New York City Department of Education
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The New York City Department of Education is the branch of municipal government in New York City that manages the city's public school system. The school system these schools form is the largest system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students are taught in more than 1,400 separate schools.[1] The department covers all five boroughs of New York City.
The department is run by the New York City School Chancellor. The current chancellor is Joel I. Klein, appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002.
Because of its immense size - there are more students in the system than people in eight U.S. states - the New York City public school system is the most influential in the United States. New experiments in education, text book revisions, and new teaching methods often originate in New York and then spread to the rest of the country[citation needed].
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[edit] History
From 1969 - 2002 the city school system was run by the Board of Education, made up of seven members appointed by borough presidents and the mayor, and 32 community school boards, which were elected. Elementary and middle schools were controlled by the community boards, while high schools were controlled by the Board of Education.
In 2002, control of the school system was given to the Mayor, who began reorganization and reform efforts.
The Board of Education and community school boards, created in 1969 when Mayor John Lindsay relinquished mayoral control of the school, were abolished. Renamed the "Department of Education", the schools headquarters was moved from 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn to the Tweed Courthouse building adjacent to City Hall in Manhattan.[2][3]
[edit] Schools & Organization
Each residential area in New York City is zoned to an elementary school and a middle school. High schools in Staten Island and portions of Brooklyn and Queens are zoned. High schools in the Bronx, Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn and Queens are not zoned, and pupils instead must apply to the high schools of their choice.
Schools are supervised by Community District and High School Superintendents, who report to the Chancellor.
The city has embraced the philosophy of the small schools movement, phasing out large high schools, and phasing in a number of new, smaller schools, each of which takes up part of a floor or wing of the old building. A number of older high schools have been recreated as large "educational campuses" housing 5-8 small schools, which often share sports teams and other extracurricular activities that a school of 400 students could not support on its own.
[edit] Organization History
From the late 1960s through 2003, schools were grouped into districts. Elementary schools and middle schools were grouped into 30 geographic districts, and high schools were grouped into 5 geographically larger districts (one each for Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens, one for most of Brooklyn, and one, BASIS, for the rest of Brooklyn and all of Staten Island). In addition there were several special districts for alternative schools and schools serving severely disabled students. While the districts no longer exist, the former district of a school is often used as an identifier.
In 2003 the districts were replaced by ten regions. Each region encompassed several elementary/middle school districts, and part of a high school district.
In 2005 several schools joined the Autonomous Zone (later, Empowerment Zone) and were allowed to use part of their budgets to directly purchase support services. These schools were released from their regions.
In 2007 the Mayor and Chancellor announced the dissolution of the regions, effective June 2007. The district plans to keep the empowerment zone, and four large Learning Support Organizations.
[edit] Teachers
The city has a chronic teacher shortage in every subject, but most strongly in science, math, ESL, and special education. Beginning in 2000, after experiments with hiring uncertified teachers to fulfill a massive teacher shortage failed to produce acceptable results, and responding to pressure from the New York State Board of Regents and the No Child Left Behind Act, the DOE instituted a number of innovative programs for teacher recruitment, including the New York City Teaching Fellows [1], the TOP Scholars Program, and a number of initiatives to bring foreign teachers, primarily from eastern Europe, to teach in the city's schools. Housing subsidies are in place for experienced teachers who relocate to the city to teach.
[edit] Demographics
40% of students in the city's public school system live in households where a language other than English is spoken; one-third of all New Yorkers were born in another country. The city's Department of Education translates report cards, registration forms, systemwide alerts, and documents on health and policy initiatives for parents into Spanish, Chinese, Urdu, Russian, Bengali, Haitian Creole, Korean, and Arabic.
Over all, Hispanic students are the largest group in the city’s schools at 36.7%, and black students are next at 34.7%. The 1.1 million-student system is 14.3% Asian and 14.2% white.
At the city's most elite, competitive public high schools, the student demographics are different. In the 2005-6 school year, blacks made up 4.8% of the Bronx Science student body, down from 11.8% in 1994-95. At Stuyvesant High School, blacks comprised 2.2% of the student body, down from 4.4%. Hispanic enrollment has declined at the three schools and white enrollment has declined at two of the three. At the same time, the Asian population has soared to 60.6% at Bronx Science, up from 40.8% 11 years ago [2]. Education experts suggest the demographics of these elite specialized high schools are influenced by the use of competitive entrance exams as the sole criterion for admission.
New York’s Specialized High School Institute is an after-school program for students in late middle school. It was designed to enlarge the pool of black and Hispanic candidates eligible for admission to the selective schools by giving them extra lessons and test-taking tips, without resorting to the kinds of preferences that have drawn lawsuits in other school districts such as in San Francisco Unified School District.
[edit] Health & Nutrition
The city has made an effort to reduce obesity and improve nutrition for the city's public schoolchildren. White bread was entirely replaced with whole wheat bread, frankfurter buns and hamburger buns in cafeterias during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's first term. In 2006 the city set out to eliminate whole milk from cafeteria lunch menus. It also took the further step of banning low-fat flavored milks, allowing only chocolate skim as an alternative, which made the new policy one of the strictest in the country. The New York City school system purchases more milk than any other in the United States. The national dairy industry aggressively fought the new standards, but ultimately lost. It was afraid that a change of policy in the nation's largest school district would ultimately reduce overall milk consumption nationally, as other large school districts looked to New York for an example. New experiments in education, text book revisions, and new teaching methods are similarly contested by national groups who view the New York City school system as a standard bearer[citation needed].
[edit] Radio and television stations
[edit] Television
The department operated television station WNYE-TV from 1967-2004. Now operated by the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the station is on channel 25.
[edit] Radio
The department operates FM station WNYE.
[edit] References
- ^ About Us, New York City Department of Education. Accessed September 26, 2007. "They aimed to transform a system that had allowed generations of students to leave school without the skills and knowledge they needed to succeed, turning it into a system of 1,400-plus excellent schools, capable of helping the City’s 1.1 million school children learn the skills and receive the support they deserve and need to succeed."
- ^ "The great experiment", The Economist: 35-36, 2007-11-10
- ^ Hartocollis, Anemona: "CONSENSUS ON CITY SCHOOLS: HISTORY; Growing Outrage Leads Back to Centralized Leadership", New York Times, (2002-06-07)
[edit] See also
- List of high schools in New York City
- List of public elementary schools in New York City
- New York State Education Department
- Specialized high schools
- Tweed Courthouse
- 110 Livingston Street, former headquarters of the Board of Education, in Brooklyn
[edit] External links
- New York City Department of Education
- NYCDOE school zoning information
- Insideschools.org - A website that rates New York City public schools
- a blog of teachers' inside perspectives on schools
Department of Education School Districts |
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| Community School Districts: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 List of public elementary schools in New York City · Empowerment Schools |
Categories: Articles needing additional references from July 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since May 2007 | Articles with unsourced statements since September 2007 | School districts in New York | Public education in New York City | New York City Department of Education
