Education

The thunderstorms that rolled through upstate New York Tuesday afternoon kept George Weiss' plane grounded in New York City.

So Weiss, the philanthropist and founder of Say Yes to Education, decided to drive up to Syracuse in order to make it to a student event Tuesday evening.

He told a crowd at McKinley-Brighton Elementary School Wednesday morning that the long drive was worth it when a student came up to him teary-eyed.

She told Weiss that he had given her a hug two years earlier when she graduated high school. Now, after graduating from a community college with the cost covered by Say Yes, she wanted another hug.

"Any time you see the smile on these kids' faces and the hope," Weiss said. "This is what it's all about, the hope."

For a while now, getting through high school has meant getting through all five of those all-important Regents Exams. But that may be changing.

Amidst an ongoing discussion about how to get more kids to graduation through different pathways, the Board of Regents may be making some changes.

And those changes have a lot to do with one specific exam – The Global History and Geography exam. Unlike other Regents Exams, this one takes place after two full years of cumulative study.

As urban school districts grapple with massive budget deficit, some programs that aren't strict academics go up on the chopping block. A program in the Syracuse City School District, that teaches everything from sex education to stranger danger, is slated to be cut.

Governor Andrew Cuomo named a blue ribbon commission to look at the problems facing education in New York, instructing them to come back with an “action plan” not a “theoretical document.”

The decision for the Syracuse City School District Board of Education Wednesday night was between borrowing millions or cutting hundreds of jobs. Board members chose to balance a $366 million budget by whipping out the credit card.

The make-up of the Syracuse Common Council was different when Thomas Valenti and his firm, Cameron Group, first approached it six years ago, but the opposition to the proposed project is still the same.

Valenti wants to develop a new off-campus bookstore and fitness center for Syracuse University.

In order to do that, he's requesting a 30-year property tax break from the city.

And therein lies the sticking point.

"If you have all of these grand ideas, then you should be able to finance this project," councilor-at-large Helen Hudson says. "We just can't keep excepting all of these entities."

In their so-called retirement, Tom and Liz Brackett founded and now run an education non-profit, the Brackett Refugee Education Fund. In this conversation, they relate the story of how they decided to start this, how they approach and structure the work of their organization, and what inspires them to keep up the effort.

Innovative programs from eight Central New York SUNY Schools were on display in Syracuse Monday.  It was part of the "Power of SUNY Regional Showcase", that let schools from across the area share projects.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is leaning on New York’s network of public colleges to play a bigger role in economic growth -- and he’s proposing to provide the resources to do so. But there could stiff competition for those funds.

With $11.5 million dollars at stake, the Syracuse City School District did some last minute negotiating with its teachers and principal's unions, in the hopes of getting some state funding reinstated.  

Russell, a Democrat from Theresa, has introduced legislation that will adjust the way school districts' wealth is measured.  Generally speaking, the poorer a district is, the more aid it gets. But it’s not a true sliding scale at the top and bottom ends.

Right now, the poorest districts are all lumped together in the same category, even though some may be much poorer than others. The same is true of the richest districts – they're all seen on equal footing, even though some may be much richer than others.

A little over 100 days ago, Sharon Contreras began her appointment as the superintendent of the Syracuse City School District.  She inherited deep challenges--low test scores and graduation rates, and an austere budget climate.  Following her "first 100 days" period of listening and assessment, she is issuing a strategic plan to improve the city's educational system. 

This year’s theme is organized around Media Diversity. In particular, issues pertaining to ethnicity, gender, technology, business models, content, global and personal will be discussed.