Today, Justice Feinman of NYS Supreme Court ruled against a group of charter opponents who had sought a preliminary injunction against the NYC Department of Education, requiring it to charge charter schools rent when they are co-located in public school buildings. Justice Feinman, in a well-reasoned and thoughtful opinion, declined…
Not much has changed in co-location or availability of real estate for public schools in more than 110 years. Our friend Nelson Smith recently perused through the history books and found an interesting quote from 1898 about our public schools in NYC – long before charters were part of the…
When the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) released its “struggling schools” list last week, it included six charter schools alongside over 40 district schools. Clearly, NYC DOE wants to signal that accountability is for all schools, including charters. (I can’t help but think how far we’ve come…
Amber Charter School is launching a column on education and parenting in El Diario La Prensa (see story in the paper today concerning the new column: http://www.impre.com/eldiariony/vida-estilo/educacion/2011/11/7/no-se-pierda-a-la-maestra-del--281088-1.html. The new weekly column will be written by Dr. Vashti Acosta, Principal of Amber Charter School, starting as of November 14 discussing a…
As many NYC public schools adapt to life in full or overcrowded school buildings, charter school co-locations have been targeted for blame. To get beyond warring anecdotes, we took a look at the DOE's latest "Blue Book" data on building utilization across the city. We found some surprising facts: Judging…
Today, the NYC Department of Education released its 2010-11 progress reports for high schools. (See our breakdown of the K-8 progress reports.) The reports assign a letter grade to each school, based on student test scores, student progress, attendance, and “learning environment” survey results—all heavily weighted to account for differing…
The NYC Department of Education’s Learning Environment Surveys are a rich source of data about New Yorkers’ experiences in their public schools. Upwards of 450,000 parents, 425,000 secondary students, and 55,000 teachers completed the surveys in 2010-11—in district and charter schools. Although survey scores only count for 10 of 115…
We spent the week guest blogging over at Eduwonk.com, the Ed Reform blog by Bellwether Education Partners' Andrew Rotherham. Here's a round-up of all of the posts from Monday, October 3 to Friday, October 7. Friday, October 7:It's Been RealWhen Bad Charters Stay Open, Parents Deserve a WarningStretching the Clock…
It's not every day that you have an opportunity to make a big difference with very little effort expended. This is one of those days. East Harlem Tutorial Program (EHTP), a gem in the Harlem educational community, is part of Chase's annual million dollar grant contest on Facebook. Voting ends…
Today, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) released its 2010-11 Progress Reports for public schools serving grades K-8, including charter schools. Overall, charter schools’ grades are improved from the previous year. More than a third of all charter schools, and half of charter middle schools, received an A grade. Powered…
