wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

A month after being honored on the floor of the state Senate, New Jersey’s school superintendent of the year is headed to New York, another consequence of the Christie administration’s cap on school administration salaries.

Today on "The Capitol Pressroom":

Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb joins us in the studio.

Dr. Rick Timbs of the Statewide School Finance Consortium, an advocate for low wealth schools, got half of what he wanted from the Governor’s budget. Now what?

The redistricting maps will be released this week (today?) Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters offers us a primer on how to quickly deduce the story behind the lines.

And Debra Winger is in town for a huge rally along with other celeb & non-celeb-anti-frackers.

For show archives, please visit The Capitol Bureau's website here.

The campaign is heating up to stop the city from phasing out — or partially closing — 25 struggling schools. Public hearings are being held at 10 of the schools this week with Department of Education officials.

Deroy Peraza, principal and creative director at Hyperakt, and Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, talk about working together to rebrand teachers.

Two conversations this week on the sensitivity of certain subjects in the classroom produced lots of reaction from listeners. A ban on ethnic studies in Tuscon Arizona, and a resistance to teaching Climate Change as an accepted body of knowledge in certain school districts around the country raises a broader question. Are there pieces of history and science that are simply too hot to handle in a classroom where active debate may get away from the truth and consensus on what to teach may be hard to find?

On Tuesday the National Center for Science Education, a nonpartisan group of scientists that works to promote the instruction of evolution in American public schools, announced a new initiative aimed at teaching climate science. The NCSE claims global warming and climate change have become increasingly charged topics in classrooms around the country. The initiative is a way for teachers to be supported in states like Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Oklahoma where regulations are being considered that would require educators to justify the denial of global warming as a valid scientific position.

Listen to excerpts from Sunday's event hosted by Brian Lehrer and Jami Floyd, managing editor of The Global Game, as they discuss Dr. King's battle for equal education for all.

Panelists included:

Cami Anderson, superintendent of the Newark public schools

Fredrick C. Harris, professor of political science and director of Columbia University's Center on African-American Politics and Society

Rachel Moran, dean of the UCLA School of Law

Harvard Sitkoff, professor of history at the University of New Hampshire

John A. Stokes, an original plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education case 

Touré, journalist and cultural critic

Villy Wang, founder, president and CEO of BAYCAT 

With live performances by:         

Toshi Reagon

Manhattan Country School      

Manhattan Theatre Lab 

By Karen DeWitt, New York State Public Radio Capital Bureau Chief

Governor Andrew Cuomo is set to release his state budget plan on Tuesday. He will have the challenge of closing a $2 billion dollar budget gap.

But the good news is, it’s far less than last year’s $10 billion dollar gap. It’s smaller than it was projected to be as recently as a month ago. That’s because Cuomo and lawmakers in December struck a deal on major changes to the state’s tax code. The changes will bring an estimated $1.5 billion in additional revenue.

The bad news, for Cuomo, is that he does not have lot of options to close the gap. He’s already said he does not want to raise taxes. Yet he’s holding to a commitment to increase spending on schools and health care by four percent in the new budget.

Six teachers from a range of schools share tips for inspiring a new generation of students and the challenges they face. The teachers are: Romero Ross (first grade teacher at Achievement First charter school in East New York, Brooklyn) Keith Christiansen (literacy teacher at M.S. 88 in Brooklyn) Luciano D’Orazio (social studies coordinator at P.S. 150 South Bronx) Katy Ulrich (first grade teacher Achievement First charter in Bushwick, Brooklyn) and Karen Zaidberg (sixth grade at Manhattan Country Day School) Duane Williamson (ninth grade English at Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn).

Listen to their conversation about their favorite Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History month-related lessons here:

 

 

In anticipation of the MLK event this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum, we ask: What would it take to make quality education a civil right for all Americans? Is it already?

→ Join the Conversation at Schoolbook

Beth Fertig, WNYC's education reporter and SchoolBook contributor, discusses the education proposals in Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address.

The city's teachers union claims the Department of Education's teacher evaluation system in a full-page letter to parents in the Daily News Monday claiming the system gives "unlimited power" to administrators.

The American Museum of Natural History plans to put its galleries and laboratories on offer to master's students in a new training program in earth science education. The Master of Arts in Teaching program is meant to address a shortage of qualified earth science teachers in high-need public schools in New York.

Lecturing has never been an effective teaching technique, and now that information is everywhere some say it's a waste of time. Now, physicists have the data to prove it. But efforts to lose the lecture encounter resistance — sometimes from students.

At Lake Superior State University, college officials have been releasing a list of banished words since 1976. Words that you're not allowed to say this year include "baby bump" and "occupy." It's a list destined to receive some "blowback."

New York City education officials and the teachers union say they will not be able to reach an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system by a December 31 deadline. Without an agreement, the city Department of Education will have to forfeit $60 million in federal grant money meant to help 33 struggling schools.

New York State is threatening to withhold millions in federal grants to struggling schools without new evaluation systems for teacher and principals.

Earlier this month, Newt Gingrich made a lot of headlines with his thoughts on child labor laws and his policy proposal to allow children as young as 9 years old to go to work. Takeaway listeners had a lot to say about this. Among them were Bill Arnott, from Columbia, South Carolina, and Carol, from Wellesley, Massachusetts, who came on the show to their experience working as children through the prism of Gingrich's comments. (Carol asked The Takeaway not to use her last name.)

A new report finds gang activity has been rising in East Harlem. A local non-profit is calling for multiple solutions, including an expansion of the Department of Education's Gang Prevention and Intervention Unit. The unit's director, Norbert Davidson, says his training sessions have reached hundreds of school administrators and also bring in outside agencies to help steer young people away from gangs.

Chicago rapper Common stopped by Eagle Academy for Young Men in the South Bronx on Monday morning to talk to the school's 500-plus students about how they could achieve their dreams. He also performed two raps. The rapper said he wanted to visit Eagle after hearing about the school while serving on an education reform panel at Lincoln Center last year.