Flower
Pre-Kindergarten
Reception to Honor St. John’s University’s School of Education
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 4 - 7 p.m.
Seymour Fliegel, President and Gilder Senior Fellow, CEI-PEA, to address New York City public school superintendents, principals and teachers on behalf of St. John’s University’s School of Education. He will speak on the topic of: “Mayoral Control, The New Reorganization in the City and What it Means to be a Support Organization”
Location
Manhattan campus
St. John’s University
101 Murray Street, Room 118
Contact Information
For information or to reserve your seat, please contact
Dani Bui at (212) 277-5122.
Chancellor Klein Commends NYC Charter Schools for Closing the Achievement Gap
On June 24, 2008, Chancellor Joel I. Klein met with leaders of the NYC charter school movement at CEI-PEA to congratulate them on closing the achievement gap. New York City charter school students, who are likelier to be African-American or Hispanic and eligible for free school lunch than the rest of the City and the State, outperformed students in the rest of the City and State in math and trailed by one point in English Language Arts.
Overall, 84.9% of charter school students met or exceeded grade-level standards in math, an increase of 7.7 percentage points over last year. By comparison, 70.5% of other public school students in districts with charter schools, 74.3% of students Citywide, and 80.7% of students Statewide met or exceeded standards. In English Language Arts, 67.1% of charter school students met or exceeded grade-level standards, an increase of 10.7 points over last year. By comparison, 53.6% of other public school students in districts with charter schools, 57.6% of students Citywide, and 68.5% of students Statewide met or exceeded standards. view results >>
Chancellor Klein met with NYC charter school leaders to exclaim, “Our charter schools serve a higher percentage of poor and African-American or Hispanic kids than other City schools, yet their students are scoring at the same level in reading as the rest of the State and at higher levels in math. These results are proof that that all children, irrespective of their background, can succeed if given the opportunity.” view demographic comparisons with NYS schools >>
“The three pillars of the charter school movement are leadership, autonomy and accountability,” said Sy Fliegel, President of the Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association. “What these encouraging test results reveal is that strong leaders, given the opportunity to manage schools and adopt their own ideas, can be fully accountable to students, parents, and the wider community to produce outstanding educational results.” read full press release>>
The Renaissance Charter School in Queens will be honored with Lincoln Center Institute’s Imagination Award during day-long festivities on Wednesday, May 28th. The Imagination Award, now in its second year, is given to recognize and highlight imaginative thinking in the teaching and learning practice of New York City’s public schools. The Renaissance Charter School is a member of CEI-PEA's PICCS program (Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools).
“Developing students’ imaginations and teaching them to think creatively is critical if they are to meet the challenges of today’s world,” says Scott Noppe-Brandon, Executive Director of Lincoln Center Institute (LCI). “Both PS 115 and the Renaissance Charter School encourage students to observe and question the subjects of their study and engage them; both schools use the arts as a catalyst for richer, more complete learning.”
At The Renaissance Charter School, which receives the Imagination Award in the high school category, students are also encouraged to connect to their world and to the city in which they live. The school prides itself on nurturing “the whole child,” and many electives are offered to both tap into teachers’ knowledge and students’ interests. Located in Jackson Heights, the school has a multi-national student body that, as a group, shares 89 languages. Embracing this wealth of diversity, Renaissance Charter School offers a daily “global lab” class, where global history topics are taught in a hands-on way.
Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, established in 1975 and located in New York City, is the educational cornerstone of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. It is the leading organization in developing skills of observation, imagination, and creativity through guided encounters with the visual and performing arts. Over the past 30 years, Lincoln Center Institute has shared its unique method of education with more than 20 million students, teachers, college professors and arts administrators representing public schools, arts organizations and professional teaching colleges in New York City, across the nation and around the world. See www.lcinstitute.org for more information.
On April 5, 2008, students from Harry S Truman High School competed in the New York City FIRST Tech Challenge at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. FIRST (For Inspiration of and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a nonprofit organization that partners with well known businesses as well as educational and governmental institution for the purpose of bringing science and technology opportunities to students everywhere.
The FIRST Challenge is defined as a “mid-level robotics competition for high-school students” that developed from the FIRST Robotics Competition and the FIRST Robovation platform. They began the contest in order to provide all students the opportunity to participate through the use of “a more accessible and affordable robotics kit.”
60 teams from the tri-state area competed in the event. Several students from the Truman High School Engineering program entered the competition, which required them to first design and build a robot using the Vex Robotics Design System. In addition, the students were required to record and explain each stage of the design and construction in an Engineering Notebook. Truman students competed in the “Chad Quandary,” a game in which two robots compete with each other for the purpose of placing rings onto goals. The robots must do so both autonomously, by means of a team –created program, as well as by a “driver” who operates the robot by remote control.
At the end of the day, winners were announced in several categories which included Amaze, Motivate, Innovate, Connect, Think, Division finalist, Championship finalist, championship winner, and Inspire. The members of the Truman team were delighted to learn that they had won the “Think” award for the work that they had detailed in their Engineering Journal. The judges had the following to say about the students’ work:
“While many teams had professional looking notebooks, this team took theirs to the next level. Through the use of photos and diagrams, they accentuated every day of the season.”
Several days later, the team received more good news; their win had qualified them to participate in the World Championship Tournament, which will take place in Atlanta Georgia.
Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council at CEI-PEA's Luncheon Series (December, 2007) 
On November 15, 2007, students in The Scholarly Mustang Academy at Truman High School participated in the 3rd Annual Monster Project competition. All of the students in the 9th grade in this academy read Monster by Walter Dean Myers and through the book begin to explore the concept of making choices in life, which is the main theme of the book. Students are challenged to reflect on the consequences of violence and wrong decisions in life. They submit three pieces of work to their teacher: a letter to the main character, an original poem on the theme of the book and a collage representing events in the book. Five finalists then compete in this final phase of competiton. Community members join in this presentation phase where the Monster champion is selected.
Principal Sana Nasser, Assistant Principal Keri Alfano and Guidance Cousellor Amanda Fisher served as judges for this year's competition. The Monster Project winner for 2007 was Saeeda Haneef-Raja who took home the 1st place trophy and a monetary award to create a fund for her college education. Students in the Culinary Arts Program at Truman High School then served a delicious lunch to all participants and their guests. This project truly demonstrates how literature can lead to problem soving, guidance, creative writing, art, public speaking and important life skills. It was a remarkable event spearheaded by the 9th Grade English Teacher, Ms. Valcin.
On October 10, 2007, Alan Cohen, principal of PS 69 in the Bronx, was named a "Principal of Excellence" by Time Warner, Inc. Time Warner established the Principals of Excellence Awards to celebrate exemplary leaders of New York City public schools. The award includes a $20,000 grant for the school, to be designated for use by the principal, and a $5,000 honorarium to the principal. Read Alan's award profile.
Students from IS192 in Queens worked with graduate students from New Jersey Institute of Technology to design videogames for children with crippling disabilities. The eighth graders spent three days at the Liberty Science Center with members of NJIT's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center to develop the video games. These 23 middle schoolers pretended to be a team of rehabilitation engineers, creating games for patients with hemiplegic disabilities, Spastic Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, Quadriplegic Spinal Cord Injury and Spinal Atrophy. After learning about each of these disabilities and the restrictions associated with them, the students used their creativity to design and create games with either therapeutic or recreational purposes.
City Nonprofit Group Gets Money for Merit Pay at Charter Schools, New York Times, June 7, 2007.
Two Unionized Schools Set To Adopt Merit Pay, New York Sun, June 7, 2007.
Federal Grant Brings Merit Pay To Some Schools, New York Sun, June 6, 2007.
USED Announces 18 New Teacher Incentive Fund Grantees, June 2007.
53 schools select CEI-PEA as their Partnership Support Organization - In April 2007, CEI-PEA was approved as a Partnership Support Organization (PSO) for New York City public schools. In May, schools selected their support organization, and CEI-PEA welcomed 53 schools into our PSO. Read the Department of Education's press release about the school support organization selection outcomes.