded to present a number of charts showing that in almost every ethnicity and grade, the city's middle schools showed increasing performance on the state's performance tests last spring. The only group showing a decline, the mayor said, was among English learners, but he argued that even those students are doing better because fewer students are being classified as being remedial in English.

However, he repeatedly stressed that the scores are only a way of measuring progress, and the real value from an educational system is whether students are globally competitive in the end.

"We are the poster child for improving, but the skills you need to do jobs in society keep going up," he explained. "We also have the problem that we're competing more and more in an international world."

One of the most controversial aspects of his administration's education policy, of course, is his strong support for charter schools, and Mr. Bloomberg said that the growing demand for them is evidence enough of their success, not to mention the state scores released today.

"The other schools are doing better as well, I don't know if it's because of competition, common sense says that it should be because of competition," Mr. Bloomberg responded when a reporter asked if the improved results came from increased competition between schools. "You can find people who have views on charter schools, but I will allege that the only ones whose views we should listen to are the parents, because they are the ones where it is a life-changing decision."

"The parents vote with their feet with the charter schools," he added. "I don't know about the rest of the country but here there's just no question about it."

Not everyone was as thrilled as Mr. Bloomberg with the newly released scores, however. The Alliance for Quality Education, a public school advocacy organization, sent out a statement criticizing the numbers.

"Students with disabilities, English language learners, and students of color continue to feel the impact of Albany’s recent painful budget cuts to their schools," the group's spokesperson, Nikki Jones, declared. "Even amidst slight progress, the achievement gap between these student populations and the state average is staggering."

Mark Zuckerberg (Photo: Facebook)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a $100 million grant to the public school system in 2010. Now, according to CBS News, officials are considering using some of that cash on buyouts to get rid of poorly performing teachers. 

Newark's public schools are currently dealing with a financial crisis and the city estimates the school system currently has 300 more teachers than it needs because the number of students has declined.

Superintendent Cami Anderson doesn't want to lay off teachers because tenure rules would require her to fire the least senior staff rather than the poorest performers. Mayor Cory Booker described the situation on Friday at a meeting of the Education Writers Association in Philadelphia.

"If we could fire the 300 or 400 lowest-performing teachers, she wouldn't have a financial crisis," Mr. Booker said of Ms. Anderson's situation. "But her crisis right now is based on the fact that she can't get rid of teachers that way."

As of this writing, neither Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Booker have responded to requests for comment on this story.

(Photo: Wikimedia)

There's a bona fide disagreement between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg when it comes to teacher evaluations.

"He and I have had a discussion, and I think, basically, we sort of disagree," Mr. Bloomberg said on John Gambling's radio show this morning when asked about Mr. Cuomo's indication that he only wants teacher evaluation data to be available to the parents, rather than the public at large.

Mr. Bloomberg proceeded to lay out a multiple point defense of providing the data to the public, suggesting that only a carefully worded law would survive a legal challenge, and even if one passed, it would simply not be "practical."

"In a practical sense, you know on Day One, there will be a website out there where everyone will be asked to post grades, and [of] the grades that get posted, who knows who makes them up?" he rhetorically asked. "I mean, it would lead to just chaos, and it would be very bad for our teachers [with] people unfairly and erroneously or deliberately trying to hurt somebody they don't like."

With the internet and the press, he continued arguing, much of the information would simply be out there anyway.

"It's just not that practical to give them to the parents in this day and age of social media and an aggressive Fourth Estate," he posited. "You know that if you give it to the parents it's going to be out, except it would be incomplete, and that's not in anyone's interest."

(Photo: Wikimedia)

The issue of co-locating charter and public schools in the same building is a contentious one, and at an education hearing discussing the topic yesterday afternoon, the first two Council Members to speak thoroughly attacked the proposals in their districts.

"Co-location has been nothing but chaos," East New York Councilman Charles Barron declared while criticizing the poor graduation rate among black and Latino students. "If you go into some of the schools in our district, you will see that the battles around co-location are taking away from serious educational approaches to our children."

He concluded his speech by saying, “I just want overall to say in my last five seconds, you've been a dismal failure no matter how much you want to come here with this kind of nonsense. Failure. Failure."

For her part, Councilwoman Tish James took a more measured approach in her objections, supporting co-locations in some situations while objecting to the philosophy of sprinkling them around throughout New York City.

"In your statement you said co-location is a fact of life in our city," Ms. James said to the Board of Education officials. "I will argue co-location should only be a fact of life when a school is underutilized."

She proceeded to make a passionate case against adding charter schools to two particular public school buildings in her district.

"We're finally getting stability in that one school, that's 596," she said about one of the locations, "And now you just want to add another 5th school. This is not co-location, this is cramming, and I categorically oppose it. ... You know I'm going to oppose this with every fiber of my being. That includes but is not limited to a lawsuit, I've already hired some high-powered attorneys, and we will see you in court."

Watch the exchange below:

Howard Wolfson

Mr. Wolfson earned the activist's ire by defending the mayor's budget in the media. As of this writing, Mr. Wolfson and the mayor's office have not responded to The Politicker's request for comment about the phone flap, but the mayor's office was quite proud of the budget when it was first rolled out. In a presentation at City Hall in February, Mayor Bloomberg praised his budget plan for closing a $2 billion gap without tax increases or layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers. The mayor's proposed budget included $437 million in cuts.

Campaign for Children is supported by several New York City politicians including Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and a slew of Council members. The campaign is also supported by over 150 local organizations including the Children’s Aid Society, YMCA of Greater NY, UJA-Federation of New York and Alianza Dominicana.

Councilman Robert Jackson (Photo: Facebook)

Council Members Al Vann and Robert Jackson, who is chair of the Education Committee, introduced a resolution today asking the State Legislature to limit mayoral control of city schools. The resolution, which comes following growing controversy over recent school closings, calls on the legislature to give community councils approval over school closures and co-locations.

"The process for proposing and approving these significant changes to schools has disenfranchised communities and parents," Mr. Vann said. "Providing a significant role for CECs in the co-location and school closure process will not only ensure that proposals are thoughtful and truly include input from communities and parents, but also will enhance community and parental involvement in our public schools.”

Currently, school closure and co-location proposals are made by the Department of Education and approved by the Panel for Educational Policy, which has never rejected a closure or co-location proposal. Under the Bloomberg Administration, the DOE closed over 100 schools moved more than 700 schools into shared facilities. Last month, the Panel for Educational Policy approved proposals to phase out, close or limit the number of grades in 23 schools and the DOE is calling for the closure of 33 schools at the end of this school year. These moves have led to substantial opposition from parents and politicians.

"The current administration continues to make decisions that adversely impact students and their families,” Mr. Jackson said. "It is well known that the PEP rubber-stamps co-locations and school closings without any consideration of a school community's input."

Mr. Vann echoed the criticism of the PEP and said giving community councils involvement in closures and co-locations would lead to a more thoughtful process.

"Since the PEP is nearly guaranteed to approve every DOE proposal, the quality and thoughtfulness of the proposals have declined and as a result our communities and students suffer. Providing a significant role for CECs in the co-location and school closure process will not only ensure that proposals are thoughtful and truly include input from communities and parents, but also will enhance community and parental involvement in our public schools," Mr. Vann said.

Mayoral control of the city school system was originally established through a 2002 law that was renewed by the legislature in 2009. In 2009, mayoral control was renewed for another six more years. Passage of a Council resolution concerning mayoral control is largely symbolic as any changes to the law must come from the legislature. In late January, Assemblyman Keith Wright appeared at a town hall meeting and said he would propose a bill in Albany to end mayoral control. Mr. Jackson was also at that meeting and said he would introduce a Council resolution in support of the proposal.

Critics of mayoral control argue the closures and co-locations tend to favor charter schools and result in the unnecessary shutdown of local schools. Last month, Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott defended mayoral control to The Politicker and said it has led to "tremendous" improvement for students in the past decade.