Alicia Outing

Banking and trading giant Bear Stearns sunk when it was announced that JP Morgan would acquire Bear Stearns for a surprisingly small amount of about $2 per share. Some students expecting to work at Bear Stearns believed that their jobs would be secure, only to have their offers officially revoked in April.

The halls of New York City public schools have echoed with rhymes over the past few weeks, as many students greeted with enthusiasm the chance to compose their very own poetry. Thanks to the Department of Education’s latest literacy initiative—P.S. Poem—hundreds of students have now established themselves as published poets.

Moving into five Columbia buildings for nearly a week, student protestors came together for a common cause and left with a deep bond that many say changed their lives forever.

Hundreds of nervous parents, crying babies, and squirming children gathered into a large gym Thursday evening and scanned the projection screens for a familiar name—the key to an education at the Harlem Success Academy Charter School.

Although 6,000 New York City students can now bring home some extra cash along with their report cards, most Upper West Side schools are rejecting the idea that money is the best way to improve classroom performance. Open to every city public school serving fourth or seventh grade students, the two-year pilot program launched by the New York City Department of Education—known as Spark—rewards test scores with up to hundreds of dollars.

As elementary school-aged students finished their after-school programs and headed home Tuesday evening, parents, elected officials, and other community members flowed into an Upper West Side school for a forum on classroom overcrowding. The event, held at Alfred E. Smith Elementary Schoolon W. 97th Street—more often referred to as P.S. 163 in New York City School District 3—was organized by City Council Members Melissa Mark Viverito(D-Spanish Harlem), Inez Dickens(D- Central Harlem), and Gale Brewer(D-Upper West Side).

Local City Councilman Robert Jackson has added to mounting criticism of a year-old computerized system designed to assess and evaluate city public schools, calling in a letter to Education Chancellor Joel Klein for the termination of its $80 million contract between the New York City Department of Education and IBM computers. Adopted in March of last year, ARIS was described by the DOE as a program to “help schools analyze, report, and manage information about student and school performance.”

The New York City Department of Education may be responsible for over 1.1 million students and more than 1400 schools, but it answers to a single man—the city’s mayor.

Thousands of New York City eighth graders gear up for high school each summer, but some may face difficulties later this year given Chancellor of Education Joel Klein’s plans to allow only well-prepared students to make the transition.

In January, the NYC DOE commissioned a review of District 75, the city’s special needs education district. The move has worried many affected parents, some of whom believe that the DOE has a history of not affording special needs education priority in the school system.

A new program will grant New York City students the chance to enjoy after-school science education beginning in the fall of 2008, thanks to a recent grant from the National Science Foundation. The Salvadori Center will use the grant to implement BRIDGES, a new, science-oriented, after-school program for 8 to 12-year-olds. The name of the program sums up its intention: BRIDGES stands for Build, Research, Invent, Design, Grow, and Explore through Science.

Lunches with fewer hamburgers and meatballs may not have caused much of a stir at New York City public schools, but a recall on beef across the country may have serious implications for a meatpacking company based in Chino, Calif.

Labelled a failing school by the New York City Department of Education, Manhattan’s Renaissance Leadership Academy is caught in transition as it struggles to improve its standardized test scores in time to avoid closure.

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein recently released the results of the 2007 Principal Satisfaction Survey, which was administered to 1024 city public school principals in November and December of last year.

Patricia Martinez and countless others won a significant battle last Friday when a New York state appellate court ruled that same-sex marriages performed out-of-state must be recognized in the state of New York.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Eliot Spitzer recently released dramatically slashed city and state budgets, a response to possible economic recession that has drawn fire from schools and education advocacy groups.

A look back at Manhattanville’s past has furnished a plea for preservation, as demolition looms in the near future. But the historic value of the buildings remains a matter of debate.

The Harlem Restoration Project’s small office may be easy to miss on one of West Harlem’s busiest streets, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, but the work that goes on inside has had a huge impact on the lives of those the organization was built to serve.

The Gifted and Talented students entering New York City public schools next year will find themselves in a newly revised program, one defined by what the Department of Education calls clear standards of giftedness and equalized access for all students.

Report cards are out for local schools, but this time it’s not the students’ individual performances that are up for evaluation.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., celebrated her “homecoming” last Saturday at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street.