Latest News
The articles linked below are from external sources (newspapers, magazines, policy organizations, research institutions, etc.). The foundation found them of interest in the course of its general research on New York City, New York State, and national issues connected to the areas in which we work. We will update the links below from time to time, and encourage you to check back periodically for newly posted items of interest on poverty, education, workforce development, early childhood, family support, youth development, and criminal justice reform issues.
- Friday, February 10, 2012
- The New York Times
- Education Gap Grown Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say
- Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.
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- Tuesday, January 24, 2012
- Bloomberg
- Bloomberg Tells Lawmakers He Backs Cuomo’s State Budget Plans
- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told state lawmakers he backs Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposals to increase payments for Medicaid, reduce pension-benefit costs for future workers, and impose evaluation standards on teachers.
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- Friday, December 30, 2011
- The New York Times
- Dispute Over Evaluations Imperils Grants for Schools
- Negotiations between New York City's Education Department and union officials over a new evaluation system for teachers and principals broke down on Friday, jeopardizing roughly $60 million in federal grants designated to help 33 struggling schools across New York City.
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- Thursday, November 3, 2011
- Bloomberg
- Economy Drives More Americans to Extreme Poverty
- The number of Americans living in neighborhoods beset by extreme poverty surged in the last decade, erasing the progress of the 1990s, with the poorest areas growing more than twice as fast in suburbs as in cities. At least 2.2 million more Americans, a 33 percent jump since 2000, live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate is 40 percent or higher, according to a study released today by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
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- Thursday, September 22, 2011
- The New York Times
- One in Five New York City Residents Living in Poverty
- Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in New York City, the Census Bureau will report on Thursday, suggesting that New York was being particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the recession.
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- Tuesday, September 20, 2011
- The New York Times
- New York Judge Seeks New System for Juveniles
- New York State has long dealt with 16- and 17-year-old defendants more severely than almost every other state, trying all of them as adults in criminal courts. Now, New York’s chief judge is calling for a less punitive approach that would focus on finding ways to rehabilitate them.
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- Tuesday, September 13, 2011
- The New York Times
- More New Yorkers Living in Poverty
- New York State’s poverty rate climbed to 16 percent last year, the third consecutive annual increase and the highest rate since 1998, according to census figures released Tuesday. Nearly 3.1 million New Yorkers were living below the official poverty rate in 2010, also the highest total in 12 years.
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- Tuesday, September 13, 2011
- The New York Times
- Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’
- Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.
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- Thursday, August 4, 2011
- New York Time's
- Bloomberg to Use Own Funds in Plan to Aid Minority Youth
- The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances.
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- Friday, July 29, 2011
- CRAIN'S NEW YORK BUSINESS
- Amex and CUNY chiefs tapped by Cuomo
- American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault and City University of New York Chancellor Matthew Goldstein will head the city’s regional economic development council, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.
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- Friday, June 17, 2011
- Crain's New York Business
- NYC Unemployment Rate Held Steady in May
- The city's unemployment rate in May was 8.6%, unchanged from April, but growth slowed to a crawl as the economy added just 600 private sector jobs, according to an analysis of data released Thursday by the state Department of Labor.
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- Friday, June 17, 2011
- The New York TimesCity Reduces Chronic Absenteeism in Public Schools
- City Reduces Chronic Absenteeism in Public Schools
- Throughout New York, educators and politicians have been increasing their focus on attendance in recent years, and their efforts appear to be paying off, at least in elementary schools: 1 in 15 elementary students were absent on a given day this year, compared to 1 in 13 four years ago and 1 in 9 in 1995.
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- Tuesday, May 17, 2011
- The New York Times
- Charter Founder Is Named Education Commissioner
- John B. King Jr., who credits teachers for helping him surmount an isolated childhood as an orphan in Brooklyn and who ran celebrated charter schools in New York and Massachusetts, was named Monday as the state’s next education commissioner, with a unanimous vote of the Board of Regents.
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- Monday, May 16, 2011
- Gotham Gazette
- Bloomberg Pushes For Control Of Juvenile Justice System
- Every year New York City sends its most troubled teens hundreds of miles away. Far from family, they are confined in institutions that by many accounts are brutal, ineffective -- and expensive. These institutions have been deemed so brutal and ineffective by the federal government that the Department of Justice threatened to take over the system if the state did not make drastic improvements to the quality of care.
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- Thursday, April 28, 2011
- The New York Times
- Recidivism’s High Cost and a Way to Cut It
- Corrections costs for the states have quadrupled in the last 20 years — to about $52 billion a year nationally — making prison spending their second-fastest growing budget item after Medicaid. To cut those costs, the states must first rethink parole and probation policies that drive hundreds of thousands of people back to prison every year, not for new crimes, but for technical violations that present no threat to public safety.
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- Thursday, April 14, 2011
- Reuters
- NYC unemployment rate slips to 8.7% in March
- New York City's unemployment rate eased to 8.7 percent in March, a drop of two-tenths of a percentage point from February, the state Department of Labor said on Thursday.
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- Friday, April 8, 2011
- The New York Times
- After 3 Months, Mayor Replaces Schools Leader
- Cathleen P. Black, the publishing executive thrust into the improbable role of New York City’s school chancellor, resigned Thursday on the 95th day of her tenure after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told her in a blunt meeting that her troubled appointment could not be salvaged.
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- Sunday, February 27, 2011
- The New York Times
- City Details Worst-Case School Layoffs
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- Wednesday, February 16, 2011
- The Wall Street Journal
- Teacher Layoff Battle Ramps Up
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- Tuesday, February 1, 2011
- The New York Times
- With Cuts, Cuomo Offers Shrunken Budget
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- Thursday, November 11, 2010
- The New York Times
- Big School Problems Await New Chancellor
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- Tuesday, November 9, 2010
- NYC DOE Press Release
- Mayor Bloomberg Appoints Cathie Black Chancellor of NYC Public Schools
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- Tuesday, August 24, 2010
- nyc.gov (Mayor's Office press release)
- New York City Schools to Receive Between $250 Million and $300 Million
- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew today celebrated New York State's selection and award of $700 million in the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top competition. This award will provide between $250 million and $300 million to New York City schools to support the creation of a new teacher evaluation system, develop a more rigorous curriculum and State assessments based on the national Common Core Standards, and expand a range of proven reforms first introduced in New York City.
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- Tuesday, August 24, 2010
- The New York Times
- New York Wins Nearly $700 Million for Education
- New York captured almost $700 million for schools when it was selected Tuesday as one of 10 winners in the federal Race to the Top competition, a victory for state education officials as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who had pushed the Legislature to enact changes that helped secure the money.
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- Monday, August 9, 2010
- New York Times
- Schools Are Given a Grade on How Graduates Do
- Hunching over her notebook at Borough of Manhattan Community College, Sharasha Croslen struggled to figure out what to do with the algebra problem in front of her: x2 + 2x - 8 = 0. It was a question every ninth grader is expected to be able to answer. (For those who have erased the ninth grade from memory, the answer is at the end of the article.) But even though Ms. Croslen managed to complete three years of math and graduate from high school, she did not know how to solve for x.
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- Sunday, August 1, 2010
- The New York Times
- When 81% Passing Suddenly Becomes 18%
- Linda L. Singer, the principal of Public School 255 in Gravesend, Brooklyn, has some phone calls she is dreading to make. Among them: informing 10 families that their children, scheduled to enroll in gifted programs, will no longer qualify, because of new, tougher grading on state English and math exams.
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- Friday, May 28, 2010
- The New York Times
- New York State Votes to Expand Charter Schools
- The New York Legislature voted on Friday to more than double the number of charter schools in the state, handing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a significant victory that he and education officials hope will give the state a chance of receiving $700 million in federal grant money.
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- Thursday, April 8, 2010
- The Daily News
- Geoffrey Canada on School Choice and Charter Schools
- Harlem Children's Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada responds to the recent position of New York State politicians opposed to expanding the number of charter schools.
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- Wednesday, April 7, 2010
- New York Times
- Study Finds More Woes Following Foster Care
- Only half the youths who had turned 18 and “aged out” of foster care were employed by their mid-20s. Six in 10 men had been convicted of a crime, and three in four women, many of them with children of their own, were receiving some form of public assistance. Only six in 100 had completed even a community college degree.
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- Wednesday, January 20, 2010
- Bloomberg News
- Ivy Leaguers’ Class for Poor Becomes ‚ÄòPlatinum’ Charter Schools
- In 1993, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin were recent Ivy League graduates teaching fifth graders in Houston’s inner city. The students were as much as two academic years behind their middle-class peers. year later, Feinberg and Levin started a classroom that operated nine hours a day instead of the normal seven, as well as on some Saturdays and during the summer. Within a year, the number of students performing at grade level in reading and math jumped to 90 percent from 50 percent.
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- Wednesday, January 20, 2010
- The New York Times
- City Signals Intent to Put Fewer Teenagers in Jail
- The Bloomberg administration plans to merge the city’s Department of Juvenile Justice into its child welfare agency, signaling a more therapeutic approach toward delinquency that will send fewer of the city’s troubled teenagers to jail.
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- Sunday, December 13, 2009
- The New York Times
- New York Finds Extreme Crisis in Youth Prisons
- New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education, according to a report by a state panel.
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- Friday, October 16, 2009
- Crain's New York Business
- City’s Jobless Rate Hits 10.3%
- The city's unemployment rate remained in double digits last month, rising slightly to 10.3% from a revised 10.2% in August, signaling the recession is far from over in the five boroughs, a report by the state Department of Labor shows.
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- Thursday, October 15, 2009
- The National Bureau of Economic Research
- The New York City Charter Schools Evaluation Project
- A recent report by Caroline M. Hoxby, Sonali Murarka, and Jenny Kangand examines how New York City's charter schools impact student achievement.
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- Tuesday, August 18, 2009
- THE NEW YORK TIMES
- Defying the Downturn, Charter School Construction Grows in New York
- In an economy where much construction has ground to a halt, charter schools are providing a minor but growing niche for the building and design industries in the New York City area.
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- Tuesday, August 4, 2009
- bloomberg.com
- Duncan Wields $100 Billion to Make U.S. Schools Like Chicago’s
- Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Sue Duncan has taught poor kids at her after-school center on Chicago’s South Side for 48 years. She says her son Arne spent seven days a week there as he was growing up
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- Monday, August 3, 2009
- The New York Times
- Gains on Tests in New York Schools Don’t Silence Critics
- They determine the A through F grades that can make or break a school’s reputation, as well as which schools go out of business. They dictate which principals receive five-figure bonuses and which stand to lose their jobs. Mastering them has meant cash rewards for thousands of students, and their teachers.
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- Friday, July 24, 2009
- The New York Times
- Senate Deal Keeps Mayor in Control of Schools
- After weeks of delays, negotiating and name-calling, Democrats in the New York Senate reached a deal with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday to renew the law giving him control over city schools.
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- Thursday, June 4, 2009
- The New York Times
- Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers
- A school opening in New York in September may test whether high pay translates into more successful students
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- Monday, June 1, 2009
- The New York Times
- New York City Shows Gains in Math
- New York City’s public school students showed large gains on state math tests this year, particularly in the middle school grades, and black and Hispanic students continued to edge closer to their white counterparts, the city and state education departments announced on Monday.
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- Monday, May 11, 2009
- Gotham Gazette
- The End of the Rockefeller Era
- Thirty-five years after New York's criminal justice system was invaded by a misguided and counterproductive legislative scheme to fight the "war on drugs," there is finally some relief. The statutes known as the "Rockefeller Drug Laws," enacted in 1973 when Nelson A. Rockefeller was governor, have long been called draconian, the harshest in the nation and the end of judicial independence.
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- Thursday, May 7, 2009
- The New York Times
- More New York Students Meet State Standards in English
- The number of elementary and middle school students meeting standards in English rose sharply in New York City and across the state, according to test results released on Thursday by the State Education Department.
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- Monday, April 27, 2009
- Gotham Gazette
- The Mayor’s High Stakes Test
- For the next few days, New York City public school parents can vote in what the city's Department of Education bills as "the first public election in the U.S. to be held entirely online."
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- Thursday, April 9, 2009
- New York Nonprofit Press
- SCO Opens Family Development Center
- SCO Family of Services held a Community Breakfast on Tuesday to celebrate the opening of the newest location of their Family Development Center.
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- Tuesday, April 7, 2009
- The New York Times
- Triumphing Over Long Odds to Succeed at School
- Before the economy collapsed and thrift became a national watchword, a high school senior named Wei Huang was already scouring New York City for bargains, determined to support herself on the $10 a month she had left after she paid her rent.
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- Tuesday, April 7, 2009
- New York Nonprofit Press
- Bloomberg Outlines Initiatives to Assist Nonprofits
- Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday today outlined a series of new initiatives to help New York City’s more than 40,000 cultural, health and social service nonprofit organizations survive the economic downturn.
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- Tuesday, April 7, 2009
- The New York Times
- Too Old for Foster Care, and Facing the Recession
- Even in boom times, young people who become too old for the foster-care system often struggle to make it on their own, lacking families, job skills or adequate educations.
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- Sunday, March 29, 2009
- New York State
- Governor Paterson Announces Federal Economic Recovery Aid will Provide Major Additional Funding for Education.
- Governor David A. Paterson today announced that federal economic recovery aid reflected in the final State budget agreement will provide dramatic increased resources for school districts.
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- Friday, January 23, 2009
- New York Nonprofit Press
- WHEDCo Celebrates Intervale Green
- The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCo), a community based non-profit organization in the Bronx, recently hosted an open house event to celebrate the completion of the largest affordable ENERGY STAR certified building in the country, Intervale Green, proving that healthy, sustainable building techniques and beautiful design can be achieved in affordable housing.
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