Charter Schools

Invasion Of The Charter Schools

Former City Councilmember Eva Moskowitz, with Bloomberg's union-busting blessing, is pushing her Success Academy edu-franchise into Brooklyn. The natives aren't buying.

UPDATE: Parents, Students and Community Not Sure They Have Real Voice in School Co-Location Process

UPDATE: Anyone who fought against the recent round of co-locations can now rest assured that they never had a say in yesterday's Panel on Educational Policy's vote. The PEP voted late last night to approve every co-location proposal up for consideration. The approvals came after hours of impassione ... More >>

Parents, Students and Community Not Sure They Have Real Voice in School Co-Location Process

Students, parents and the surrounding community have made it clear that they don't want the New York City Department of Education to co-locate a new school alongside Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts in Brooklyn. But, they're unclear whether they possess the power to stop it from ... More >>

Apps for Teacher

"Educational entrepreneurship" is booming, but can profit and pedagogy go hand in hand?

Brooklyn Community Rallies to Protect Beloved Arts School From Co-location

If it's not broken, and it actually works pretty well, let's throw a charter school in there and hope it doesn't break. That seems to be the philosophy the Department of Education is going with in its proposal to co-locate the newly proposed K-5 Success Academy Charter School Brooklyn 5 at K265 in ... More >>

City Council Presses Dept. of Education Officials on Controversial Co-Location Policy

After fielding criticisms earlier this week about the city's policy of shutting down failing schools, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the Department of Education took heat yesterday for the city's frequent practice of co-locating multiple schools in the same building. At an Education Committee hearing yes ... More >>

Eddie Calderon-Melendez, Brooklyn Charter School Founder, Accused Of Tax Evasion, Charging European Vacation On School Credit Card

There appears to be a reason a Brooklyn charter school was so broke in 2009 that its teachers were forced to double as janitors: the school's founder was allegedly using the (publicly funded) school's credit card to go gallivanting across Europe -- amongst several other alleged acts of sleaze.That f ... More >>

Black and White and Hebrew All Over

HLA is a new kind of charter school

Class Struggles at a Bronx Charter School

Bronx Success Academy 1 may not quiet its critics, but it's doing a good job making its kids shut up and pay attention

Bill Perkins and the Phantom Charter Schools Group

Perkins​Bill Perkins has been a fixture in Harlem politics since 1997, elected to two terms in the city council first and then to David Paterson's state senate seat in 2006. But the 60-year-old marathoner is in a fight for his political life now, facing a well-financed challenger, Basil Smikle ... More >>

Black Parents vs. the Teachers' Union

Union intransigence hits a low point

Mike Bloomberg and Joel Klein Want More Charter Schools So Bad, They Went to Church

With the looming deadline to apply for federal Race to the Top education funds coming next week, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have been taking their call to increase the number of charter schools far and wide. This weekend, they took the word to church, reports Daily News writer ... More >>

Video: Standardized Testing, Bullying, Charter School System to Blame for Texas Teacher-Student Beatdown

​Have you seen the video of that teacher at a Texas charter school who gave a kid an ass-stompin' beatdown? Well, via Yahoo, the teacher -- Sherri Davis -- went on Good Morning America today. It was fairly convincing, but a few elements in the narrative that are pretty important to understandi ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo Risks Teachers' Union Wrath By Supporting Raising Number of Charter Schools

​The Post's Fred Dicker reports this morning that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is planning to support the recently passed Senate Bill to increase the number of charter schools in the state. If true, this would be just the latest unlikely development in how the issue of charter schools is rea ... More >>

Eric Schneiderman, Too Beholden to Teachers' Union to Be Attorney General?

Schneiderman​Eric Schneiderman, the Manhattan state senator running for Attorney General, was one of 12 Democrats who voted against the charter school bill that passed 45 to 15 on Monday. Ironically, though a bill authorizing new charter schools appears irrelevant to the AG race, t ... More >>

State Senate Votes to More Than Double Number of Charter Schools

​The State Senate voted yesterday to raise the number of charter schools in the state to 460 from 200. Majority Leader John Sampson supported the legislation and, despite significant Democratic resistance, led it to a surprisingly bipartisan victory (45-15). More than doubling the number of c ... More >>

Teachers' Union Rolls Out Hoary Excuse To Oppose More Charter Schools

​If you're looking for a laugh, go on the website of the United Federation of Teachers, the union that is leading the fight against charter schools, whose reading and math scores are 15 to 20 points better than traditional schools. The union just went on the air with an ad blasting "for-profi ... More >>

Merryl Tisch, State Schools Chancellor, Doesn't Seem Too Worked Up About Losing Federal Funds

Go for the money, Merryl!​State schools chancellor and role model Merryl Tisch certainly sounded like she was showing New York's millions of public school kids how to throw in the towel Wednesday night. She told NY1's Lindsey Christ that the state might not even submit an applicat ... More >>

Mayor Bloomberg Beats Norm Siegel, Decrees North Side of 79th Street a 'No Free Speech Zone'

Norm Siegel was not quite where he wanted to be today. On Saturday, when he spoke at the School of the Future to a group of activists planning to protest school closings, the civil rights attorney was riding pretty high. Last month, he'd successfully beaten back Columbia's eminent domain ambitions ... More >>

Barrett: Bill DeBlasio, Public Advocate or Teachers Union Patsy?

​Bill deBlasio may have set a record with his first-day-on-the-job thumping by the New York Post last week. Under the headline "ACORN's City Hall branch," a Post editorial, posted at 1:40 on the morning of deBlasio's second day as public advocate, blasted his announcement that he was forming a ... More >>

U. Tube: Student Teachers Learn From Video Training

MTA student transit passes may be cut

http://coveringeducation.org/​The MTA is planning to cut costs by eliminating free- and reduced-fare student transit passes for over half a million city students, according to the Daily News. A fare discount on express busses was already cancelled earlier this year. The Bloomberg administrati ... More >>

Times Notices Conflicts Between Public Schools and Charters

The New York Times reports today that charter schools are sometimes in conflict with their public-school hosts, particularly as regards space, on which some P.S. personnel and parents think they get shafted: at Middle School 126 in Williamsburg, for example, access to the school library is granted t ... More >>

Missing Person: Brannovan Martinez, 9

​Nine-year-old Brannovan Martinez of The Bronx left his grandma's house on Melrose Avenue near 156th Street yesterday morning at eight to walk to the Bronx Lighthouse Charter School several blocks east, but never made it. He's 4 feet tall, about 65 pounds, with brown eyes, black hair, and a sc ... More >>

Bloomberg, Avella and Thompson at WFP Mayoral Forum: Some Highlights

Last night three candidates for Mayor of New York -- Michael Bloomberg, councilmember Tony Avella, and comptroller Bill Thompson -- attended the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street. (We should mention that Green Party candidate Reverend Billy wanted ... More >>

School Daze: Charter Break-in at Harlem P.S.

Back in February, Mayor Bloomberg threatened that there could be "riots in the streets" if mayoral control isn't renewed in Albany, and in today's Daily News, Juan Gonzalez reports the first mini-riot outbreak.The commotion came at P.S. 123 where yesterday workers showed up unannounced and started r ... More >>

Hebrew Academy Charter Panned, Jeered at Marine Park Hearing

The city is eager to put a charter school called Hebrew Language Academy, bankrolled by the Stenhardt Foundation for Jewish Life, in Marine Park. There have been objections from civil libertarians and from Diane Ravitch to the presumed religious nature of the school. But yesterday, GerritsenBeach. ... More >>

Letters

Letters: May 20, 2009

Bloomberg and the Teachers' Union

It's (almost) summertime, and the Mayor's campaigning is easy. So easy, he can roll over the union this time—and should.

Harlem's School Choice

Parents and the city face off over whether to rescue a failing school—or replace it

Loophole 101

How Charter Schools Weaken the Teachers’ Union