contract details

The city's proposed new contract with the teachers union includes a secret and potentially controversial option for jobless teachers to be bought out.

• Chalkbeat

The contract replaces some instructional time with training time for teachers, a tradeoff that some educators are questioning.

• Chalkbeat

UFT chief Michael Mulgrew is working to convince members that the deal is a straightforward union win.

• New York Post

The city's Municipal Labor Committee voted to accept the health care cost-savings plan in the UFT's contract as a pattern for other unions.

• Wall Street Journal,
• Capital New York

after school

The de Blasio administration is moving forward with expanding middle school after-school programs despite a budget gap.

• NY1

The new programs will include an arts components, but smaller arts nonprofits are struggling to meet the city's requirements for partners.

• Schoolbook

charter schools

Today's City Council hearing on charter schools reflects a push by the schools' critics to make them more transparent.

• Capital NY

the path to pre-K

Unlike pre-kindergarten programs run by community groups, the city's new pre-K programs are too short each day to be an option for many working families.

• DNAinfo

Testing Time

City students start spring teacher evaluation and field tests this week, just days after the end of official state testing.

• Staten Island Advance

bomb threat

Brooklyn's George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School was evacuated Monday after a bomb threat.

• DNAinfo

settlement plans

Mayor de Blasio said again that he intends to settle a pay equity lawsuit brought by school safety agents.

• Capital New York

the summer slide

A new nonprofit started by a local graduate aims to stem summer learning loss with peer mentoring.

• NY1

admissions assistance

Former Department of Education officials are among the consultants stepping into the school-search business in Brooklyn.

• Wall Street Journal

the arts

Celebrities including Scarlett Johansson signed on to a letter that Comptroller Scott Stringer sent to Chancellor Fariña to lobby for arts education.

• N.Y. Daily News

buffalo report

Voters in Buffalo today are picking three new school board members who could decide the fate of the city's schools chief.

• Buffalo News

The city will pay jobless teachers to quit if they aren’t interested in working in schools, according to an internal Department of Education memo explaining the provisions of the new teachers union contract agreement. READ MORE

Reallocating tutoring time to professional development and parent outreach makes sense to many, but others note that professional development can vary widely in quality—and question whether teacher training ever trumps instructional time. READ MORE

Middle school math teacher José Luis Vilson argues that city students need more teachers who look like them—and like him, in an exclusive excerpt from his new book, “This is Not a Test.” READ MORE

Twenty-four-year-old Kadeem Gill, a math teacher at The Equity Project Charter School, sees reflections of his own family in the students he teaches. His story is one part of our series The Teacher Project. READ MORE

.@UFT FB page is great to see where rank-and-file teachers stand on new contract. Spoiler: They don't like. http://t.co/4XlIHikxkr

— Geoff Decker (@GDeckernews) May 6, 2014

Agree? Disagree? Tell us on Twitter @ChalkbeatNY.