In the fall of 2005 I had just left my extremely high-paying job at New York's Hometown Newspaper to promote my book on the intersection of politics and education, when I got a phone call from Bill Phillips, of the New York Charter School Association.

He had heard that I was going to be doing some freelance writing and wanted to know if I had any interest in doing some blogging on education for this web site. The idea was intriguing, especially since Bill made it clear to me that he was looking for someone who would push the envelope a bit - to try to light a fire within some people in the charter school world.

Since I didn't work for NYCSA, it was an interesting chance to try to inject some attitude and personality from the outside into an institutional blog, or at least one hosted by a statewide association's web site.

At one point, when we discussed the concept, Bill made it clear to me that if he was 100% comfortable with what I would be posting every day, I wouldn't be doing my job correctly.

There were days since then when I'm sure Bill wondered what he had gotten himself into. Posting several times a week, I managed to occasionally get myself into trouble, occasionally had way more fun than I deserved, occasionally made points that I felt wouldn't get made elsewhere, and occasionally made mistakes/went over the top/etc.

There were two posts in all that time that I pulled back after I published them: one which involved a joke (which wasn't actually all that funny in the final analysis) involving a charter school organization, and one which used the words "Pataki" and "fart in the wind" a little too close to one another in the same sentence. Both were unquestionably unfair and so I yanked them upon further review.

But Bill and his team always lived up to the arrangement we had, and our shared goal to try to make education reform in New York State a little bit more fun. I will always respect them for that (especially Bill, since he was the one who took the hits when I went out there on the edge from time to time.)

As Alexander Russo scooped me earlier this week, I am going to be stepping down from doing this blog to start work for a group called Democrats for Education Reform. If I do my job correctly, you'll be hearing a lot from us in the coming months and years.

This Chalkboard blog will take a hiatus for a few months, but will be back up and running by the start of the next school year as part of a revamped NYCSA web site. I think you'll find it groovy, from the ideas I am hearing.

The entire blog thing is fascinating. It was funny to watch the traffic go through the roof when we fought with other blogs. You people love watching train wrecks! (Truth be told, though, you'd probably be disappointed by the courteous behind-the-scenes emails exchanged by a lot of the usual blogging combatants.)

I've said this before, but there were times when I posted things that I thought were brilliant, only to discover that I was indeed the only one to feel that way. Other times, I posted things I thought were nothing, and they took on lives of their own. The web, it turns out, is a pretty cool - if unpredictable - place to push a debate. Thanks to everyone for checking in here from time to time, and for contributing ideas and feedback. It has been a blast.

Until we meet again, Charter Chuck...

This is what we were blogging about a year ago this week:

-- The Chalkboard unveils its new book idea: "Someday The Baby Boomers Will All Be Dead And The Rest Of Us Can Get Our Planet Back"... Still waiting for the publishers to come knocking....

-- You can't judge a book by its cover, you can't trust a school by its name.

-- The Chalkboard again ponders the survival of charter schools and teachers unions--do they need each other?

-- The Oprah highlights nothing?

Via AFT John, the American Federation of Teachers has a release out today recognizing National Charter Schools Week and pledging to "intensify its national effort to organize charter schools."

The national union also announced the formation of a charter school teacher network, called the Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff. Since everything in Washington has to have an acronym, it will henceforth be known as ACTS.

This is getting interesting, ainah?

The question of "what do charter school teachers need to be successful" is so much more interesting than "what can we do to kill charter schools at every turn" isn't it?

Matthew Carr, Jay Greene, and Marc Holley look at field trips gone wild in the latest City Journal. Remember all this crazy stuff is going on in a nation where all we supposedly do from September to July is teach to the test.As my kids' babysitter used to say: Whatevs.

At the risk of being accused of hyper-ventilating again, I temporarily lost my breath while I was reading this post on EdWize on the politics of measuring graduation rates. This was a very thoughtful post (on the kind of issue where I think teachers unions DO play an important role in bringing teacher voices to the policy level) but I tripped up on this phrase, which was meant to be a sort of back-handed compliment for Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein:

There are few occasions when we are in agreement with the educational pronouncements of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, but this is one.

Few occasions?????

Anyone who has a television or who trips over a morning paper on their way out the door each day knows that there are some significant disagreements in policy between management and the United Federation of Teachers. It is even a natural part of collective bargaining that they won't always see eye to eye on things here and there, even if the two sides share a common commitment to educating kids. But few occasions when they are in agreement?

I really find that hard to believe. If true, this whole public education thing is even worse shape than we thought.

And it really makes you wonder whether the UFT disagrees with Bloomberg and Klein that the status quo just isn't working for huge swaths of city youngsters, that the culture of our city's school system is one which stamps out quality, that the focus should be on schools (and the students therein) and not the bureaucracy, etc.

Say what you want about Bloomberg and Klein, but that is at least the vision they have articulated. If there are "few" occasions on which the UFT agrees with management, it might actually mean the teachers union doesn't agree with that kind of broader thinking.

Good God.

NYC schools are looking for help evaluating the longstanding middle school problem in the city, where kids seem to do increasingly worse the longer they stay in school, according to the NY Post. Hopefully, the helpers will look as much as what happens in successful middle schools like KIPP and Harlem Village Academy as they do at the configuration of grades within a school building.

This is an important issue and hopefully the attempts to really think this stuff through won't be watered down by political theater.

This is what we were blogging about a year ago:

-- New York Magazine writer Bob Kolker looked at the war in which no one seems to want to withdraw troops, the reading war.

-- The mysterious case of the principal, the bulletin board, Saturday duty and a broadway ticket.

-- The UFT's documentary charter school film is released, forging new ground and bringing some politicians with it.

-- More Eva Joseph angst...

-- The NESTie obsession begins.

The annual grad rate announcement showed significant uptick in NYC, but as everyone quoted in all these stories notes, is still utterly depressing statewide. Basically, if you're a black or Hispanic kid in New York State, you still don't even have a 50-50 shot at graduating.

Profoundly disturbing.

First it was Mario, today it was W.

KIPP Sankofa Charter School, starting next year, will no longer have the "KIPP" name attached and will end its partnership with the KIPP Foundation, KIPP officials say.

I got a letter today from KIPP Foundation CEO Richard Barth explaining the decision:

While the school has shown progress in some areas, it has not maintained the overall standard of excellence that we uphold at KIPP schools nationwide. KIPP Sankofa's fifth and sixth grade students scored below the average for Buffalo Public Schools and KIPP schools throughout New York on the 2006 New York State Assessment. In addition, the school did not sufficiently address critical issues identified in the spring and summer of 2006 by the SUNY Charter Schools Institute and the New York State Education Department, respectively.

Barth indicates that the KIPP Foundation spent nearly a year offering "intensive support" to assist the school.

Interesting decision in terms of KIPP's expectations. The school will remain open next year but not as a KIPP school. My hunch is that we'll see significant questions raised when its charter is renewed by the state, an important part of the accountability part here.

I know people don't like to hear this, but it is worth saying again that parents at that school should run for the hills if it isn't adequately serving their kids. Go! That's the point of having a choice.

Or, getting along is groovy?

Great quote from Eduwonk in today's NY Times story on the settlement reached between Mayor Bloomberg and the Working Families Party/UFT to voluntarily scale back proposed reforms for the city schools:

"There are political deals that you have to cut around some of these things. At the same time it’s important that policy makers keep their eyes on these things, because where policy reforms go to die is when policy makers keep cutting these deals."

Who knows what the sausage will look like once it has all been stuffed. But we do know who the biggest loser was in all of this: Tim Johnson, the chairman of the chancellor's parent advisory council. The poor guy really thought the WFP and the UFT were serious when they said they would fight to allow parents to have a "seat at the table." It was, as it usually is, a charade something Tim seemed to acknowledge in his comments in the papers.

If you want real parent power, ditch the "seat at the table" talk and demand the right to say "adios" when you kid's school stinks. It's the only way you can have power in a world where political theater like what we saw in New York City yesterday is reality.

Power to the people, Tim.

UPDATE: At EdWize, Leo Casey says I need a paper bag to help me get my breathing back. But the time for damage control was yesterday when Tim Johnson was spouting off to reporters about getting stranded at the WFP/UFT bus stop.