At roughly the same time yesterday that President Obama was swinging through Upstate New York to talk about education, a group of Rochester’s African-American ministers were having their own press event about problems within the city school district. Nearly a dozen ministers from the Baptist Ministers’ Alliance and the Rochester Ministers’ at Large aired their […]
Rochester city schools
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King uses Rochester as example in fight with Buffalo school leaders
President Obama’s visit may be enough to temporarily shift Buffalo’s attention away from the fairly public brawl between Buffalo schools Superintendent Pamela Brown, the school board, the teachers union, and State Education Commissioner John King. King hasrejected several attempts that the district has made at coming up with turnaround plans for two of Buffalo’s worst […]
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Finding the readers within
Jose Valentin, a small boy with big brown eyes behind thin wire glasses, liked the summer reading clinic at Nazareth College so much that he never missed a day. On the one morning he was late because he missed his bus, his teachers immediately began to worry. But staying home was not an option. Valentin […]
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Dyce Faucette resigns from Syracuse post
Kim Dyce Faucette, a former top administrator with the Rochester school district, has resigned as superintendent of the North Syracuse Central School District, according to a report on the Syracuse Post-Standard’s website. The district’s school board voted 9-0 in favor of accepting Dyce Faucette’s resignation. Her resignation follows a tough budget fight for the 2013-2014 […]
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New focus on Rochester’s at-risk male students
This is a corrected version of this blogIt’s been more than a year since Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas launched efforts to significantly expand the amount of time students spend in school. The concept, often referred to as expanded learning, usually extends the amount of time students receive instruction in core subjects. And students are […]
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Reductions at All City High may signal trend
Cuts to All City High’s teaching and non-teaching staff amount to a self-inflicted wound for the Rochester school district, says Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association. All City High’s instructional staff of about 120 teachers will be cut next school year to about 64, according to current plans, Urbanski says. That doesn’t include […]
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Rochester school board candidates see only the tip of the iceberg
Some of the most memorable politicians possess a remarkable mix of showmanship, persuasiveness, and likeability. But they often lack the ability to predict future disasters even when the signs are floating all around them. Howard Eagle, Ernest Flagler, Ronald Hall, Tim McCauley, and Candice Lucas each made compelling pitches to mostly parents last night for […]
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Week Ahead: RPO court case, city violence forum, RCSD meetings, saving School 16
At 11:30 a.m. today, State Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Fisher will hear arguments on a lawsuit against the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s board. Attorney Eileen Buholtz is suing the board over its annual meeting and elections, which took place on January 23. She says that neither the RPO board nor its executive committee set the membership […]
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School board’s confidence and containment
There’s a powerful scene in Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when family patriarch Big Daddy learns that his health is failing. His family ambushes him with normalcy and mindless chatter as they plot to take over his estate after his death. “What’s that smell in this room?” he says. “Didn’t you […]
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Could the city school district be the next Oldsmobile?
There was plenty of brie, sugar cookies, pizza, and beer at two holiday parties I attended last weekend. And there was also a lot of chatter about the city school district. “Remember General Motors in the 1970’s?” asked one partier. “They built cars and trucks, they weren’t any good, and buyers began looking elsewhere. That’s […]
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Brizard out
After about a year-and-a-half on the job, Jean-Claude Brizard is out as CEO of the Chicago Public School System. | Brizard reportedly said he was becoming a distraction from the mission to help Chicago’s children, reports the Chicago Tribune. Brizard made a similar statement before leaving the Rochester school system, where he was superintendent from […]
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Metro Ink – 1.4.06
After a few false starts, a coalition of Northeast states has taken the
lead in curbing greenhouse gas emissions
