Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein take their push for more charters to churches
Monday, May 24th 2010, 4:00 AM
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein continued their full-court press to increase the number of charter schools in New York with a race to the pews on Sunday.
Both men visited churches - one in Harlem and one in Jamaica, Queens - with a unified message: We need Albany to act if we're going to qualify for $700 million in federal funding in a competition known as Race to the Top.
"We just can't afford to leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table," Bloomberg told congregants at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.
The city and the United Federation of Teachers have been locked in negotiations on a bill that would satisfy union concerns about charter oversight while allowing the cap on charters to rise to 460 from 200. The two sides have "made progress," Klein told the Daily News. "I'm hopeful," he said.
The state Senate has passed a charter-cap bill supported by the city and charter advocates but opposed by the union. The Assembly has been waiting to introduce legislation, hoping the city and teachers union can come to an agreement.
Klein and Bloomberg also both pressed to change seniority rules to give principals power to evaluate teachers rather than compelling them to get rid of the least
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