Charters Widen the Gap: NYC Charters Continue to Lead

View Interactive Charts   Download Test Scores   On Tuesday, the New York State Education Department released results for the 2016-17 grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and math assessments. Unlike 2015-16, when the state implemented new testing procedures that differed from past years’ Common Core assessments, the 2016-17 results are directly…

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Taking the Difficult Path

By James Merriman Recently, one of the mayor’s most important initiatives, building and preserving 200,000 affordable housing units, has hit some roadblocks. While the City Council unanimously passed the legislation that allows for bigger and bulkier buildings to be erected than zoning laws would allow in exchange for the developer…

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Major Gains Seen in Achievement of Charter School Children in 2015-16 Test Scores

View Interactive Charts   Download Test Scores   By Michael Pih In what can be described as yet another transition year for New York State testing, NYC charter schools made significant gains, and outperformed their district counterparts in both ELA and Math. As the sector has done for the past three years,…

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The Devil is in the Details: Ensuring the Future of New York’s Charter Movement

By Michael Pih Somewhat buried in the coverage of the passage of the state’s budget was some great news for charter schools (beyond the needed and much appreciated $430 in additional per pupil for schools statewide). The budget included a little noticed and seemingly small “technical” change making permanent how…

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Leader Voices

By Christina Reyes, Executive Director of Inwood Academy for Leadership Starting Your School Right The proverbial saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,” is one that I constantly refer to as I relate the process of opening a charter school. It seems like an impossible…

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Alive and Growing Smartly

By Michael Pih Each morning, my inbox contains a digest of all the latest in education news here in the city, which gives me some sense of what the day has in store. It was with some shock, then, that I recently read an opinion piece in which the author…

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