News

This week, and everyday I appreciate the amazing tenacity and quality teaching I received from Mr. Smith. I believe every child in New York City deserves a teacher like Mr. Smith.

StudentsFirstNY's Acting Executive Director, Glen Weiner, released the following statement in response to remarks by AFT President Randi Weingarten at the Association for a Better New York:

"Millions of New York schoolchildren can't afford to wait a moment longer to get a quality teacher at the front of their classroom. As the education status quo calls for endless delay that would prevent progress in order to hold on to its power, our kids are falling further behind the rest of the world. Gov. Cuomo’s common-sense approach to teacher evaluations is the proper course for New York. It's time to move forward and give our children the tools to succeed."

 A group of Brownsville parents and children rallied outside of P.S. 150 last week to demand that the New York City Department of Education bring high quality, high performing schools to a neighborhood that desperately needs them. A group of 20 parents, children, and community members from the StudentsFirstNY Brownsville Chapter peacefully assembled across the street from P.S. 150 in front of the Seth Low Houses.

Today, StudentsFirstNY Acting Executive Director Glen Weiner released the following statement:

"Governor Cuomo and State Education Commissioner John King deserve high marks for standing up for our kids and successfully pressuring Buffalo School Superintendent Dr. Pamela Brown to void a highly questionable, secret side deal with the teachers’ union that threatened to significantly undermine their teacher evaluation system before it was even implemented.

"As New York City finalizes its own evaluation agreement, we implore our leaders to be just as vigilant and ensure that it too will be held to the highest standards so as to give our students the best chance at a quality education."

"Well-designed, and well-executed surveys can be an invaluable resource, but only insofar as the results lead to visible changes to the teacher evaluation process."

States and districts across the country have set out to implement new teacher evaluation systems in an effort to improve teacher quality and raise student achievement. With teachers, administrators, and entire systems in a state of transition, there is no better time to capture and leverage critical feedback from those on the ground.

On April 17th, public school parents and community members marched in Bed-Stuy to PS 305 and Satellite East to demand a better education for their kids.

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In a joint letter, education reform groups thanked Governor Cuomo, Senate Leaders Skelos and Klein, and Assembly Speaker Silver for the substantial improvements you made to New York State’s teacher evaluation law as part of this year’s budget. Download the full letter (PDF) below.

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"We're calling on all mayoral candidates to fully reject the UFT's proposal to end mayoral control of NYC schools."

Statement from StudentsFirstNY Communications Director Chandra Hayslett: 

With it latest missive calling for the end of mayoral control of the schools, the union has made it clear that its vision of progress is to return New York City to the days of patronage, graft and corruption, with a system that has no accountability whatsoever and in which fewer than half our kids graduated high school. We call on all of the mayoral candidates to fully reject this proposal. 

The facts clearly show that closing failing high schools in New York City is working.

The one policy that has arguably done more to improve education outcomes for kids in New York City over the past decade has been the systematic effort to close the City’s giant failing high schools (i.e. drop out factories) and replace them with new, smaller high schools.

On Monday night, StudentsFirstNY hosted a conversation with parents from our Brooklyn and Queens community chapters. The conversation this week included an interactive game that challenged parents to work together to decide which comments and political leaders supported education reform and which ones opposed it.