GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

So much free PR for a chain of privately run schools…why? How often do you ever see stories like this on regular, diverse public schools and the kids they are serving (in spite of cuts that privately-run schools are insulated from). That aside, UW Success is, as Ms. Dahill-Fuchel says, exacerbating crowding at the high schools in that building and curtailing their intended expansion. We did not need this K-1 program taking up space in this building – those K-1 kids had available seats at their zoned schools. We did however need more quality high school seats to serve Upper Manhattan.  In fact the DOE told us we’d get them…in that building…until it became politically expedient to do otherwise.

“Enrollment at Upper West Success mirrors that of District 3, *according to data provided by the school*: The kindergarten and first grade student body is 35 percent white or Asian, 49 percent are black or Latino and 16 percent multiracial. About 40 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch. English language learners make up 5 percent of students and 12 percent of students receive special education services, officials said.”

White + Asian: UWS 35%, 2010-2011 final District 3 register says 34%. Off to a good start!

Black + Latino: UWS 49%, 2010-11 final District 3 register says 65%. 

Free-price + reduced-price lunch: UWS “about” 40%, 2010 NYSED District 3 report card is 55% (48% free + 7% reduced). We’ll have to revisit this comparison when school report cards are issued. Remember on 2009 NAEP grade 4 + 8 ELA and grade 4 math exams, the difference in scores of reduced-price and non-eligible students was small and statistically insignificant. Both groups scored far better than free-lunch eligible students, and thus reduced-price and free should not be lumped into a single category.

ELL: UWS 5%, 2010 NYSED district report card says 9%. 

. . . but UWS redeems itself somewhat with respect to special ed: 12% vs. about  7% for the district. 

I would contend that while “mirror” is probably too strong a word to use, it would appear that of all the Success network schools, this one best resembles the district where it is located. Perhaps some of the money that was used to send 6 or 7 mailings to neighborhoods many miles from UWS would have been better spent on outreach to families with ELLs and those living in poverty. 

Really? The DOE’s idea of space would best be compared to a realtor calling a garage, a carriage house, in order to “make that sale.” It’s really a matter of common sense, the more schools co-located in a building, the bigger the squeeze is on space, and the problems with scheduling, gym use, library use, auditorium space, use, lunchroom use, bathroom use, et al can be multiplied by the number of schools in a building. Even those “precious” charters feel the squeeze. Co-locating in public schools is a bad idea. Co-locating public schools with charter schools, is an abysmal idea.

Honestly, the amount of money spent papering the entire Upper West Side just to promote this charter school last year could have funded a new public school. 

Your comment, like the story, has given me no further insight into the reality of the situation in that school building.

Ken, you aren’t getting any insight from the reporter’s observation that a full-time school safety agent (more on their benefits below) is being used to guard the entrance to the UWS portion of the building?

That tells me that maybe the colocation isn’t working that well. And if it is working well, I would humbly suggest that everyone in the building speak up and ask to have a valuable NYPD employee transferred to a school where his or her services would be more useful.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/careers/school_safety_benefits.shtml

There are 2 safety agents on every floor of the building, who have specific “posts” and there are several floating safety agents throughout the building at all times. This has nothing to do with co-location but rather the nature of dealing with a large population of adolescents and a large building.

I’m not sure how relevant that law itself is to this conversation.  First, it doesn’t require charters to actually have diverse student bodies.  It requires them to “demonstrate good faith efforts” to obtain and maintain such diversity.  Charters can meet that standard without actually “mirroring” the district as a whole.  Second,  § 2854 is clearly irrelevant to the question of racial and ethnic diversity. So unless I’m overlooking something else, to the extent this conversation is about racial and ethnic diversity (and both the article and your post below invoke that yardstick), public and charter schools are on the same footing.

Thanks Marty.  I think we’re talking past each other.  I’d like to see research and analysis of the actual facts in that building.  Perhaps your and bee’s point about utilization of shared resources would help to explain the situation, but that doesn’t address the lack of information on the facts particular to that building.  My complaint is with yet another “he said, she said” story on overcrowding.  See my original comment.

Ken Is it possible that this isn’t about numbers but the experiences of real people and real teacher’s working in these area’s. What’s so frustrating with some of the people who post here is the fact that they have no education experience. Number’s don’t always tell the story. That’s why most teacher’s are against being judged by test scores. When you teach for a number of years you realize when someone asks for the numbers they really don’t understand what’s going on. Your a number’s person most teacher’s could care less the job is hard enough without someone making it harder.

Mab,

I’m not asking for something complicated.  Is there sufficient space for these schools to coexist in the same building successfully or is there not? It seems ridiculous to me that we can’t get straight answers to questions like that one.  To the extent that the answers require explanations and qualifications, we should be able to get that too.  

it’s not that complicated it’s not about numbers there are so many other factors that figure into this formula. If you worked in a school you would understand. Are the schools working together to make the best use of the facilities or are there other factors like working together.Numbers people don’t understand all the variables in these situation.I’m sorry to repeat myself but it’s much more when it comes to children. You can’t say that a certain space should hold a certain amount of children. There are hundreds of factors that could influence this decision. It’s very obvious that numbers play a major part in your decisions but not when it comes to the education of children.

Since this is a scanning school, there are multiple safety agents and yes, if there needs be, NYPD may also be there if there is an altercation in the building since high school students will get into fights and cause mischef.  All of the high school students go through metal detectors – just like in prison, sadly.  Luckly, the little ones do not have to go through this.  However, with there being 5 schools, it is difficult to keep the two populations completely separate as the high school students still need to use the stairway – just like the little ones do. 

“How can a zoned school serve a diverse population if their zone is say, the Trump Towers…?”  Exactly! 

“What would be interesting would be if charters and district schools played by the same rules.”  Get rid of some zoning rules to allow for increased diversity?  Or require all schools to admit from a narrow zone, even though this may create schools that lack some types of diversity?  Perhaps a diversity of approaches is a good thing?

I’m still interested in the numbers…