Message From a Charter School: Thrive or Transfer

This from the New York Times:

In 2008, when Katherine Sprowal’s son, Matthew, was selected in a lottery to attend the Harlem Success Academy 3 charter school, she was thrilled. “I felt like we were getting the best private school, and we didn’t have to pay for it,” she recalled.

And so, when Eva S. Moskowitz, the former city councilwoman who operates seven Success charter schools in Harlem and the Bronx, asked Ms. Sprowal to be in a promotional video, she was happy to be included.

Matthew is bright but can be disruptive and easily distracted. It was not a natural fit for the Success charters, which are known for discipline and long school days. From Day 1 of kindergarten, Ms. Sprowal said, he was punished for acting out.

“They kept him after school to practice walking in the hallway,” she said.

Several times, she was called to pick him up early, she said, and in his third week he was suspended three days for bothering other children.

In Matthew’s three years of preschool, Ms. Sprowal said, he had never missed time for behavior problems. “After only 12 days in your school,” she wrote the principal, “you have assessed and concluded that our son is defective and will not meet your school criteria.”

Five days later, Ms. Sprowal got an e-mail from Ms. Moskowitz that she took as a veiled message to leave. “Am not familiar with the issue,” Ms. Moskowitz wrote, “but it is extremely important that children feel successful and a nine-hour day with more than 23 children (and that’s our small class size!) where they are constantly being asked to focus and concentrate can overwhelm children and be a bad environment.”

The next week, the school psychologist evaluated Matthew and concluded he would be better suited elsewhere: “He may need a smaller classroom than his current school has available.”

By then, Matthew was throwing up most mornings and asking his mother if he was going to be fired from school. Worn down, Ms. Sprowal requested help finding her son another school, and Success officials were delighted to refer him to Public School 75 on the Upper West Side...

CRPE says growth of Charters slowed

The number of charter schools increased nationally by about 4 percent between 2005 and 2007, a rate of growth that has slowed considerably since the 10 percent increase between 1994 and 1999."

This is drawn from a report titled, "Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2007." It was written by the National Charter School Research Project, a nonprofit organization that conducts research and provides information about charter schools for the general public.

CRPE director Paul T. Hill says,

Charter schools, like all schools, are difficult to run and need strong leaders. They require a lot from teachers and not all teachers are suited to them. They demand a lot from parents and students. They need as much money as the traditional public schools with which they compete—and they need to prove their merits on the same tests and outcome measures as other schools. Like traditional public schools, they also require strong oversight, both from governing boards and authorizers...They are a significant laboratory in which dedicated reformers can conduct small, powerful experiments to illuminate how to reshape governance, strengthen school culture, improve teaching and learning, and promote accountability and more options for families... charters now need to seize the opportunity that their laboratory status provides and demonstrate their ability to live up to their promise for distinctly different and more effective public schooling.