State Senate introduces new bill to double cap on charter schools
The legislative battle over whether and how to raise the state’s cap on charter schools could begin again as early as next week.
The State Senate’s Rules Committee, which is chaired by Senator Malcolm Smith, introduced a bill today that would lift the charter school cap to 460, more than doubling the number currently allowed under state law. It also would require schools to make more of their financial practices public and increase the number of special education and English language learners they serve.
Charter school advocates are hailing the bill as a compromise between supporters of the speedy growth of charter schools and critics who argue that a cap lift should come only with changes to how the schools are run. But perhaps the most vocal skeptics of charter management practices, the teachers unions, are crying foul. Union officials are complaining that the bill was developed without union leaders’ input and that its regulatory provisions are too weak.
The bill would require the schools to give admissions preference to special education students and those learning English and to demonstrate their efforts to attract those students as a condition of receiving or renewing a charter. It would also allow a single board of trustees to operate charter schools on multiple sites, and allow
Remainders: D.C. contract on hold, charter cap back in the news
The State Senate’s Rules Committee, which is chaired by Senator Malcolm Smith, introduced a bill today that would lift the charter school cap to 460, more than doubling the number currently allowed under state law. It also would require schools to make more of their financial practices public and increase the number of special education and English language learners they serve.
Charter school advocates are hailing the bill as a compromise between supporters of the speedy growth of charter schools and critics who argue that a cap lift should come only with changes to how the schools are run. But perhaps the most vocal skeptics of charter management practices, the teachers unions, are crying foul. Union officials are complaining that the bill was developed without union leaders’ input and that its regulatory provisions are too weak.
The bill would require the schools to give admissions preference to special education students and those learning English and to demonstrate their efforts to attract those students as a condition of receiving or renewing a charter. It would also allow a single board of trustees to operate charter schools on multiple sites, and allow
Remainders: D.C. contract on hold, charter cap back in the news
- The city’s Department of Education thinks the new charter cap bill is “a step in the right direction.”
- With 183 pieces of data, the system for grading schools is very complicated, writes Robert Gebeloff.
- Freakonomics interviews “pizza freak” Joel Klein and profiles School of One.
- After her daughter was assaulted at Pathways College Preparatory School, a Queens mother is suing.
- Nearly a third more children qualified for the citywide gifted programs this year compared to last.
- More soon-to-be kindergartners in Queens met the bar for the citywide gifted programs.
- The state teachers union is mobilizing to sway senators before a vote to lift the cap on charter schools.
- Helen Zelon looks at what will happen to school choice if students can’t afford to travel.
- A teacher who told his students he’d never let them go catches up with a former student.
- Teacher and students at Jamaica High School reflect on the school’s closure, which is now on hold.
- Teachers at Bronx Science waited for two years for an arbitrator’s ruling; the city rejected it in two days.
- Teachable Moment says, on the whole, the entire country’s school system doesn’t need revamping.
- The Promise Neighborhood grants are small, but they’re for planning, not implementing.
- Richard Whitmire’s book “Why Boys Fail” makes a convert out of Jay Mathews.
- And D.C.’s new teacher contract is on hold until the city shows it can afford to pay for it.
