Debate Class
Protestors are expected to gather in Harlem next week, as a controversy over high-priced real estate plays out in a neighborhood classroom. The issue highlights just how difficult it is to find space for charter schools in a city with such pricey property.
The debate revolves around a plan to place a new charter school — Harlem Success — into Harlem Public School 154. Advocates of the school's location say the expense of building a new school is prohibitive and that moving into P.S. 154 provides an affordable solution. Opponents say the city shouldn't be giving away these facilities to a nonpublic endeavor and that the charter school — privately-run, but with some public money — will squeeze P.S. 154.
With students in Harlem’s public schools generally performing worse on city and state standardized tests than public school students in other New York neighborhoods, many residents say the charter school is the only chance for neighborhood children to get a good education.
It's a local debate with city-wide implications: Should charter schools be placed in public school buildings?
posted by Rachel Natalie Klein at 12:25 AM
3 Comments:
sure, why not? especially considering the fact that the public schools are failing them miserably.
even tho the charter school is free to students, it operates outside the public school system and the public shouldn't be funding these "private" schools.
also, there are already about 20 charter schools in the city that have moved into public schools and more are planned to go in. will be interesting to see how effective the harlem protest is next week.
I am a NYC public school teacher and I worked for a think-tank that studied the effects and plausibility of offering school vouchers (a program I view antithetical to our professed democratically principled society). Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians alike would agree that partnerships between and private and public parties to benefit education is a good thing. What are the interests and incentives for private interests to get involved? Schools open and close in NY at a rate comparable to restaurants so isn’t the larger issue that should be marched on about the dearth of public funds allocated to schools in the first place. While the majority of our tax dollars (which are disproportionately paid by the middle class and poor) go to defense, police, fire, public works and education. We believe in deficit spending to topple Saddam but not to prepare our youth to compete in a global service driven economy—a true investment.
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