Helen Zelon

Asking questions about New York State’s new charter law, and a potential conflict of interest, as the state prepares to review new charter school applications.

In the wake of a critical report by the Brookings Institute, over $200 million in proposed funding for Promise Neighborhoods may be cut back by 90% — despite Geoffrey Canada’s strong and organized opposition.

President Obama has identified Geoffrey Canada’s lifework, the Harlem Children’s Zone, as a model anti-poverty initiative that deserves national replication. In a special investigative project for City Limits magazine (paywall), Zelon takes a close look at the program’s intentions and checkered results. Web extras include an interview with Geoff Canada, one of his […]

Real estate: The perennial New York problem. Read more here about how the Department of Education co-locates charter and traditional public schools, with profoundly mixed success.

After a not-so-fast and plenty furious political contest to advance crucial ed-reform policies, New York State won a Race to the Top grant from the Obama administration. But the funds won’t directly go to kids or to classrooms. Ok, now what?

The Center for New York City Affairs’ (affiliated with Milano/The New School) Schools Reporting team writes about the city’s schools and underserved youth in lengthy, deeply-researched reports. See here for an exploration of the Bloomberg/Klein empowerment initiative, and here for an assessment of the administration’s signature reform strategies — and outcomes.

The culture of business reshapes the world of education, in Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s Children First reform efforts. If the news is as good as city leaders say, why are so many people worried?
Read more at City Limits weekly.

The New York City Leadership Academy trains untested principals to take over, and turn around, struggling city schools.
Sandra Stein, CEO of the Leadership Academy, defends the reinterpretation of business practices for the education-leadership environment, in this question-and-answer featured in City Limits weekly.

New York City’s School Safety Agents are charged with school security — but are not under the direct supervision of the NYPD, which hires them, or school personnel, whose buildings and communities they serve. The New York Civil Liberties Union’s School Safety Act aims to address the accountability gap — but hasn’t yet been passed […]

In an archipelago of classrooms scattered around Washington Square, NYU offers more languages, including courses in translation and interpretation, than any other school in New York.

Part of New York magazine’s Best of New York 2007 cover story; read the original on line.

With more than 60,000 titles in its window-lit, two-floor space—66 shelves of fiction, 42 of picture books, and a center table loaded with prizewinners and staff picks—the Bank Street Bookstore is the mother lode for kids’ lit, with the largest variety, the best selection, and the most unusual and provocative books for young readers and the adults around them. Staffers are “voracious, passionate readers” who are paid to read weekly, says manager, buyer, and onetime preschool teacher Beth Puffer. Their breadth of knowledge puts chain stores to sorry shame, as does a well-edited selection of educational toys and games. Regular events include an ongoing reading series headlined by Cynthia Nixon and superstar kids’ author Jon Scieszka. Books come in seventeen languages, including Urdu, Bengali, and Vietnamese. In the market for Winnie-the-Pooh? Find it here three ways: in English, Latin, and Yiddish. Or snap up the hotly awaited The Talented Clementine, hitting the shelves on April 1.

Once hipsters discovered the working-class, immigrant area of Greenpoint, the developers weren’t far behind. It’s a familiar pattern and, like the booms in Chelsea and the East Village, it has its pluses and minuses. … On the housing front, rezoning in 2005 made the scruffy waterfront ripe for high-rise luxury condo-maximums. Two years in, a necklace of multistory buildings circles McCarren Park; it’ll yield more than 400 luxe homes. …

You knew what was coming in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. It’s a well-worn path: ethnic-industrial neighborhood turns artists’ haven, turns trend central and then turns developers’ cash cow. The grit and charm (not to mention the cheap rents and ample space) that lured exiled East Villagers are quickly being eroded by a sweeping development program that is heralded variously as visionary, exploitive or somewhere in between. While advocates tout the plans as an exemplar of positive urban revitalization, to dissenters who post on blogs like Brownstoner, it looks more like the Miamification of Brooklyn.

New York magazine profiled New York City’s established and rising movers and shakers, including this short list of the most influential voices in public and private education.

From Dean Street’s cracked sidewalk, hard by Triangle Sports and Bergen Tile, number 475 looks nondescript. It’s a nowhere sort of place, six stories of squat yellow-brick symmetry with tidy window frames painted green. But on the fourth floor of this generic industrial building, Samuel Zygmuntowicz, world-renowned master luthier, is at work creating something extraordinary. “It’s an artist’s space on the outskirts,” Zygmuntowicz explains. He says it with a hint of a smile, after offering up a soft-skinned handshake that could crush a small bird. …

A working-class Brooklyn community mourns a favorite son.

Sketch of New York City’s official mayoral homestead, for www. newyorkmag.com. Learn about Giuliani-era graffitti (shocking!) here.

In a city where change is the only constant, a century-old synagogue endures. Read more.

Treatments range from teen and sensitive-skin facials and regimens designed for men to services for jet-lagged travelers (about half of Moonflower’s clients are visitors from Japan) and mothers-to-be.

Coney Island’s current resurgence began in the mid-eighties, with the efforts of Dick Zigun and the Coney Island Hysterical Society to preserve and restore the landmark neighborhood.