That's how many students have enrolled in public charter schools nationwide, according to a new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In 41 states and the District of Columbia, parents and educators have come together, voluntarily, seeking a high-quality public education. After last week's elections, more families…
In Monday's New York Post, James Merriman highlights several additional findings from the 2011-12 New York City Progress Reports, based on the full data set now available on the NYC DOE website. (Our initial analysis of the top-level letter grades can be found here.) The full data set provides numerical…
Today, the NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE) released its 2011-12 Progress Reports for public schools serving grades K-8, including charter schools. Overall, charter schools' grades are improved from the previous year. Close to half (46%) of all charter schools received an A grade, compared to 25% of public schools…
Creating a charter school often starts as an exhilarating project, filled with breakthrough curriculum ideas, ways to serve families where there are low-performing schools, and visions of better futures for children through superlative education. The glittering ideal, however, meets an imposing reality, in the form of the charter school application.…
The results are out from the NYC Department of Education's Learning Environment Surveys, a rich source of information on how parents, students, and teachers view their public schools (district and charter). This year's surveys elicited responses from over 476,000 parents, over 62,000 teachers, and over 428,000 students in grades 6-12.…
Nobody does scientific caution like Matt Di Carlo, blogger for the union-affiliated Albert Shanker Institute. Though "not so fast" isn't the sexiest message in education debates, we could surely use more fair-minded and careful voices like his. But this week, Di Carlo takes his caution to the extreme, writing: "Charter…
UPDATE: We posted our in-depth analysis of charter school test scores. View it here. The results are out from the 2011-12 state tests for Math and English Language Arts (ELA) in grades 3-8, and New York City charter school students, teachers, parents and school leaders once again have reason to…
Charter school educators are big on “grit,” that teachable character trait that helps at-risk students persevere to and through college. As a movement, charter schools have learned our own lessons about grit. We started with grand aspirations, to which we still fervently hold, but we also know that progress never…
That's the most charitable way to read the Daily News columnist's coverage of Success Charter Network's request for a fee increase, which falsely implies that it would result in more public dollars flowing to the Harlem-based charter schools. Let's be clear: neither the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, nor any other…
Mary Ann Giordano from the Times put it best. And who says co-located schools can’t get along?" Ms. Giordano is referring to a district-charter co-location collaboration that took place on Saturday in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Three co-located schools, Beford-Stuyvesant Collegiate Charter School, La Cima Elementary Charter School and…
