Rachel Cromidas

Yesterday I helped some of the best people I've ever worked with make a magazine--#24MAG

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:57:57 -0400

Yesterday I helped some of the best people I've ever worked with make a magazine--#24MAG:

It’s fucking awesome. Please go look at it now!

#24MAG: Some thoughts on the issue 5 overnight team, minutes before the magazine went live!

Sun, 12 May 2013 09:54:48 -0400

#24MAG: Some thoughts on the issue 5 overnight team, minutes before the magazine went live!:

I’ve known Sara Eileen Hames for about five years—but only Internet Explorer knows when exactly I first became aware of her presence in the world, right around the time I was 18 and first becoming aware of a lot of things.

Even though I didn’t even meet her until a year ago, and didn’t even know…

If you are reading this, you deserve an update

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:44:21 -0500

I’m in transit a lot these days. I’m in Connecticut and Chicago and all over New York City. I’m also in the Wall Street Journal. And that’s where you’ll be able to find me until I settle down again.

Tracking the city's education policy promises

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:29:05 -0400

In the Atlantic’s profile of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he touted a system for tracking how well elected officials fulfill their campaign promises by the end of their terms. Then he said the news media don’t do enough of this:

And the thing that I find the most frustrating is that the Fourth Estate never picks up on it. They’ll write a story about those things that you said were a dumb idea, or those things that didn’t work, and never give you any credit for the other things. And never hold other elected officials to task.

Recently, GothamSchools did just that with Bloomberg’s school policies for the 2011-2012 academic year. We looked at every policy promise made by Bloomberg or top Department of Education officials in the past year and wrote about how much had been accomplished, started, tabled, and pushed aside. Here are parts 1, 2, and 3.

I am extremely fortunate. Hurricane Sandy left Harlem more or...

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:40:47 -0400

I am extremely fortunate. Hurricane Sandy left Harlem more or less undisturbed—save a few fallen trees and tree parts. I took this photo today at 145th Street and Edgecombe Avenue. My thoughts are with those in places that unfortunately suffered much worse damage.

Portrait of a Manhattan high school in crisis

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:46:38 -0400

This GothamSchools story has everything: missing classes, mixed up schedules, poor leadership, a music room turned into a dump for thousands of unused books, and high school students wielding toilet plungers. I spent a full week visiting the school and interviewing dozens of students and staffers to get the story:

Manhattan’s long-struggling High School of Graphic Communication Arts was supposed to turn a corner this year. But instead, students and staff throughout the school say a recent string of poor leadership decisions is threatening the school’s ultimate fate.

The toilet plungers that students were told to wield as hall passes last month — until the Department of Education ended the practice — are a distressing symbol of much larger problems at the school, they say.

A month into the school year, longstanding programs are in disarray, materials and personnel are languishing unused, and many students have had such inconsistent schedules that their teachers say they have learned far less than they should have by now.

“They are all so off-track right now that the first projects we have, I can’t really truly grade them as I normally would,” one teacher said about students. “I’m going to have to try to make up the knowledge somehow, but I don’t know how yet. They should be much further along than they are now.”

GothamSchools spoke with nearly a dozen newly hired and veteran staff members under the condition of anonymity, as well as other people close to the school. The staffers span the school’s grade levels, program offerings, and organizational hierarchy.

All said that the ultimate responsibility for the problems should fall on Principal Brendan Lyons, who took over at the school last year and was the department’s pick to lead it through “turnaround.” The aggressive overhaul process for 24 schools was halted this summer after an arbitrator ruled the city’s plans violated its contract with the teachers union. Read the rest here.

"One morning in a OneGoal class at a Chicago high school I watched as the school’s college..."

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 09:34:34 -0400

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One morning in a OneGoal class at a Chicago high school I watched as the school’s college counselor ran through a list of increasingly obscure scholarships.

“Is anyone here Greek?” she asked. Twenty-five black and Latino faces looked back at her skeptically. “Do we have any multiracial students?” she asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” replied one impeccably dressed African American boy, deadpan. “South Side black and West Side black.”

”

- from Paul Tough’s new book, How Children Succeed.

This is what I look like without an editor

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 09:30:52 -0400

I thought I would use the summer lull in schools news to catch up on stories that didn’t make it to publication during the 2011-2012 school year.

I thought there would be a summer lull in news. But the city and state Education Departments had other plans, releasing a string of announcements on Thursday and Friday afternoons when most people were on vacation or wrapping up for the day, anyway.

This happened on Thursday, August 30—a day schools were closed and GothamSchools wasn’t even planning to publish. I was the only person in our office when the state announced a new list of struggling schools that could get the axe if they don’t make dramatic changes to improve.

We’ve heard this story before, with the No Child Left Behind Law’s list of ”Schools in Need of Improvement,” the list of “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools,” and the shortlist of “turnaround” schools the city says are so bad, it would funnel millions of federal dollars to them if it could.

So I had a lot of backstory to learn in just a few hours to make the 9:05 p.m. deadline for or evening digest email, and a frantic transcript of a 45 minute-long conference call with state officials to decipher.

I didn’t have an editor for this story, but I did have the last-minute help of one of my coworkers, who shared the byline. I think we nailed the news. And even though it went up during the school year’s true doldrums, it racked up 68 comments from readers.

But a month later I’m still struggling to figure out what will change (if anything) for the schools involved.

"[What are the mistakes you make?] First of all, nonsense characterization. The dullest, wet-noodle..."

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:05:22 -0400

“[What are the mistakes you make?] First of all, nonsense characterization. The dullest, wet-noodle characteristics and behaviors and thoughts and interests are ascribed to the characters. These 80-year-old, left-in-the-sun newspaper-brittle conflicts—where the conflicts are so ridiculously subatomic that you have to summon all the key members of CERN to detect where the conflict in this piece is. It just goes on, man. You know, I force it, and by forcing it, I lose everything that’s interesting about my work.”

- Junot Díaz, interviewed in the New York Times Magazine issue on inspiration.

Story: Instruction is key to new charter school’s construction effort

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:01:00 -0400

When Ife Lenard and her crew first entered the third-floor classrooms that will house the Children’s Aid Society Charter School this fall, they found a dusty rotary phone, a decades-old beer can, and lockers coated with grime from years of middle-schoolers’ use.

But Lenard, the founding principal, can already envision how the classrooms — now gutted — will look come September, when the school opens to 130 kindergarten and first-graders in a South Bronx public school building.

That vision includes lots of floor rugs and tables for small-group activities, computer stations, fall colors such as “squash yellow,” a terrarium, and an aquarium, Lenard said as she led a procession of Children’s Aid Society officials, clad in bright orange hard hats, including director Richard Buery, on a walking tour of the school earlier this week.

But the vision also requires some big changes, including rewiring classrooms and demolishing a wall that separates two rooms.

Lenard has overseen the fledgling charter school’s $130,000 construction process since June, when the building’s two other schools, I.S. 318 and P.S. 211, ceded half of the third floor. The renovations, which the Children’s Aid Society is paying for, have allowed her to add interior decorator to the many roles she has taken on since she was named principal in late March and began hiring teachers and recruiting families.

I’m learning to love New Haven, Conn, one three-mile,...

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:59:00 -0400

I’m learning to love New Haven, Conn, one three-mile, uphill run through East Rock Park at a time.

If Ben has his way, I’ll probably be spending a lot of my weekends up there. And if I have my way, those weekends will involve this running route.

"One of the first projects they do in math is measure the school. It causes them to go all over the..."

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:24:00 -0400

““One of the first projects they do in math is measure the school. It causes them to go all over the building, so the first day in September, one out of three kids in every ninth grade class will know where the next room is. We want to alleviate a lot of that fear of the unknown.””

- —Phil Weinberg, the principal of Brooklyn’s High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology.

Like many city principals, he tries to offer a summer program to incoming ninth graders to give them a jump start on the transition from middle to high school. But funding the program is always a struggle, and only about a third of his incoming class can participate.

Exploring ways to write about classroom instruction

Wed, 30 May 2012 10:53:55 -0400

I wrote a story on small changes to New York State’s mathematics teaching and learning standards, and it quickly became one of our most viewed stories ever.

This was a big surprise. The story is not especially sexy or political, but it is one of just a few journalistic looks at a national education policy that impacts teachers in almost every state: the adoption of the Common Core Standards. The lede and nut graphs are below:

This year, Jackie Xuereb is teaching her sixth grade math students how to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. But next year, new standards will call for students to know that information before they enter her class.

Xuereb, a sixth grade math teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, is among the city math teachers preparing to swap the state’s learning standards for the Common Core this fall. And like many, she is struggling to keep the two sets of standards straight as the new standards move some topics an entire grade-level earlier than in the past.

“A lot of what used to be sixth grade standards are now taught in fifth grade,” Xuereb said. “I feel that I’m going to have to be really mindful and cognizant of this in my planning for next year. The kids are going to have these huge gaps.”

New York City piloted the Common Core standards in 100 schools last year and asked all teachers to practice working with them this year. Next year, every teacher in every elementary and middle school will be expected to teach to the new standards, and state tests will be based on them.

Department of Education officials have argued that a full-steam-ahead approach is required because moving slowly would deprive students of the Common Core’s long-overdue rigor. But some say that this approach will pose a special challenge for math teachers, particularly in the middle school years, as students begin learning advanced concepts that build on each other sequentially.

(Read the rest here)

Since becoming an education reporters, I’ve found one of the toughest parts of the job is writing about classroom instruction. I’m not trained to observe teachers or judge their methods and I’ve never taught, so I’m trying to find creative ways to tell readers, many of whom are teachers, what others are doing in the classroom.

Here’s another recent attempt—a “live-blog” of an eighth grade math class, with corresponding commentary from the teacher, who recapped the lesson with me after class.

Life in two cities

Sun, 06 May 2012 10:34:00 -0400

The writer Thomas Beller knows how I feel. He splits his time between New York City, the place he calls home, and New Orleans, the place where he has a house.

I split my time between Chicago—my first love, the place of dozens of friendships, loves, memories, streets and storefronts that would embrace me if they could—and New York City, ostensibly my home because it’s where I have an apartment, a job, a hopeful future.

When I am here, I am straining to meet professional expectations and embody the lifestyle traits of other college-educated 20-something women. It’s the fabled Big City life you can see mocked and aggrandized everywhere on TV right now.

When I am there, everyone wants to know how long I’ve been there, when I’m leaving, whether I have time for coffee or lunch or something else. I never have enough time but there’s always another visit lurking two to eight weeks around the corner. One friend says he sees me more now that I’ve moved out. (Maybe that’s just because I really like his company).

Beller gets it (From the NYTimes magazine):

The question, “Are you still here?” made me feel like I was being rushed at a nice restaurant. If you divide your time between two distant points on a map, “here” is a loaded word. …

The first notable, strange thing about living in two places is that whenever you are “here,” you carry within you a “there.”…

The new Yorkers miss us at first when we leave, and greet us warmly when we return. In between, they have lives of which we are not part. Did they think of us any less than they would have if we were 20 blocks away? Maybe not, because we are still in touch by phone and email, and actually seeing someone is a rare occurrence. But maybe yes. Without really noticing the change, my wife and I had come to look at our New York friendships as hothouse flowers, lovely indulgences in need of sun and water.

Beller also recognizes the spiritual exhaustion that all this coming and going brings on. The disconnect of wanting to exist in two places at once. If we try, will we inevitably do it poorly?

It’s so exhausting to execute this transition—the logistics, the money, the time. When you enter a new space, even a hotel room, you fill it with your spirit. When you go back and forth, you have to do a lot of spiritual putting out. …

Beneath all this motion is a kind of craziness. It’s not just circumstances, it’s us. Our crazy need for motion. Feeling the next transition looming before us like a surfer spotting a huge wave. The wish for crisis, and the wish to lament about the crisis. The Departure Zone, when everything becomes precious, and you have energy for superhuman feats of experiencing. And the Arrival Zone, when you strain to fill a place with your spirit, and marvel at the beauty and oddness of the new surroundings.

I spend a lot of time on this activity: lamenting about the crisis of being away, then being back again for such a short time. Already my Chicago friends call me the New Yorker. Still I annoy my New York friends, who hate hearing why Chicago is better this, better that.

But I have to defend my love or else I’m worried it will get swallowed up by the Central Park reservoir. I spent a recent evening reading about Feng Shui (on a detour from Googling “under-bed storage solutions”) and I think Feng Shui masters would say big bodies of water, like mirrors, swallow and reflect bad energy.

When I’m in New York I’m usually tired. When I’m Chicago, I experience Beller’s “superhuman” energy—a full day for me could involve running 12 miles along the Lake Front, cooking lunch and dinner for groups of friends and coming home at 3 a.m. from a great party. I want to fit three days into one.

I’m taking one more trip to Chicago in early June, and then I don’t know when I’ll go back again. Ben is moving to New Haven, and we’ll be packing up his/our apartment. Rachel is moving here. Adam and Evan are going to L.A. Our lease will end, and the meaning of home will have to change again.

Story: Facing outcry from educators, Kenneth Cole to remove billboard

Sun, 06 May 2012 09:54:59 -0400

I’m happy if the stories I write help readers think differently or more deeply about a subject—whether it’s a school, a neighborhood or a policy issue. But usually the impact is invisible.

Less so with the piece I wrote last week about a clothing billboard ad near Harlem. The response to the billboard, and my story, from hundreds of educators, union leaders and advocates prompted the clothing company to remove the ad.

View from the 15th floor of Fermi National Accelerator...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:32:00 -0400

View from the 15th floor of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL. Taken last week on my lovely trip home to Chicago.

Story: In pursuit of college readiness, a course about “Assimilation”

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:59:27 -0400

Mitch Kurz is a math teacher and a college counselor, but the lessons he teaches don’t fall neatly into either subject area.

He and I spoke recently for a story I wrote for GothamSchools about the college readiness class he teaches at a small, South Bronx public school:

“On a recent winter morning, Kurz asked students in his college readiness class to describe their dreams. On the board, he wrote, “What do your dreams mean?” followed by “Sigmund Freud” and a list of vocabulary words more typical of a Psychology 101 class: id, ego, superego.

Most of Kurz’s two dozen South Bronx juniors and seniors had not heard of these concepts before. But after a semester learning a hodgepodge of lessons from Kurz meant to ease the transition to college — covering everything from the dreidel game, to basic French, to the elevator pitch — students say they come into class expecting the unfamiliar.

The class, which Kurz calls “Assimilation,” is meant to ease the transition to college for students at the Bronx Center for Science and Math, a small school with many poor students who would be the first in their families to attend college. The school emphatically urges all graduates to enroll in college, and the vast majority do — but they suffer the same academic and financial challenges that low-income, first-generation students often face. Nationally, 89 percent of those students who enter college leave without a degree within six years.”

Increasing students’ likelihood of graduating from college has emerged as a major frontier in education policy. The city’s approach is to toughen high school preparation so students have a better shot of handling the rigor of college-level work. Others, such as the KIPP network of charter schools, believe the problem lies more in students’ capacity to handle challenges and have developed programs to bolster traits such as resilience and “grit” that seem correlated with college success.

At Kurz’s school, academic standards are important, and so is character. But Kurz adds an additional approach.

Story: Software-themed school aims to replicate Stuy curriculum for all

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:12:00 -0500

Computers are cool now, right? This is what the venture capitalist Fred Wilson asked me this last week, when I interviewed him about his ambitious plans to recreate the rigorous Stuyvesant High School computer science curriculum in a new, software engineering-themed public school opening this fall. Unlike Stuy, which is a hyper competitive specialized school, the Academy for Software Engineering will be “limited unscreened” which is basically education jargon for “open to any student, regardless of their academic performance.”

In Room 307 of Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School, 23 students spent a recent afternoon copying tables and number trees representing a mathematical problem-solving technique used in graphic design computer software.

The students, who all won admission to Stuyvesant by posting top scores on an entrance exam, listened raptly as their teacher, Mike Zamansky, walked them through the complex algorithm behind “seam-carving,” a process used in resizing images. Then Zamansky checked to make sure they understood.

“No problem? Seems reasonable? or ‘Huh’?” he asked, offering students the chance to signal by a show of thumbs whether they understood or needed more help. No one pointed a thumb down.

Zamansky has been teaching computer science since 1995, through a program he designed for students to follow from sophomore to senior year. Stuyvesant’s program is the only rigorous computer science sequence in the city’s public schools and one of the few in the country.

Now it is the inspiration behind a new city high school that aims to change that.

Founded by an influential venture capitalist with deep ties to the technology industry and a young principal fresh from the city’s training program, the Academy for Software Engineering will be the city’s first school to focus on software engineering. The goal is to extend the approach of Zamansky’s classes — which teach problem-solving, network communications, and programming language literacy — to any student in the city, even if they can’t make the cut for Stuyvesant or don’t even have a computer at home.

Read the rest here.

Experimenting with Storify as archive for live-tweets

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:42:00 -0500

This afternoon I created a Storify account for GothamSchools to archive my live-tweets from the March 1 Panel for Educational Policy meeting. I embedded it on the GS website, and here after the jump.

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On my way to Brooklyn Tech to live-tweet the March 1 PEP meeting for @GothamSchools. Check our site for updates; hashtag is #nycpep

Rachel Cromidas

Thu, Mar 01 2012 16:30:18

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Wielding day-glo signs, protesters from Occupy the DOE gather by Brooklyn Tech. Opponents of Success Academy hold a presser nearby #NYCPEP

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:16:44

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Luis Garden Acosta leads broad Southside Community Schools Coalition against co-location http://yfrog.com/oczt1jqj #pep

Patrick J. Sullivan

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:35:44

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“We will boycott this undemonstrative process,” an organizer announces. “No, bad idea,” an onlooker who attended the last PEP says. #NYCPEP

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:23:53

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“This is our lawyer straight from court:” The coalition’s trying to get Success Academy’s Wburg charter revoked #NYCPEP http://yfrog.com/nu7x2foj

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:38:45

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Arthur Schwartz, lawyer for opponents of Success Academy W’Burg, tells me he went to court today to make sure #NYCPEP decision could reverse

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:36:49

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Brooklyn Tech student & PS 19 alum Giovanna Chavez: “they need to work w/ us, they can’t tell us what we need” #NYCPEP http://yfrog.com/nvzn0jtj

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:43:29

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Student activists from the Bronx list demands for DOE, including a new #NYCPEP and smaller class sizes. http://yfrog.com/nykptynj

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:43:27

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3mins to spare, orange shirt-clad parents & elementary school children carrying hand made “NYC parents want success” signs enter #NYCPEP

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:59:01

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Inside the #NYCPEP only police and Success Academy supporters are to be found. Around the corner at DeKalb and Fort Greene protesters chant

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:07:45

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Protest numbers are much lower this time than at Feb #NYCPEP but police presence is high inside Bklyn Tech again. 20 in school lobby alone.

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:02:25

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Outside PEP meeting at Southside Williamsburg press conference. Count 85 police officers and two park rangers. #pep

Patrick J. Sullivan

Thu, Mar 01 2012 17:29:24

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To cut down on police-journalist conflicts at this #NYCPEP, DOE gave out stickers. http://yfrog.com/od8cwoej

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:05:48

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Police officers initially won’t allow journalists to leave band pit in #NYCPEP auditorium or let me interview a speaker.

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:40:50

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An Occupy the DOE protester tells me the group decided not to go into the #mar1pep to show solidarity with Williamsburg protesters

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:55:28

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Translator: “My name is Estella Marin and I’m here to request that you please give us parents the best possible education.” #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:55:21

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Success Academy Bronx teacher Elizabeth Tetu “We want more scholars w/ disabilities, more scholars who don’t speak English at home” #mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 18:55:26

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Ijeoma Ohuabunwa, BSA2 parent: “I’m asking panel to give us more space. I want the school to grow because the school is great.” #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:22:27

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Principal of Bronx Success Academy 2: I made the decision to switch to an org I believed in. That’s why I support parent choice.” #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:12:32

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DOE official says there are 62 speakers total signed up tonight’s Mar1pep. We are on 29 yellow/green. Most so far are from Bronx Success

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:31:44

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There were just over 100 protests audience at start of #Mar1pep and now there are roughly 70. We are in the homestretch of public testimony

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:35:34

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With public comment over, @PSulliv says he urges #Mar1pep panel to vote against or abstain from Brooklyn Success colocation votes.

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:41:22

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. @PSulliv raises Q “why is this the right solution for community?” No #Mar1pep panelists respond. Lisette Nieves says she’ll comment later

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:38:35

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Nieves says she thinks voices of supporters are being frowned out. “At last PEP about a third of those there wanted change” #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:43:57

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Nieves says she doesn’t want Latino children to go to underperforming district schools when they can go to Success. #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:44:44

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While DOE official Kath Grimm talks capital planning, the remaining Success Academy supporters file out of #Mar1pep auditorium

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 19:49:40

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Deputy chancellor Marc Sternberg describes the increase in # of rising 8th graders getting into their top 5 high school choices #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 20:05:04

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All present #Mar1pep members vote to approve revised capital plan, save @PSulliv

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 20:00:48

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In a departure from charter school topics Eric Goldberg, CEC 2 testifies to urge #Mar1pep to consider expediting Gifted &Talented enrollment

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 20:05:04

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Walcott touts upcoming Round 2 high school fairs at meeting’s close. #Mar1pep

GothamSchools

Thu, Mar 01 2012 20:24:17

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Last week I went to a literary celebration hosted by the Rumpus...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:02:58 -0500

Last week I went to a literary celebration hosted by the Rumpus and Housing Works Books. I act very awkward around great authors, but I was still able to get a few books signed. You Must Go and Win was the first book I bought and read in New York City this summer, and its story of Alina Simone’s move to the city to pursue an indie music career oddly comforted me at the time.