Two Brooklyn parents are joining forces with Advocates for Children (AFC) to challenge the extension of PAVE Academy Charter School’s colocation with PS 15.

Despite public protest, the Panel for Educational Policy approved the extension during its January 26 meeting. In response, AFC filed a petition and request for stay — on behalf of PS 15 parents John Battis and Lydia Bellahcene — asking State Education Commissioner David Steiner to repeal the 8-4 decision. The petition argues that the Department of Education failed to properly assess the impact of PAVE’s colocation on PS 15, or provide an adequate period for public comment.

“The law requires a public process in which the DOE identifies the impact of their proposal on parents, students and the community, and allows for public comment,” stated Battis in a press release issued by AFC. “The DOE must comply with the law.” (more…)

The NY Post reports that 3,000 parents attended the third annual Harlem Education Fair, held Feb. 28 at the 369th Harlem Armory on 143rd Street. That’s far short of the 10,000 parents event organizers  predicted would turn out to  learn about dozens of  charter, parochial, private, and public schools in the area, or last year’s throng, estimated at 5,000.

The snow may have deterred some, but the parents who slogged through the slush, often with children in tow, were determined to explore all their school options. Many questioned the assertion by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Archdiocese Schools Superintendent Tim McNiff, proclaiming  Harlem the “Parent Choice Capital of America.”

Parents we spoke with understood that the chances of actually getting your child into the school of your choice — particularly some of the more popular charter schools, which assign seats by lottery — are discouragingly slim.  One parent, who said her child is not being challenged at her neighborhood public school, PS 160, planned to apply to every charter school in order “to get my child the education she needs at the price I can afford.”

PS 241, an unzoned school that was one of a handful of public schools participating, got a lot of attention from a handwritten sign on its table saying “ALL are Welcome - NO LOTTERIES!”  A teacher at the school, which shares its building with two charter schools and earned an “A” on its school report card last year after nearly being closed, pointed proudly at colorful new promotional postcards.

The fair was  sponsored by the Success Charter Network, which operates a string of charter schools in Harlem and East Harlem and whose CEO is Eva Moskowitz, former chairperson of the City Council’s education committee. The fair took place  in the midst of the kindergarten registration season — public school kindergarten applications are due by March 12.  Most charter school applications are due by April 1.

We’d like to hear from parents who were at the fair and from those who live in the community. Is Harlem the “parent choice capital of America?”

The Panel for Educational Policy approved 13 charter school colocation proposals at its monthly meeting, held Wednesday night at the Fashion Industries High School in Chelsea.

New York City families packed the school’s 1,300-seat auditorium, according to NY1.   Charter school parents and students testified that their schools required more space to support growing populations, while public school families voiced frustration with the loss of valuable resources, such as science labs and libraries, to already-existing space constraints.

“I can understand why any school moving in would like more space, that makes sense,” said schools Chancellor Joel Klein at the hearing. “But what’s particularly interesting tonight Mr. Chairman is that all of a sudden, when charter schools are involved in sharing space there’s been a big political push back and we should see it for what it is,” Klein said.

Last month, the PEP voted to close 19 public schools before a packed auditorium of public school advocates at Brooklyn Tech High School. Some commentors accused the panel of pitting families against each other by placing charter schools in public schools.  Klein openly refuted this claim.

At last night’s meeting, Robert Jackson, chair of the City Council Education Committee, revived this accusation, citing that the disproportionate number of charter advocates in the evening’s crowd did not represent public opinion — many charter parents were bused to the event and provided dinner for attending, reports the Daily News.

How can public and charter schools share space efficiently and coexist? Share your thoughts!

In a surprising change of course, the Department of Education announced that it will cancel plans to move a charter school into a Bronx vocational high  school. The DOE’s decision comes after meetings with representatives from the construction industry, reports the The New York Times.

The New York City Charter High School for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries was slated to replace some vocational programs at the Bronx’s Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School. The school’s building programs are on the chopping block due to low graduation rates.

The DOE will now work with construction industry representatives to develop a new school in the building. Smith’s principal René Cassanova told the Times that, while she hasn’t spoken to the DOE regarding the plan, she is pleased: “What we want is our industry partners at the table and the programs at Smith.”

AECI plans to rent private space for the 2010/2011 school year to house its growing student population. Controversy has plagued the school since founder Richard Izquierdo Arroyo was indicted on charges of embezzlement last summer.

For more information, see articles from the Daily News and The New York Times  online.

City Limits devotes its entire March issue to Harlem Children’s Zone, featuring a comprehensive report by Helen Zelon, long-time contributor to Insideschools.org. The lead article, “Is the Promise Real,” chronicles the history and status of the initiative, developed by charismatic leader Geoffrey Canada, to envelop whole neighborhoods with social services from cradle to college.

The HCZ now includes the Baby College, starting with pre-natal services, pre-school (Harlem Gems), three Promise Academy charter schools covering elementary through high school, and more than a dozen family and employment support organizations. It has caught attention and praise from philanthropists and politicians, including President Obama, who see it as a template for the nation’s troubled school children. A substantial sum of federal funds will go to 20 school districts to replicate the initiative.

The report offers an analysis of the schools’ practices and early results and describes the difficulty of measuring social service impact. It also examines the potential for replication in cities less saturated with social services and patrons than New York.

Check out the Q&A with founder Geoffrey Canada, and a video of interviews with Harlem residents online at City Limits. To read the full report, you’ll have to buy the journal at a newstand or subscribe..

January 21 Update: Red Hook community members gathered before last night’s public hearing at PS 15 to voice their discontent with the extension of PAVE Academy’s co-location within PS 15. They dispute the accuracy of PAVE’s Educational Impact Statement – a document outlining the charter school’s plans for development.

“Expanding PAVE within our school is unfair and detrimental. It does not promote “choice” or “reform,” stated John Battis, a PS 15 parent, at the hearing. “The EIS is a “cut and paste” job void of any meaningful information about the real impact on our community.”

A group of PS 15 parents released an open letter to Chancellor Klein, Mayor Bloomberg, and members of the PEP yesterday arguing that the EIS does not accurately reflect the school’s capacity. “This document simply does not represent the true educational impact of the change in utilization the document supports,” it stated. “Cutting our building in half will set back all of our efforts which have resulted in the only successful public school serving Red Hook.”

PAVE plans to move into a $26 million facility which is not slated for completion until 2015. PS 15 originally agreed to a two-year, co-location agreement with PAVE to end in 2010. The Panel for Educational Policy will vote on an extension of PAVE’s co-location on Jan. 26 at Brooklyn Tech High School at 6 p.m. A second rally is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., across the street from Brooklyn Tech.

Norm Scott of Education Notes Online captured the views of PS 15 parents and PAVE faculty at the January 19th hearing. (Correction: The video of Spencer Robertson speaking on behalf of PAVE Academy was captured at a September 2009 meeting at PS 15. Thank you to Jim Devor for setting us straight!) :

January 20: As the debate over increasing New York’s charter school cap enters its final hours in Albany, Brooklyn parents are protesting the sharing of public school space with charter schools in Red Hook.

The PAVE Academy charter school opened in the PS 15 building in 2008 with 44 kindergartners and 44 1st-graders. After initial protests, PS 15 agreed to incubate PAVE until 2010 when it was scheduled to relocate to a new building. In December the Department of Education informed PS 15 that PAVE would remain in their building through the 2010/2011 school year because the new building would not be completed until 2015. (This, despite the $20 million allocated for its construction by the DOE and $6 million raised by the school.) (more…)

Gov. David Paterson unveiled a bill Thursday that aims to improve New York’s chances of receiving $700 million in Race to the Top funds.

Since the introduction of the Race to the Top in 2009, states have worked feverishly to conform with its eligibility standards — each hoping to reap a portion of the fund’s $4 billion in competitive grants.

To improve New York’s chances, Paterson’s bill would eliminate the cap on charter schools, allow the State to fund charter development, take student performance into consideration in teacher tenure decisions, and empower the Board of Regents to take control of low-performing schools. (more…)

Lower East Side parents are up-in-arms about the proposed expansion of the Girls Preparatory Charter School. The school is requesting more space to house a growing middle school population — 50 5th-graders were turned away last year due to lack of space. Neighborhood parents worry that an expansion will exacerbate overcrowding issues in District 1, where many schools currently share buildings.

Last Wednesday, parents, students, and educators packed into PS 20 to discuss the Department of Education’s plans for expanding Girls Prep, as reported by the new Manhattan local news site, dnainfo.com “You see how crowded and hot it is in here?” Marilyn Roberts, a PS 20 parent asked at the meeting of the district’s Community Education Council. “That’s how our children are going to feel. [Expansion] is a short term solution and a long term disaster.”

Girls Prep shares space with PS 188 and PS 94, a special education school for autistic kids. Expanding the school would affect other schools in the district as well, parents say. (more…)

The “Race to the Top” dominated this week’s education headlines, but left a lot of us wondering, “who’s racing and to where?”

Basically, states will “race” to create comprehensive education reform plans, in hopes of earning a chunk of 4.35 billion government dollars to support their efforts. The program was established by the Obama administration under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — an expansive piece of legislation aimed at stimulating the economy, creating new jobs, and supporting industries critical to our nation’s prosperity.

“We will award grants to the states that have led the way in reform and will show the way for the rest of the country to follow,” said U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in a Nov. 12 press release.To apply for Race to the Top funds, states must submit plans based on four areas of reform: college and career preparation, data analysis for measuring student progress, recruiting skilled teachers, and improving under-achieving schools. (more…)

Dear Judy,

Our son is in 5th grade at a charter school that’s not in the district where we live. What middle schools is he eligible for?

Charter school parent

Dear Charter school parent:

Given the proliferation of charter schools these days, your question is a timely one. We put it to the Department of Education. According to DOE spokesperson Andy Jacob, “students are eligible to apply in the district to which they are zoned and in the district in which their (public, including charter) elementary school is located. ”

However, Jacob cautioned,”not all districts have choice processes. Some have all or mostly zoned middle schools. If the charter is located in one of those districts, the student wouldn’t have any choices in that district, because there’s no choice process.”

All applicants should keep in mind there are other middle school options, even if you live in a district that has limited choice: Some schools are unzoned — open to kids all over the city, borough, or district — and some middle schools require school-based applications, separate from the district middle school application.

Although the middle school admissions timetable is standardized across the city, each district has its own ways, so it is very important to study the online middle school directories  for specifics.

Most citywide schools run their own admissions processes and students need to apply to those schools separately.  A few parents have written to ask about Mark Twain, a popular, selective school in Coney Island which accepts students based on their performance on “talent” entrance exams.  Mark Twain takes applications from all over the city but, unlike other citywide schools, students who submit the “request for testing” form for the school “will see the Twain programs as choices on the application for their district,” according to Jacob. “They’ll rank Mark Twain along with their district choices and will receive an offer to one school - the highest-ranked one to which they receive an offer.” Jacob said the district schools will not see whether the student ranked Mark Twain as a choice.

Middle school applications are due on Dec. 15, but Oct. 28, is the deadline to submit a “request for testing” form for selective schools in Districts 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22 in Brooklyn, and Districts  24, and 30 in Queens.

I would take the time to tour as many schools as you can. The bottom line is to go after the schools that match your kid.  Good luck !

Judy

 Have a school question for Judy?  Search archives | Contact Judy

Should the Panel for Education Policy (PEP) be given final approval over whether charter schools can be sited in buildings with existing schools? I thought that was the intention of the state legislators who passed the law to renew mayoral control in August, but apparently the Department of Education has a different interpretation.

The new mayoral control law tries to increase public input in the system. One change mandates that the DOE post proposed Chancellor’s Regulations for a 45-day public comment period and that the PEP vote on regulations at a public meeting.

On Sept. 26, the DOE issued several proposed regulations; among them is A-190, Significant Changes in School Utilization. Changes in school utilization include decisions to phase out schools, change their location, or move other schools into the building. A-190 seeks to restrict changes considered “significant” and subject to a PEP vote at a public meeting.

A-190 defines the term “affected school” as “the individual instructional organization identified for direct action in the proposal.” It explicitly excludes other schools and programs co-located in that school building. (more…)

Guest blogger Mandy Hass is the parent of a Manhattan 4th-grader and the director of business development and marketing for Advocates for Children, the parent organization of  Insideschools.org.

Charter school supporters are crowing over a new apples-to-apples study — conducted right here in the Big Apple — showing that charter students outperformed their peers whose parents tried but failed to get their kids into charter schools.

Charter cheerleaders are chastising skeptics who’ve dismissed any data showing that charter students do better on standardized tests on the assumption that charters cream the kids most likely to succeed (because their parents or guardians cared enough to apply). (more…)

The New York Times reports today that charter school construction is providing a growing niche for the building and design industries in the New York City area. The article highlights a 54,000-square-foot project for the Mott Haven Academy Charter School in the South Bronx, which will house both classroom space and a community social services center.

Mott Haven reserves two-thirds of its seats for students in foster and preventive care. According to New York Foundling, the non-profit organization that runs the school, the integration of social services in the building “will address the different life circumstances that negatively impact the academic performance of children ‘in the system.’” Foundling raised $17 million from private donors to finance the new building. (more…)

Charter schools seem unable to shake the perception that they don’t enroll as many students with special needs  - those who are disabled or who need help learning English, for example - as traditional schools.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe spotlights the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts, but notes the discrepancy in enrollment of special needs students in charter schools as compared to other schools. It reports that  English language learners make up a fifth of the students in the Boston school system, yet they represent only 4% of the students in all but one  charter school. Special education students likewise are underrepresented in Boston charter schools as compared to their traditional counterparts. (more…)

Summer break is hardly a vacation for more than 90 schools across the city that will be moving into new locations for the new school year. For some, moving means a home in a brand-new building, while for others, it is a less-than-welcome change. Many of the moves involve charter schools which some public schools have resisted housing in their buildings.

On Monday, The New York Post highlighted parents’ and students’ upset over the Coalition School for Social Change’s move from the West 50s to East Harlem, an area they say is known for gangs and violence. Families of the Bronx Early College Academy are not happy about the school’s move to the South Bronx. The move from Riverdale to a troubled middle school campus takes the school farther away from Lehman College, where students in the upper grades will eventually take classes. (more…)

In an editorial in today’s Daily News, Eva Moskowitz weighs in on the controversial  decision by the Department of Education to  clamp down on parent associations paying for non-union teaching aides in their children’s classrooms. Her take? Schools benefit from parent fund-raising that helps lower class size, especially in middle class schools which get less funding than those with a high percentage of low income students.  She posits, “The UFT doesn’t like it because these aspiring teachers aren’t union members.”

Commenters on Insideschools have been debating the merits of the practice, which according to the New York Times, only affects about 18 highly desirable city schools. Some argue that this is “another example of  Bloomberg steamrolling important parent input,”  that  will “drive more  middle class [families] out of the city. ” Others argue that, “It’s a public system and there should be a level playing field.” A few commenters suggest ways in which schools across the city can “pool fundraising.” Others note the role of the powerful teachers union, which filed a grievance last fall about the hiring practice. (more…)

In the news this past week come reports that some low-performing students, as well as students with special needs, are being pushed out of charter schools and enrolling in their neighborhood zoned schools, echoing what we reported in May (See: “Most vulnerable students shut out of charter schools).
In her opinion piece, Insideschools founder Clara Hemphill questions whether charter schools help or hurt neighborhood public schools. She highlights two low-income schools in the Bronx that, although located just one block away from each other, serve very different student populations.

According to Hemphill, the majority of students who go to the Carl C. Icahn Charter School are African-American and speak English at home, while the majority of students at PS 42 are Latino and only speak Spanish. PS 42 has many students who receive special education services, and teachers there say some are students “who can’t meet the academic or behavioral requirements of the charter school are encouraged to leave and wind up at PS 42.” (more…)

Yesterday in Harlem, parents, students, and staff of PS 123 protested the move of Harlem Success Academy II into their school building. They contend that  the charter school will prevent their traditional neighborhood school from expanding in the future. (See NY1 footage of the rally here.)

According to Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, tension erupted when moving men from Harlem Success arrived unannounced at PS 123 last week. They removed locks from classroom doors and began to empty the rooms of their furniture, books, and supplies. Although they were not expected by the leadership at PS 123, the men said they had orders to refurbish all the school’s third-floor rooms. (more…)

Principal Brian Culot of the Anderson School, one of Manhattan’s three citywide gifted and talented schools, has announced his resignation as principal, effective this August. In a letter to the Anderson community, Culot explained that he’s taken a position closer to his home, to permit him to spend more time with his family. He acknowledges that his departure, at a time of Anderson’s transition, relocation, and growth, comes at a challenging moment in the life of the school.

Additionally, Principal Jacqui Getz of PS 87 on the Upper West Side announced her resignation. Rumors are that Getz will assume leadership of a Manhattan charter school this fall; as of this morning, Getz would not respond to specific questions about her next position. An interim acting principal has yet to be announced.

A big budget hurdle for charter schools was just lowered.

“Despite a prohibition on using state funds to build charter schools, the city has quietly expanded available funding for charter school construction to as much as $3.8 billion,” writes the New York Post. The extra money is part of a provision in the capital construction plan.

To date, charter schools have not received public funds for facility expenses. Many charter schools in New York City have been able to survive because Mayor Bloomberg has allowed them to use Department of Education buildings rent-free. Charter school advocates have long lobbied for the ban on state funds to be lifted, since depending on who controls the school system next, charter schools could have to start paying steep city rent prices.

When Lydia Bellahcene’s son “E.E.,” who struggles with a reading disability, was picked from a lottery to attend Williamsburg Charter High School, she was elated. “I thought my son could be successful. He would be given the support he needed. I had no red light, yellow light to be cautious because they had an IEP team [a group of administrators who ensure special education students receive services].” Although her son worked with a special education reading instructor every day for 45 minutes beginning in 3rd grade at a regular Department of Education school, when he began 9th grade at Williamsburg Charter in 2007, the specialist was promised, but never appeared. As a result, he failed 9th-grade English, became depressed, and was forced to continue to wear the 9th-grade green uniform the following year, while his friends wore the gold 10th-grade Williamsburg Charter shirt, said Bellahcene.

Charter schools, which operate outside the city Department of Education and select students through a lottery, have become increasingly controversial as their numbers have grown. This fall an additional 24 charter schools are expected to open, bringing the total in New York City to more than 100 schools. As charter schools proliferate, and in many instances, post higher test scores than neighboring regular schools, some parents and advocates claim the schools are “creaming,” enrolling only the best students and ignoring disadvantaged populations.

“Those charter schools are not serving the main population,” said Aixa Rodriguez, a Spanish teacher who worked at International Leadership Charter School in the Bronx. She said students requiring extra services were pushed out. “They’re serving a boutique population…You’re not going to have a whole line of parents on welfare whose kids are PINS,” referring to the warrants parents place on run-away youth.

Charter school advocates disagree. “When somebody says a charter school is creaming, what they’re not telling you is there’s no way on God’s Earth you know who you’re getting,” said Jeffery Litt, superintendent of the Carl C. Icahn charter schools.

Charter schools claim they outperform neighborhood schools while enrolling the same student demographic. Opponents argue that charter schools only attract children whose parents are involved and invested in their education, since the parents had to seek out a charter school and fill out an application by the April 1 deadline. Additionally, because charter schools operate independently of the city DOE, opponents say there is no oversight to protect the most vulnerable students – those who don’t speak English or require special education services.

An analysis of student data involving some of the most challenging students to educate, students who are homeless, special education students, and English Language Learners (ELL), shows that charter schools don’t serve or enroll the same students as local public schools. Homeless students

In New York City, 51,316 public school students are homeless, and only 111 of them attend a charter school, according to Jennifer Pringle, director of NYS-TEACHS, a state-funded group that provides assistance to schools, social service providers, and families about the educational rights of homeless students.

“With many charter schools, you have an application process. It’s not just you can show up at the school on September 1st and register your child,” Pringle said, “and many families in crisis aren’t in a position to see that process through.” Although most city charter schools are located in low-income neighborhoods, 34 charter schools enroll no homeless students. In East New York, Brooklyn, a politically-forgotten neighborhood with decrepit buildings and the infamous Pink housing projects, nine homeless shelters are located near Achievement First East New York Charter School. The school does not enroll any homeless students.

(more…)

Recently, we sat down with James Merriman, the chief executive of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, to talk about the politics and policies of charter schools in New York City.

What is a simple definition of a charter school?

A charter school is a public school and, like all public schools, is tuition-free, non-sectarian, admits all comers, and is publicly funded. It differs from other public schools in how it is governed. A charter school is governed by an independent board of trustees, whereas traditional public schools are governed by an elected board, or in the case of New York City, the mayor. Charter schools are characterized by being free from a lot of burdensome regulations, and they have the autonomy to be able to figure out what works best for their particular student population.

Why do you believe that charter schools are good for public education?Chartering is a governance reform and not a pedagogical reform, so there is nothing about charters that say they are going to be good. But because of their autonomy, they allow great educators to single-mindedly organize themselves around improving student achievement and providing students a first rate education. These educators are able to create a school community that is, to the maximum extent possible, able to serve the students who are enrolled in the school.

And in New York City, we have been incredibly fortunate that the opportunity has drawn, overall, an incredible dedicated group of founders, leaders, and teachers, who accept that their only measure of success is how well their students are doing. For the larger system, these charter schools provide examples of what is possible, and the fact that those examples are outside of the traditional system means necessarily that people are forced to pay attention to them.

You keep mentioning autonomy – which is a buzzword in the Department of Education in general these days. Usually when you hear the word “autonomy,” it is quickly followed by a reference to accountability. Who makes sure that charter school leaders – especially down the road when the founders move on and new leadership takes the helm – are accountable?Accountability isn’t tied to a specific individual – it is tied to a school. As the founders move on, the accountability measures that the authorizers have set up remain in place.

(more…)

As the mayoral-control debate escalates here and in Albany, a parallel conversation is simmering locally, about the city’s recent rise in standardized test scores.

Two Daily News articles set a strong counterpoint: Last week, columnist Juan Gonzalez challenged the gains touted by the Department of Education, asserting that poor children lack the opportunity for achievement that many others have — and that charters, which enroll far fewer English language learners and special-needs students, benefit from their exclusionary policies. Gonzales concludes, “…when something looks too good to be true, it usually is. ”

Today, big jumps in reading scores are celebrated in the News — but a principal’s explanation of how her school improved test scores is chillingly revealing: “What really helped us was looking at our data and driving the instruction based on that,” Principal Lillian Catalano, a 23-year public school veteran, told the News. School officials “spent hours scouring” students’ work on previous assessments to figure out “where they needed help … on the statewide reading test,” the article explains.

Simply put, this principal and her faculty embraced the data — and upped their scores by ‘teaching to the test.’ They figured out what kids needed to know to do better, and they taught it. But teaching to the test necessarily takes time from other subjects; it limits what a school can offer, and what a teacher can teach. And it doesn’t mean kids are actually learning to think for themselves or master content outside the testing area. Historically, teaching to the test was universally considered a bad thing, but tables turn, and today, it’s lauded. Schools that do the best job of sussing out what the testers want gain the most praise and public recognition; progress reports, based largely on a school’s test scores, can determine a principal’s tenure and even a school’s survival.

It’s hard to argue with a principal who sees the importance of raising scores. The bigger question is what’s lost when the focus-field narrows — when data, scores, and testing outpace content in the classroom.

The hundreds of kindergarteners on waiting lists for schools all over the city are not the only sign of crowding in the schools, as many schools fear being forced to open extra classes in rooms that are now used for art and music. Rather than looking for the source of these failures in enrollment projections or capital planning, the Department of Education is going on the offensive against parents. In this case, their target is parents and parent associations who fund part-time arts, chess, and assistant teachers to make up for DOE shortfalls. The new DOE approach threatens to end services for hundreds if not thousands of children.

In a series of letters and school visits, the DOE has asserted that parents must hand their money over to DOE, subject to DOE rules about timing and amounts, before that money can be used to pay for part time aides and enrichment. A few years ago Klein abolished Project Arts, the program that used to reserve funds to ensure that all public school kids would receive music, dance, and visual arts. Now the DOE is trying to crack down on parents’ efforts to provide access to these fundamentals of a decent education. (more…)

Later today, Chancellor Joel Klein will speak at the Harlem Success Academy charter lottery. Harlem Success, founded by former City Councilmember Eva Moskowitz, can’t ever be faulted for thinking small: The draw will be held tonight at the Harlem Armory Track at 5:30 pm, a facility that can host thousands, as it did at a giant school fair and  a charter school-sponsored inauguration celebration.

Demand for charters is on the rise, especially given strong support by our mayor, chancellor, president and national education secretary. But amid all the governmental enthusiasm, there are important signposts that the charter processes may not be working as well — or yielding the anticipated strong results — that their promoters celebrate.

One dense report that closely analyzes New York City charter-school data shows little daylight between traditional publics and the charter schools on reading and math scores, despite a school year that’s up to 40 days longer than the conventional academic calendar (abstract is here; there is a fee to read the full report). A broad-canvas analysis in the Wall Street Journal highlights some of the obstacles charters face nation-wide — including union opposition and dozens of states that simply do not permit charters within their borders. And a hyper-local report documents a geographic dilemma that has its thorny roots in school zoning: A child who lives in one district (which makes him charter-eligible) attends an elementary school that promotes its grads into another district (which makes him charter-ineligible). Similar tales of infuriating bureaucratic arcana and personal frustrations abound.

Charters are a signature element of school choice, promoters believe, and their continued expansion seems an imminent reality. But charters are no magic bullet for school ills — and in many venues, they seem to show small gains, despite hundreds of extra hours of instruction and the machinations required to register.

Jacob Mnookin stood on the edge of the boardwalk in Coney Island, greeting the families who had come to witness the inaugural lottery for Coney Island Prep, south Brooklyn’s first charter school. Mnookin, the founding principal, still wasn’t sure where he would be holding classes in the fall, so the admissions lottery was taking place in the education room at New York Aquarium, a boxy facility between the iconic Cyclone roller coaster and the beach. Families sat next to giant turtle shells, sea sponges, and mounted fish skeletons, waiting to see if their child’s name would be one of the first 81 names pulled out of a plastic bingo drum, ensuring a place at the new school.

Like all charter schools in New York that receive more applicants than places, Coney Island Prep is required to hold a random lottery, with preference giving to students from the district and siblings of admitted students, to determine who would be offered a seat in the inaugural 5th grade class. The lottery was held on Tuesday, April 7 – referred to as “super Tuesday” by charter operators, since 28 of the 99 charter schools in New York were holding lotteries that evening. (more…)

The Department of Education has earned a reputation for making under-the-radar announcements in school ’slack times’ — often, just as a vacation begins. In its recent announcement of a $ 2.5 million donation by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to two charter school networks, made on the first day of spring break, the first day of Passover and the day before Good Friday, the news of the philanthropists’ support for the charter networks barely made a ripple in the local press: None of the city’s three big dailies published stories on the donation, although Javier Hernandez posted a report on the Times‘ City Room blog — and the Post has run two education opinion pieces in the past few days (an anti-union editorial today and a vitriol-stoked, anti-Weingarten op-ed last week).

Broad has donated more than $ 30 million to school reform since 2002, including $ 5 million to Children First and $ 4 million to the Leadership Academy, which trains principals to become leaders in struggling schools. The current donation will be shared by Uncommon Schools ($ 1.5 million) and the Success Charter Network ($ 1 million), to fund expansion of both networks in the New York City area. At present, Uncommon Schools’ six Brooklyn schools serve 1000 students; they plan to grow 14 new schools over the next half-decade. The Success Charter Network, founded by former Council member, former Education Committee chair, and frequent UFT nemesis and media darling Eva Moskowitz, enrolls 1000 students in four Harlem schools, plans to increase its reach to 40 schools in the next 10 years.

Broad, who made the announcement at Harlem Success Academy 2 on Thursday, told the educators gathered to listen, “you are the very best in public education,” and celebrated the success of the two charter networks, over and above other charters and the public schools in general. (Classes were in session through Good Friday.)

Broad also encouraged the practice of offering charter schools rent-free space in public school buildings, the subject of a recent lawsuit (and DOE change of heart), an unresolved issue taken up in the City Council last week. The fact that dozens of charters slated to open in September still lack locations increases the real-estate pressure with every passing week.

The bigger question: Is charter-school development displacing investment in the city’s traditional public schools? Advocates and adversaries support and rebut both sides of the conversation — but one thing’s certain: It’s a question that’s not going away.

Yesterday, the City Council members called on state legislators to establish a process by which charter schools are sited in public school buildings. Charter schools, which receive public money but are not managed by the Department of Education, are not entitled to space rent-free in DOE buildings, but Chancellor Klein’s administration has tried to accommodate charters in public school buildings whenever possible. This spring, when the DOE announced that it was closing PS 194 in Harlem and replacing it with a charter, the controversy erupted, a lawsuit was filed, parents screamed at each other in a hearing, the DOE eventually backtracked, and then newspapers blamed the teachers’ union for “condemning” students to failing schools.

At City Hall yesterday, council members questioned many of the players involved (teachers union representatives, parent groups, charter school leaders, Department of Education officials), and introduced a resolution urging state legislators to give communities more of a voice in charter school sitings. DOE officials who testified did not think the resolution was necessary.

Eva Moskowitz, the founder and leader of the charter school network Harlem Success, testified before the committee, which she used to chair when she was a city council member. It was her fourth charter school that had been slated to replace P.S. 194, and her former colleagues on City Council held her responsible for any role she may have played in the ensuing controversy. See a video from the Moskowitz testimony on GothamSchools.

Meanwhile, many of the city charters have been holding their lotteries this week. The number of applicants to charters more than doubled this year to 39,200 from last year’s 18,672. Democracy Prep Charter School, which is also in Harlem, held its lottery last night to pick 100 students out of 1,500 who applied (making the odds “harder than Harvard’s” according to the school). Tonight, at least 27 more charters will hold their lotteries and thousands of families will show up to see if their child’s name is called.

April’s a busy season for New York City’s 78 charter schools, which currently serve 18,000 students. This coming school year, 24 new charters will open, and charter-school advocates tout high demand. Since most of the city’s charters receive more applications than they have seats, the law requires public lotteries to determine offers. April 7th is lottery day or “super Tuesday” for at least 27 city charters, and a stressful process for thousands of city families. Many parents feel that participating in the charter school lotteries is a high-stakes spin of the education wheel that could shape their child’s future. (See the list of schools holding lotteries tomorrow after the jump.)

Charters are “open to ALL students, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, income or location,” and are mandated to serve all students, regardless of disabilities, according to New York Charter Center VP for Communications Jeff Maclin. This means that students with special needs can’t be excluded from charter lotteries, although Maclin couldn’t say if or how schools review applications to be certain the students who apply can be served by their school’s resources — for example, can the needs of a student who uses a wheelchair or requires a special, self-contained class be met by an individual school. Charters don’t wholly reflect city norms, as far as high-need students: According to Department of Education statistics, charters enroll many fewer students who are English Language Learners (3.7 percent at charters, compared with 13 percent citywide) and fewer students with special needs (8 percent at charters, 14 percent citywide). (more…)

Still looking for an elementary or middle school for your child? You might want to consider one of the new schools opening in September. In addition to the new high schools and charter schools opening this fall, 26 schools with elementary and middle school grades will also open their doors. Many of these schools will replace schools that the Department of Education has slated to close over the next few years, but others will open to alleviate overcrowding and offer families more school choice.

Bronx

A flood of new schools will open to take the place of schools that are in the process of phasing out. In District 8, the Mott Hall Community School and the Soundview Academy will join several middle schools that have replaced IS 192 and IS 174, which will close in June.

In District 9, the Family School and the Sheridan Academy for Young Leaders will take over the PS 90 school zone. Families within the zone will also have the option of enrolling their child in the Grant Avenue Elementary School. Grant Avenue and the Science and Technology Academy, a new middle school, will both open at IS 166, which is slated to close by 2011.

In District 12, the Urban Scholars Community School will replace CS 198, while in Districts 10, IS 399 will be replaced by two new middle schools: the Creston Academy and the East Fordham Academy for the Arts. District 11 will welcome three schools to offer students alternatives to their zoned middle school: Baychester Academy, Pelham Academy, and CASA Middle School, an extension of the established CASA elementary school.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn will open a mix of ‘replacement’ schools and brand-new schools, including one of the new citywide gifted and talented schools. Three of Brooklyn’s new schools will open in newly-constructed buildings: the Brooklyn School of Inquiry and the Academy of Talented Scholars will share one building, while the Science and Medicine Middle School will share its building with a new transfer school. In District 15, the Red Hook Neighborhood School will replace the early grades of PS 27, a K-12 school that is phasing out, and in District 19, East New York Elementary and East New York Middle School will replace PS 72.

Manhattan

Downtown Manhattan parents in District 2 will gain two new highly-anticipated elementary schools, the Battery Park City School and the Spruce Street School, as well as Quest to Learn, an innovative, technology-based 6-12 school. Uptown parents will gain three new middle schools: West Prep Academy in District 3, Global Technology Prep in District 4, and New Tech in District 5.

Queens

The new schools will be concentrated on the Rockaway Peninsula. The Waterside Children’s Studio School, an arts-based elementary school, and the Waterside School for Leadership, a middle school, will replace PS 225, which will begin to phase out in June. Village Academy will open at MS 53 to give students a second zoned option.

Staten Island

Staten Island will get its first K-8 school when The Staten Island School for Civic Leadership opens in the Graniteville neighborhood.

We’ll keep posting information about the new schools as we learn it. Stay tuned to the InsideScoop.

Gotham Gazette Editor-in-Chief Gail Robinson takes a close look at the potentially thorny path from private parochial school to public charter school. She poses good questions about the fuzzy dividing lines between church and state, pointing out, for example, that public resources are already directed to parochial schools for transportation. Readers keen to keep abreast of trends in education — or to track the gathering momentum of charter growth in the city’s schools — take note.

In keeping with the news of the week from Washington, we asked readers what they thought of charter schools. The short report: There’s no groundswell of opinion — in any direction. Click here to see the results.

About 30 percent of poll respondents support more charter development, while 23 percent each felt that charters threaten traditional publics or that charters were both good and bad (much like traditional schools). Notably, about one in four people said they just didn’t know enough about charters to offer an informed opinion; for those with questions, check out this basic guide, DOE’s charter info, and the state’s Charter School Institute, for lots of detailed information on established and new charter schools. (And rest assured, we’ll be covering charters going forward, and will gladly respond to reader questions and comments.)

This week marked high season for standardized testing; whether your child is in elementary or middle school, or a high-school student facing the Regents, we’re curious about their experience getting ready for the tests. We’d also love to hear from teachers and administrators about their school’s test-prep practices — please, weigh in on the poll, and share your thoughts in the comments string, too.

A funny thing is happening in school districts around the city: the Department of Education is trying to pioneer our town’s first Charter Zones.

The DOE recently announced that it will close four neighborhood schools—PS 241 in District 3, PS 194 in District 5, PS 150 in District 23, and PS 72 in District 19—and then announced proposals to replace each of the schools with new charters, rather than new neighborhood schools. Now here is a question: does emptying a zone of all zoned schools constitute a change in the zone?

According to New York State Education Law, authority to approve changes in zoning lines rests in the hands of Community District Education Councils. In addition, the Legislature expressly required DOE to consult with a CDEC before the closing of any school in that district. With these provisions, the Legislature intended to protect parents’ rights and voices in decisions that directly impact their children’s schools, and to ensure parents’ engagement on issues that affect the quality of their children’s education.

Numerous organizations and elected officials, including the Alliance for Quality Education, as well as CDECs from various parts of the city, are starting to come together over the DOE’s practice of ignoring state law. A number of CDECs have passed resolutions, which is what CDECs do when they get mad. Here’s one from CDEC3 jointly with the District 3 President’s Council, one from CDEC26, and another from CDEC15.

On WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show yesterday, Chancellor Klein said of District 3 “we work closely with them, actually we did a rezoning up there with them that I think was very successful.” (Maybe Brian will bring on some District 3 parent leaders to tell their own stories next time.) Personally, I wonder why the Chancellor decided, within days after that “very successful” zoning process was concluded, to slam the door shut on legally mandated parent involvement.

In April, just a few weeks away, all charter schools in New York City will hold lotteries to select their students for the 2009-2010 school year. Most of the new charter schools, however, still don’t have a building. Of the 24 charter schools expected to open in fall 2009, only seven schools have an address, four of which cannot disclose their location until March 12.

The last-minute rush to find space for a new charter school is not new. When Voice Charter School opened in Queens last year, they didn’t find a home until ten days before their lottery. “Everything was tentative. We really couldn’t say where we would be,” said Principal Frank Headley. “It did confuse parents.”

Charter schools are approved one year prior to their opening in September, but the Department of Education doesn’t determine whether DOE space is available until January, said Mike Duffy, executive director of the city’s charter school office. Although charter schools can choose to obtain private space and determine their location sooner, most decide not to for financial reasons.

In New York State, charter schools do not receive money for operating expenses, such as facilities, but in New York City, charter schools housed in a DOE facility reside rent-free. “They don’t pay a dollar,” said Duffy. As a result, charter schools play the waiting game and often amend their charters to fit their new location. “A charter is applied for a specific neighborhood… if they end up getting sited in a different district they need to amend their charter,” said Duffy. “The law requires them to admit kids in their district.”

Girls Prep of East Harlem planned to serve English Language Learners in District 4. They recently learned there is no space in East Harlem, and they will be moved to the South Bronx. Equality Charter School asked to be in District 12, but will be placed in District 11. Duffy says some schools don’t care where they are located, while others are “so focused on the neighborhood they get private space because it’s so integral to their mission,” he said.

Still others may end up not opening at all if they can’t find adequate facilities. Principal Jeffrey Litt at Carl C. Icahn Charter School says he needs 10 classrooms and an office in order to open Icahn #4 in September 2009. The space would be temporary. Icahn is currently building a “multi-million dollar facility,” to house both Icahn #3 and Icahn #4, but it won’t be ready for a few years, said Litt.

When will the locations be announced? Stay tuned to Insideschools.org for updates.

This fall 24 charter schools are expected to open across New York City, bringing the total number of city charter schools to more than 100. Although classes don’t begin until next August or September, parents must submit an application by April 1. If schools receive more applications than there are places available - and they almost always do - they must hold lotteries to select their students.

Some schools belong to existing charter school networks; others are organized around specific themes. A few are single sex. Many schools promote uniforms and a back-to- basics curriculum, while others say they will use more progressive teaching approaches. Most of the new schools still don’t know where they will be located although the majority will be in Brooklyn.

Here’s a rundown on what Insideschools.org has learned about the new schools.

Established school networks

Many of the new charter schools are joining established networks of schools that share a similar philosophy and academic model.

• KIPP NYC College Prep High School in Manhattan joins a national group of 66 schools and will be the first KIPP school in New York to have grades 9-12. Only students who attend a KIPP middle school can apply to the high school. KIPP Academy Charter School in the Bronx, currently a middle school, is now opening admissions to younger students and will expand to include elementary school grades.
• Achievement First (AF) will continue to expand its network of Brooklyn charter schools. Current 5th-graders at AF East New York Elementary School will make up the 6th grade class at AF East New York Middle School, a new 6-8 school opening in September. Likewise, AF Crown Heights Middle School’s 8th-graders will become the first class at AF Crown Heights High School the second high school within the AF network.
• The non-profit group Uncommon Schools is opening three more schools in Brooklyn, each of which replicates an existing school model:Brownsville Collegiate Charter School, modeled after Williamsburg Collegiate;Leadership Preparatory Brownsville Charter School, modeled after Leadership Prep Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant;Excellence Charter School for Girls, sister school to Excellence Charter, an all-boys school.
• The Foundation for a Greater Opportunity, founded by Carl C. Icahn, is slated to open a fourth charter school in the Bronx named after the philanthropist. Like the three older schools, Carl C. Icahn Charter School 4 is likely to open as an elementary school.
• The Brooklyn Scholars Charter School is managed by National Heritage Academies. NHA provides education programs to 57 charter schools in six different states, including the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School. The school will open with 196 students in grades K-4.

Three other schools based on existing models in New York include the first siblings of Brooklyn Ascend Charter School in Brownsville, Explore Charter School in Flatbush and the single-sex, Girls Preparatory Charter School on the Lower East Side.

• Brownsville Ascend Charter School will open with kindergarten and 1st grade students, and ultimately serve students in grades K-12.
• Also in Brooklyn, Explore Charter School 2 will open with kindergartners, first- and second-graders, and serve grades K- 8.
• Girls Prep 2 will enroll girls for kindergarten and 1st grade in the Bronx, and plans to expand to the 8th grade.

Themed schools

A few of the charters stand out for their themes.

• The Hebrew Language Academy will concentrate on Hebrew language and culture.
• The Ethical Community Charter School (TECCS) promises students a strong ethics curriculum that will promote community service and social justice.
• Growing Up Green, the only new charter in Queens, will infuse environmentally-friendly thinking into all aspects of instruction.
• Academic Leadership, a K-5 school, plans to teach “character education and develop ethical and responsible citizens,” according to its charter application.

Secondary schools

Among this year’s crop of schools, secondary schools that span middle and high school grades are a popular model.

• Two 6-12 schools will be located in District 15: Summit Academy in Red Hook and Brooklyn Prospect in Sunset Park. Brooklyn Prospect will follow the International Baccalaureate diploma program, while Summit Academy will concentrate on improving students’ basic skills with 100 minutes each of English and math daily.
• The first charter in South Brooklyn, Coney Island Prep, is a 5-12 school.
• In Flatbush, Fahari Academy focuses on the basics, and will offer its students an increasingly progressive approach to learning as they grow and mature from grade 5 through 12.
• Equality Charter School is a 6-12 charter in the Bronx.
• The Equity Project Charter School in Washington Heights will test whether high teacher salaries improve student performance. Teachers earn a $125,000 annual salary with the potential to gain additional yearly bonuses.

High schools

In addition to KIPP and Achievement First, the Believe High School Network is also starting two charter high schools this fall. Believe North Side Charter High School and Believe South Side Charter High School will open in the same building in Williamsburg.

How to apply

Anybody living in New York may apply to a charter school but priority in admissions is given to students living in the district where the school is located. A few schools also reserve seats for students who are at risk of failing. To get an application, call the school or check its website. You may be able to download the application online, or you may have to go to an open house to pick one up. Either way, schools must consider any applications received by April 1. Many charter schools are hosting information sessions. Check the schools’ websites for updated information.

See our charter school primer for more information about charter schools.

Much of the public debate, blog buzz, and press coverage of President Obama’s education address yesterday has focused on his strong endorsement of charter schools, which are publicly funded schools managed by private, non-DOE authorities, some for profit and some not. The Times highlighted Obama’s call to lift the cap on charter development (in place in 26 states and the District of Columbia), and on merit pay for teachers. The News gathered a consensus of largely positive (if generalized) responses from education leaders like Joel Klein and teachers-union head Randi Weingarten. The Post focused on merit pay along with Obama’s charter mandate.

The simple fact of an education debate at center stage is cause for a certain kind of celebration. But it’s worth remembering, as NYU education professor Pedro Noguera noted this morning, that charters serve a small minority of New York City students compared to traditional schools and that many charters (though not all) can choose to enroll certain kids and decline to work with children with special needs or who require English language instruction. A longer school day and year mean that most charter school teachers work without a union contract — even despite some teachers’ desire to organize – and that often charter school teachers are younger and less-seasoned than many of their public-school peers. Charters that share a building with a traditional elementary school often enjoy smaller classes and more ample resources — benefits of the charter structure — that can look unfair to kids, families, and teachers on the other side of the charter fence.

Bottom line, charter schools are a mixed bag, with some showing outstanding results and others mired in drill-and-kill, test-dense curricula. This will come as no surprise to those with experience in the city’s schools, where excellent schools coexist with so-so schools (and worse). My question is, if a rising tide lifts all boats — as Education Secretary said in a recent radio interview – how does diverting streams of that tide, as kids and their engaged, proactive families exit mainstream schools for charters, still help the whole?

Note: See our articles, published today, about the 24 new charter schools opening in the city in the fall of 2009 and their struggles to find spaces for their schools. We also have published previews of all of the new charter schools.

Parents bounced from table to table at a Harlem school fair on Saturday, filling up tote bags with pamphlets and eagerly asking about admissions requirements. Harlem has one of the highest concentrations of charter schools of any neighborhood in the country, and yet it seems that the demand for educational options is still strong: thousands of parents waited in the cold in order to gain admission to the fair promoting school choice. More than 50 schools were represented - the majority of which were charter schools, although private, parochial, and local zoned schools also had tables.

The fair, which was organized by the Success Charter School network, succeeded in showing how many parents supported school choice. It was less successful in managing the crowd - families were forced to wait outside for up to an hour before a squadron of police officers allowed them in (”Why the massive police presence?” one mother said. “We came here for our children’s education - it sets the wrong tone.”) Many parents brought their children, and since there were no child-centric activities or distractions offered, by the end of the afternoon, the large City College gym had played host to several (understandable) meltdowns.

Parents continued to move from booth to booth, asking what grade levels each school served and if their child could possibly win a spot in the lottery, while Chancellor Klein shouted into a microphone crediting Mayor Bloomberg with the proliferation of charter schools. Although event organizers tried to shush the crowd, neither the educators nor the parents wanted to stop for politics.

“I am here to find the best school for my daughter,” one parent said, as she approached the Insideschools.org table. “Can you help me?”

Harlem parents seeking alternatives to their zoned public schools will find options at the Harlem Education Fair on Saturday, Feb. 28. Unlike the city’s Department of Education fairs, which only feature public schools, this fair, sponsored by Harlem Success Charter School network and several community groups, will bring together 52 schools, including private and parochial schools.

“I don’t think children should be condemned to failing schools because of their zip code. It’s my right as a parent to choose my child’s school. I helped organize this fair because parents need to know they are not bound to their zoned school, they have options,” Sabrina Williams, a member of Harlem Parents United, a group of parents whose children attend Harlem Success Charter Schools, wrote in an e-mail to Insideschools.org.

In New York City, most elementary school students attend their zoned school, which is determined by a student’s address, but many parents remain unaware that their children have other options. Central Park East, whose representatives will be at the fair, admits students based on their interest in the school, not on their test scores or their zipcode. Other schools, such as the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering middle school, accept students who score above average on state tests. Like new posh restaurants, charter schools in Harlem are sprouting up and spreading across the neighborhood each year. Representatives from 22 charter schools, which admit students through a lottery, will be at the fair.

Organizers expect as many as 3000 people to attend, due to extensive mailings reaching homes in the far reaches of the Bronx as well as Upper Manhattan. Harlem Parents United members slipped fliers under apartment doors in every Harlem public housing building, organizers said.

The fair, to be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Nat Holman Gymnasium at City College (138^th St. and Convent Ave.), will also include free food. Chancellor Joel Klein is expected to attend and speak. Also in attendance will be representatives from community organizations such as Advocates for Children, Insideschools.org, the Children’s Aid Society, and the Children’s Scholarship Fund.

Borrowing a page from New York’s senior senator’s weekend playbook, the mayor on Saturday announced the DOE’s intention to transform four languishing Catholic schools into New York City charter schools. The plan, endorsed by the mayor and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, appears to be a great potential match: With underused buildings (and famously dwindling finances), the Catholic schools can offer the city much-needed facilities and classroom space. (The plan would permit the extant schools to offer 100 new seats.) But caution is surely warranted as well: The sorry physical state of many parochial school buildings (some have been used to incubate new schools since 2002) will require significant capital investment. And whether the charters will continue or extend the academic work of the Catholic schools they replace deserves close scrutiny: At least one charter school in Brooklyn, which began as a private school for a once-vibrant Greek community, was able to sustain the core of its original curriculum, thanks to the infusion of state funds. It’s election season, of course, and bridge-building makes a campaign sing. But this effort is a pilot program, meant to test the waters ahead of other possible parochial-to-public-charter conversions. In a time when the city’s established public schools are threatened with cuts of every stripe, does an investment in new charters, with the support and endorsement of the Church, make good economic sense?

Today at noon, Mayor Bloomberg will give his annual budget address – the last before the November election. The mayor’s budget is expected to include 23,000 job cuts, nearly a billion in new taxes, and other “doomsday” strategies to stanch a $4 billion budget gap. (Slim consolation in the Times’ report that things aren’t quite as bad as they could be.)

Earlier this week, Chancellor Klein testified in Albany that up to 15,000 education jobs are at risk; in a statement yesterday that echoed Klein’s threat (and, possibly, predicted similar challenges for organizations like New York City Teaching Fellows), Teach for America’s New York office announced drastic cutbacks in recruitment and funding. GothamSchools has details here; their prediction that there won’t be too many eager 22-year-olds teaching in the city’s schools come September seems entirely plausible. (Of note, more of the new teachers who do get hired will likely be placed in charter schools, which characteristically feature longer workdays and a longer school year — and, rarely, union protection. The truism of sending the least-proven teachers into the toughest settings is, unfortunately, looking all too true again.)

Tune in here to watch the Mayor speak.

Public charter schools straddle an uncertain divide — with public money, they often serve targeted constituencies, from the consistently underserved to families looking for cultural connection and context. What the charters characterize as focus — on a particular community, ideal of academic achievement, or on intellectual discipline — critics see as exclusionary and discriminatory, and counter to the melting-pot theory of public education.

In a weekend Valentine to culture-based charter education in Minnesota, Sara Rimer of the Times celebrates the ability of these specialized schools to serve the ethnic minorities whose children make up the student body. All well and good, says Rimer, as kids new to the U.S. gain in academics but keep a foundation in their home culture. But what’s good for the country often doesn’t square up as positive in New York City. Witness the firestorm over Khalil Gibran International Academy – the city’s first Arabic-language public school, which was forced out of its original placement, lost its founding principal and is scrambling now to gain a foothold in a remote location, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. To describe the public response to KGIA as oppositional is to understate the force of gravity: Despite the presence of dozens of language-based city schools, this one inflamed the barely dormant spark of discrimination and anti-Muslim sentiment.

In today’s Times, Elissa Gootman describes a new proposal for a Hebrew-language charter school, backed by financier Michael Steinhardt (among others) and the project of Steinhardt’s daughter Sara Berman. Planned for the Midwood-Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, great pains have been taken to separate the school’s Hebrew studies — language, culture, history, music, and arts — from any formal religious instruction. Students of all races and ethnicities will be eligible to apply, if the proposal is approved this week by the New York State Regents. But the students that choose to attend the school may or may not reflect the surrounding, racially diverse community.

While some of the loudest KGIA naysayers are now silent, many critics question the charter school’s ability to offer values-neutral instruction. But the proposal, from Gootman’s report, seems rock-solid, and the school may well go forward.

The counterpoint of both stories leads to three big questions: First, why is it good for schools in the heartland to inculcate particular cultures, and not good in New York? And second, does a school that’s highly focused on a language or a culture contradict a bedrock principle of public education — to bring youngsters into the American culture even as they learn to read, write, and think? Can public schools do both, serve specific constituencies and serve the greater good?

The Globe today highlights an MIT/Harvard study of Boston-area charter and ‘pilot’ schools, in which charter schools steadily outperformed both the pilot schools — essentially, charter-style schools run by the city with union contracts for teachers and staff — and Boston’s traditional public schools. The study documents striking gains in middle-school math — gains that are reflected here in New York’s 78 public charters, despite profound gaps in early-grade math scores.

Citywide, only about half of third-graders in charter schools score at level 3 or 4 on state math exams (54%), compared with 87% of third-graders in the city’s hundreds of non-charter elementary schools. By eighth grade, though, the balance has flipped: Three-fourths of charter students score level 3 or 4 in math, compared with 60% citywide.

Some might attribute the gains to the focus many charters place on drills, skills, and testing, while others contend that without basic skills, kids can’t progress to master more sophisticated content. No one can argue that stronger parent engagement, a characteristic many charter schools share, drives attendance and thus achievement: Kids who show up learn more. Notably in Boston, charter schools are characterized as “independent public schools dedicated to innovative teaching,” while New York’s charters extend the DOE’s familiar focus on achievement and accountability.

The pesky ‘details’ nearly always overlooked deserve loud mention: According to the New York City Charter Center annual report, charters serve far, far fewer English Language Learners than other city schools — only about 3% of charter students need language instruction, compared with 14% of students citywide. (Yes, that’s nearly five times as many.) And students who require special education count for only 9% of charter students overall, compared with 14% of public-school students. The Center says charters are “marginally behind” other public schools in this regard, but from here, the gap doesn’t seem marginal at all: Non-charter public schools have a third more special-needs students, many of whom require a level and sophistication of services charters cannot provide, such as special, self-contained classes and cash-intensive resources, like adaptive gyms, speech instruction, and physical and occupational therapy.

So all well and good to compare apples with apples — but when the fruit bowl’s more inclusive, it’s important to recognize what goes into the mix.

Three 6-12 schools already exist in Brooklyn’s District 15 — The Secondary Schools for Law, Journalism and Social Research, in the old John Jay High School building — to mixed reviews, but the DOE has approved a new secondary charter, the Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, to open in September 2009. It will be District 15’s first charter school at any level and only the second secondary charter school in the city. Admission is by lottery, with priority to District 15.

Information sessions are planned for October 6 and 27 from 6-8 p.m. at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope. Tours are moot: There’s no actual site for the school just yet. Executive director and co-founder Dan Rubenstein says that he’s hoping for a site within walking distance of BAM, their community partner, although he expects the school will incubate in one site in the short term before being assigned its own building.

Led by Rubenstein and Luyen Chou (a founder of the fabled School at Columbia University, ed-tech wizard, and former Dalton faculty member), the new charter will open with 88 students in four sixth-grade classes and grow with a new grade every year. Rubenstein, who describes himself as “a teacher first and a school leader second,” says all Brooklyn Prospect teachers will be certified but will not be bound by union contracts, as is common among charters since they often require longer hours and other work not permitted by UFT regulations.

No building seems to be no problem for interested parents. Applications are being accepted for the coming year; to learn more or RSVP for an info session, visit the school’s website.

Wall Street may be flailing but this week, many city teachers and principals are flush, thanks to bonuses based on the school progress reports. There also still seems to be enough cash left for Village residents to open a new private high school and parents to apply in record-breaking numbers for spaces in Financial District private kindergarten. For some, spending money still looks like a good investimen; as there are more high school seniors in the United States than ever before, lots of families hiring expensive private college counselors to try to get an edge on the competition.

A teacher at the Bronx School of Law and Finance is using the volatile markets to teach economics lessons. Maybe she can explain how class size in more than half of city schools went up despite state aid to lower class size — and the revelation that more teachers are receiving paychecks without being given a teaching assignment.

Despite Bloomberg’s “no social promotion” mandate, fewer students were held back this year. Summer school lessons, however, do not seem to be enough to help most students who failed during the regular school year make up the work and move to the next grade.

Charter schools, many of which received top grades this week, may face serious threats in the future, according one advocate. But for now, New York’s charters hope to get a little more help from the state and a little less regulation.

Some of the school bus problems may be getting sorted out, but the affected students, many of whom have special needs, now have to settle into their school year routines… three weeks late. Several students with ADHD who attended an NYU summer program are adjusting well to school, however, which their parents credit to their structured summer.

Bloomberg responded to the Times editorial last week that suggested mayoral control of the schools might have a few more checks and balances. Naturally, the mayor disagreed. Several top Boston educators who have moved to New York might add to his case.

Education experts square off on Obama’s plan for the nations schools, and The Sun uncovered Klein’s education policy reading list.

While most of the education news this week circled around the Progress Report grades, when the Times discovered that the Chancellor also grades his own staff on how well they host a press conference, press secretary, David Cantor, was inspired to email the Gray Lady their own grade: “Value of the story: F.”

With the news that the Obama campaign aims to double federal dollars for charter schools in concert with the McCain camp’s established charter-school support (along with its concerted push for public-school vouchers), more attention is being focused on charters as alternatives to failing mainstream schools. Charters are fairly young institutions — the first charter school in the U.S. opened its doors in 1992 in Minnesota — but 4,300 more have debuted in the years since, and a new report by Education Week predicts an “acute shortage of leaders” — to the tune of up to 20,000 new principals — in response to the “unprecedented scale-up” in charter school growth. Charter school leaders tend to be younger and less experienced than principals of traditional public schools; nearly 60 percent have less than five years experience as school leaders.

Lumping all charters under one expansive umbrella risks oversimplifying the issue: For starters, some are run by veteran administrators, others by mission-driven idealists; some are sponsored by profit-making business entities and others by non-profit philanthropic or community-based institutions; and because most do not use union teachers, there’s  enormous variability in pay, hours, and what’s expected on the job. Philosophically, charters can be ultra-structured and traditional, as many are, or more progressive. So while it’s convenient to talk about charters as a single bloc, it’s important to realize the variability in each school’s mission, staffing, teaching practices, and the community it serves.

Charter schools have become a fixture of the public-school landscape. Their exponential growth gives some serious pause, but many families find much to praise, as evidenced by jammed lotteries for prized schools. Yet whether charters truly serve all the city’s students, or only certain swaths of historically undeserved communities, remains an open question. And given the location of the 18 charters opened by the DOE this fall, it’s one that won’t likely be answered anytime soon.

To herald the new school year, the news last week was filled with first day of school stories. Articles spotlit new schools, new charter schools, and charter school networks new to New York; others described overcrowded schools, school enrollment issues and school scheduling issues; yet more explored poorly performing schools, projected shortages of schools in the future, and traffic problems around schools.

Even in this maelstrom, a significant amount of conversation swirled around mayoral control of the Department of Education and whether it would be renewed, especially in light of the recommendations made by the Public Advocate’s commission of experts. Despite the commission’s support (with caveats) for mayoral control, Bloomberg slammed their suggestions, saying he “can’t take it very seriously.” But just one day before his harsh outburst, the Mayor held a press conference decrying school bullies and introducing new anti-bullying regulations.

Although term limits most likely mean a Bloomberg exit from City Hall, some movers and shakers want to put Chancellor Klein up for the job. Parents, meanwhile, are taking school reform into their own hands - in both in legal and illegal ways.

As parents and students begin gearing up for the new school year, the news this week was dominated by the standard – yet colossal and complicated – contemporary education debates, including charter schools, standardized testing, and incentives.

Mayor Bloomberg kicked off the week by announcing that 18 new charter schools would open in the city this fall. The Times opened a Q and A between readers and James D. Merriman IV, the chief executive of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence. The Sun editorialized in favor of charter schools and private school vouchers. The Daily News wrote about Bay Ridge, Brooklyn parents who oppose a charter school moving into public school buildings.

A Newsday reporter who set out to prove that the Regents exams were easy by taking the U.S. History test unprepared scored a 97 and made his point. Meanwhile, students’ scores on the Advanced Placement tests were released, and the apparently mixed results of pay-for-scores programs vaulted the issue of monetary incentives back into the papers. Employees of the Princeton Review, a high-profile national testing company, made a serious computer error that resulted in 34,000 Florida public school students’ private information available to anyone online.

Several disheartening stories involved special education students: allegations of abuse in one city school, asbestos in another, and concerns over special education bus service for the fall. A disabled teacher sued, claiming his epilepsy cost him his job, and a national story about corporal punishment (legal in schools in 21 states but not New York) found that special education students – as well as minority and low income students – disproportionately felt the paddle.

And a couple of journalists used the end of the summer to ask key questions about the future. What will happen to No Child Left Behind, now that Bush is on his way out and a new president is on his way in? Will mayoral control be renewed by the state legislature, especially since Klein and Bloomberg have largely ignored politicians’ education opinions? And where does Obama really stand on education, as supporters of several different ­– and sometimes competing – initiatives claim to be in alignment with the candidate? Education mysteries abound.

Citing competition as the key to success, Mayor Bloomberg says that pressure from charter schools force traditional public schools to improve. But advocates like Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters beg to differ: the small classes that are the charter norm are all too elusive in mainstream public education, despite long-fought battles. And one has to ask a question that’s tough to ask aloud: Are middle-class parents fighting as hard for access to charters as families in neighborhoods long poorly served by city schools?

Maybe that’s one of the questions that will be answered on the New York Times Charter School Q&A thread. And for families of high-school students and rising eighth-graders, who will be facing the high-school selection process this year, the DOE is hosting a Q&A with Evaristo Jimenez, head of high school enrollment.

As one commenter implored yesterday, speak up! If parents don’t ask the hard questions to advance their child’s education, who will?

It’s safe bet that most readers saw yesterday’s New York Times magazine cover story, detailing the vast educational experiment underway in New Orleans. In a similar vein, today at noon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will announce the opening of 18 new charter schools, which are subject to stringent oversight (read, lots of student testing to measure achievement) but not obliged to meet city-mandated curriculum guidelines — or or bound by union rules, as most charter school faculties aren’t UFT members.

Some schools, like the KIPP charters and Excellence Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant, have great reputations, while others flounder and struggle. We’d love to hear from readers whose kids attend charter schools; are you happy with what and how your kids are learning? What’s happening in your child’s classroom?

And in the spirit of behind-the-headlines illumination, see this tiny AP item. Teachers in a Texas district get the official ok to pack heat in the classroom — ostensibly, to discourage school violence. Anyone else get awfully nervous at this kind of news?

I had sort of thought that the folks who last autumn were talking about bringing a Hebrew-language charter school to New York City would have been dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but apparently they were not. Next week, representatives of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life plans to submit an application to the DOE and the state Board of Regents to open a charter school as early as 2009, according to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward.

The proposal will be modeled after Ben Gamla Charter in Florida, which ran into some trouble early in this school year because its Hebrew language curriculum contained religious references. Considering that doing damage control for Khalil Gibran proved costly and embarrassing for the DOE and that the controversy continues to this day, it should be interesting to see what kind of reception the Hebrew school’s advocates receive.