GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Ninth-grader Geronimo Miranda joins sixth-graders Ariyelle Ceasar, Tiane Jackson, Cheyanne Young and Nia Manerville in describing Wadleigh Middle School's positive qualities at a school truncation hearing Jan. 26.

A who’s who of elected officials and Harlem leaders turned out Thursday to defend the Wadleigh Secondary School of Performing Arts against the Department of Education’s plan to close its middle school.

About 200 parents, students, activists, and staff packed the school’s auditorium Thursday evening for a public hearing on the proposal. Just before, officials who included City Councilman Robert Jackson, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Sen. Bill Perkins, and Comptroller John Liu all held court in the packed lobby of the Harlem campus. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and the city’s NAACP chief, Hazel Dukes, also spoke at the hearing.

They said the city was giving up on a neighborhood institution by moving to close Wadleigh’s middle school. Jackson promised to call Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott today to air his opposition to the plan.

Wadleigh’s 440-student high school would remain open under the plan, as would another middle school in the building, Frederick Douglass Academy II, which narrowly escaped closure this year after earning an even lower progress report score than Wadleigh’s middle school. A charter school, Harlem Success Academy I, is set to move its middle school grades into the building, according to a plan the city set last year. (more…)

Charter school parents and advocates protest outside UFT headquarters today.

Charter school parents and teachers took their fight against the UFT and NAACP’s school closure and co-location lawsuit to the headquarters of the main group that filed it.

About 250 people gathered this morning outside the United Federation of Teachers’ Lower Manhattan offices to demand that the union drop the lawsuit, which would stop 16 charter schools from opening, moving, or expanding. They emphasized that some charter schools are set to start their school years in as few as six weeks but don’t yet know where or if they will be opening.

The protest was the first that specifically targeted the teachers union since the lawsuit was filed May 18. Last month, a much larger group of protesters rallied outside the Harlem headquarters of the NAACP, which joined the UFT in the suit.

Protesters chanted a series of slogans for nearly an hour, at one point shouting “UFT: Apologize” for more than three minutes straight. The demand referenced a statement made last week by a union lawyer that he would not negotiate with charter school advocates until they apologized to the NAACP.

UFT officials took a softer line today, handing out baked goods and hats emblazoned with the union’s logo. Later, two UFT officials rolled a coffee cart along the side of the protest bullpen. (more…)

The city’s Department of Education, Teach for America and several city charter school management companies are angling for federal money designed to encourage cutting-edge educational strategies.

They’re among 145 New York State-based entities that applied for grants under a new federal program known as the Investing in Innovation Fund, or “i3.” Details about the 1,698 applications submitted last month went online yesterday.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the ways local groups are hoping to cash in:

• The city is asking for $40 million to open 150 new small middle and high schools in the next five years.
• The city also asked for $5 million to grow the School of One technology program and $4.5 million to boost the arts in special education schools.
• Other groups angling to open new schools include Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success charter network, which is seeking $25 million to open 13 in the next five years, and New Visions for Public Schools, which wants $26 million to create charter schools that serve 10,000 city students. (more…)

Steven Brill’s latest article chronicling the politics of the Race to the Top competition has caused a torrent of commentary. One contentious aspect of the piece is Brill’s comparison of two schools that share the same building: Harlem Success Academy and P.S. 149. After Valerie Strauss picked up the statistics posted on the New York Public School Parents Blog, there has been much speculation about what types of kids are attending each school. Just how different are the populations anyway?

To figure out the answer, I looked at NY State Accountability Report Cards, the Special Education Service Delivery Report for P.S. 149, as well as special education invoices provided to the UFT by the New York State Education Department. I chose these data sets because they seemed to be the most reliable and the most comparable. By “comparable” I mean that both Harlem Success and P.S. 149 have to submit to the state as part of their Accountability Report Cards data on students who receive free or reduced price lunch (an indicator of economic need), whereas, for instance, only P.S. 149 lists something known as the poverty rate (which is slightly different.)

According to this data, Harlem Success Academy does appear to serve fewer needy students, both in terms of economic status, limited English proficiency, and special education needs.  On the other hand, Harlem Success dramatically outperforms P.S. 149 on 3rd grade test results. (more…)

Yesterday evening, in a tiny room on the second floor of a Harlem school building, staff of the Success Charter Network of charter schools admitted 1,100 students for next year — in just over an hour.

Charter school lotteries have a reputation for being emotional public spectacles. Last year, thousands of Harlem Success Academy hopefuls filled the Fort Washington Armory for what was part enrollment event and part political rally led by the network’s controversial director Eva Moskowitz.

But many charter school admissions decisions are actually computer-generated, made in private days or even weeks before names of admitted students are announced at public events in front of anxiety-ridden parents. And this year, Moskowitz’s network, which currently runs four schools and is set to open three more in Harlem and the Bronx this fall, has quietly scrapped its boisterous public event. Instead, parents will be notified of the lottery’s results by mail, online and through a phone hot-line next week.

Success Charter Network spokeswoman Jenny Sedlis said the public event was abandoned because the sheer number of applicants — nearly 7,000 for 7 schools this year — would overwhelm organizers and because of tighter school budgets this year. Leaders of the network may also be feeling camera-shy this year after a winter of intense public scrutiny of charter schools and accusations that Moskowitz’s schools benefit from favoritism from Chancellor Joel Klein.

Yesterday, Matt Zacks, a software programmer from the educational data software company InResonance, peered at a large computer monitor filled with tables and lists of names. A smattering of Harlem Success staff, parents and visitors munched pizza and watched over Zacks’ shoulder as he moused and clicked through the lists. (more…)

Some East Harlem parents aren’t waiting to find out whether a charter school will move into their school building before organizing against the possibility.

Parents at the Manhattan East School for Arts and Academies recently got wind that the Department of Education was considering placing Harlem Success Academy 5, one of three new charters Eva Moskowitz plans to open next year, in their building. The plan would call for Manhattan East to move to another building across the street to create space for Moskowitz’s school.

The founding principal of Manhattan East, Jacqueline Ancess, said that the DOE did not tell the school that it could be moved; rather, the current principal and parents association head found out that a move was under consideration at an unrelated DOE meeting “by accident,” she said.

Ancess and the school’s parent association responded by sending out a letter yesterday asking parents and supporters to call the city’s information hotline today to ask the city not to relocate the school.

“Manhattan East is a very successful school,” the message urges parents to tell the city. “Moving Manhattan East from its home is unconscionable.” (more…)

Two education leaders who have been dueling via press releases, bristling statements to reporters, and dueling events in Harlem will come face-to-face this week, in a debate broadcast on NY1, the local TV news channel, spokespeople for both leaders have confirmed. The debate is scheduled for this Thursday night.

Randi Weingarten, the leader of the politically powerful teachers union, is preparing to debate Eva Moskowitz, the former City Council member-turned-charter school operator, on Dominic Carter’s evening talk show, “The Road to City Hall.”

The teachers union spokesman, Brian Gibbons, said that NY1 contacted Weingarten and asked her to appear on the show with Moskowitz. Weingarten said yes. (more…)

A group of parents is sharply criticizing the Department of Education for backing away from its decision to shut down struggling neighborhood elementary schools, saying Mayor Bloomberg should “take a hard line” and turn over the buildings to be used as charter schools.

The parents, who are zoned to have their children attend two of the schools that would have been closed and replaced with charter schools, said that they want the mayor to shut the schools down because the schools are dirty, dangerous, and filled with teachers who are “just there for a paycheck.”

“I live across the street from 194,” one mother, Melissia Daley, wrote of P.S. 194, a Harlem elementary school that would have been closed under the city’s original plan. “Although it’s a zoned school and very convenient for me and my child, I wouldn’t even try to put my child in there because the children are well behind in grade.”

“If they are closing 241 to put a better school in its place, then they should do that,” one parent, Martinique Owens, said, of another Harlem school, P.S. 241, in a similar situation.

Their statements came in a press release issued this afternoon by a spokeswoman for the Harlem Success Academy network of charter schools, Jenny Sedlis. Two Harlem Success schools were planning to become the sole occupants of the P.S. 194 and P.S. 241 buildings after those schools closed. Those schools will have to continue sharing space with district elementary schools next year. (more…)

Nora Marcano and her son Joel, who attends Harlem Link Charter School at the Armory last night.

Parents at last night’s high-energy charter school rally took time out to tell me a little bit about their (overwhelmingly positive) experience with the schools.

They gave a more personal portrait of schools that are often defined (at least on this site) by their politics, such as Harlem Success Academy, which has been battling for space inside a traditional public school; Harlem Link, whose founder said he favors slower growth than Harlem Success; and Democracy Prep Charter School, whose students have testified at hearings on mayoral control and whose founder entered the debate on “creaming.”

“I think this is something new and not everybody believes yet,” Mayrene Lopez, the mother of a six year-old at Harlem Success Academy told me, explaining why charter schools create controversy.

Lopez said her son Justin has improved tremendously since entering the school in August as a first-grader, and she wants her two-year-old to be able to attend a charter school when she’s old enough, too. Justin didn’t get into the school the first time he entered the lottery. The next time he was put on a waiting list. And then he got in. “He’s reading and writing on his own,” Lopez said proudly. (more…)

The crowd at Harlem Charter Night.

Mayor Bloomberg and Lil Mama cheered charter schools, school choice, and mayoral control of the public schools before a crowd of thousands of parents and students last night.

The mayor and the rapper even shared some tactics. “Do we want more parent choice?” Mayor Bloomberg yelled. “I can’t hear you! Do we want more competition? Do we want better test scores and higher graduation rates?”

Lil Mama was more successful with the call-and-response style. She called “Parent” while the crowd screamed back, “Choice!” “You don’t have to send your child to a regular public school,” the Harlem native said before performing two of her hits, “G-Slide” and “Lip Gloss.” “You can send them to a public charter school.”

While many of the kids seemed most excited to watch Lil Mama perform, a team of volunteers and interns at the pro-mayoral control group Learn NY were on hand to encourage parents to sign a petition supporting mayoral control, and a parade of education officials used the unprecedented crowd size to push their causes. (The legislature will vote on whether to renew the mayor’s control of the public schools in June.) (more…)