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New York City Department of Education
January 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment
The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the branch of municipal government in New York City that manages the city’s public school system. These schools form the largest school system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,600 separate schools. 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 Cathie Black, appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2010 and took office in January 2011.
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 arguably 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. To keep track of the large amount of student and school data, the department uses the powerful Automate The Schools (ATS) system. History
In 1969, on the heels of a series of strikes and demands for community control, New York City Mayor John Lindsay relinquished mayoral control of schools, and organized the city school system into the Board of Education (made up of seven members appointed by borough presidents and the mayor) and 32 community school boards (whose members were elected). Elementary and middle schools were controlled by the community boards, while high schools were controlled by the Board of Education.
In 2002, the city’s school system was reorganized. Control of the school system was given to the mayor, who began reorganization and reform efforts. The community school boards were abolished and the Board of Education was renamed the Department of Education. The education headquarters were moved from 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn to the Tweed Courthouse building adjacent to New York City Hall in Manhattan.
Due to an ongoing power struggle between the Democratic and Republican parties, state senators failed to renew mayoral control of the city’s school system by 12:00 a.m. EDT on July 1, 2009, immediately ceding control back to the pre-2002 Board of Education system. Mayor Bloomberg announced summer school sessions would be held without interruption while city attorneys oversaw the transition of power.
On August 6, 2009, the state senate ratified the bill returning control of the schools back to the mayor for another six years with few changes from the 2002-2009 mayoral control structure.
Schools and 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 Manhattan and portions of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens are not zoned. Instead, students 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.
Several specialized high schools in New York City exist, and these are considered elite public schools. Most of these (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Technical, Brooklyn Latin, High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, and Staten Island Technical High School) admit student on the basis of performance in a competitive entrance examination, the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test. The ninth specialized high school, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, admits students on the basis of audition and portfolio submission rather than by examination. Other magnet high schools exist, such as Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, Queens and The Beacon School in the Upper West Side.
Sourse: wikipedia
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