Maura Walz

Parents wrangled over the proposal to phase out MS 571 in Prospect Heights and replace it with a charter school during a standing-room only hearing Monday night in the auditorium of PS 9, which shares a building with the middle school.

More than 100 parents and teachers, hoping to prevent Jamaica High from closing, turned out at the Department of Education's public hearing Thursday night to show their support for the school, one of 25 the city wants to close next fall.

Outgoing schools chancellor Joel Klein made his final appearance before the Panel on Educational Policy Tuesday night. Klein said that the controversy surrounding his tenure was a necessary part of education. He acknowledged that change is hard, but asked parents and teachers to find new ways of working with the city to improve schools.

One of the bigger challenges facing the next Schools Chancellor, Cathleen Black, is fixing the city’s most struggling high schools.

This fall, WNYC has been looking at what the city is already doing to help three of those schools in a series we're calling The Big Fix. It's a collaboration with the website GothamSchools.

Reporter Maura Walz of GothamSchools is covering William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn. Grady received a federal school improvement grant this year worth over $1.3 million. A total of 11 city schools received these grants, which are to be used in part to improve teacher-quality.

WNYC's Richard Hake spoke with Walz about how these 11 schools are not hiring as many expert teachers as the city expected.

Joel Klein has stepped down as chancellor of the New York City public school system, and Mayor Bloomberg has replaced him with magazine publisher Cathie Black. Maura Walz, reporter at Gotham Schools, and Matt Flamm, senior reporter at Crain's New York Business, join us to discuss this change. What do you make of the Klein years? What do you want from Black?

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Fixing Schools

For years, Brooklyn’s William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School struggled to break free from its reputation as simply a trade school.

When the city releases its progress reports for elementary and middle schools today, parents will begin the annual rite of deciphering their schools’ report cards. But this year the tradition will be complicated by a new formula and, for many schools, lower grades.

Maura Walz, reporter at Gotham Schools.org, and Lisa Fleisher, statehouse bureau reporter for the Star-Ledger, discuss why New York will get $700 million in federal "Race to the Top" education funds, while New Jersey lost out.

With the possibility that $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds hangs in the balance, the governor, mayor, and legislature are tangling over lifting the cap on charter schools. Maura Walz, reporter at Gotham Schools.org, shares the latest as the deadline for the vote approaches.