http://www.eduwonk.com/
Empire State of Mind
by New York City Charter School Center
Good morning Wonkland! Andy was foolish enough to give us the run of the blog this week, and we intend to fully exploit his hospitality.
We’re the New York City Charter School Center, an independent nonprofit organization that works to ensure a high quality charter sector in NYC. Through our citywide strategy, we help new schools get started, provide sector-wide supports to existing schools and build community support in order to ensure charter schools can continue to flourish.
We think the energy and innovation that is present in the best charter schools can help create more great public schools, both charter and district. We are also painfully aware that both the tenor and substance of much of the present debate (Eduwonk excluded, naturally) is a dead-end. We’re trying to do something about that—we hope that comes through in our work and our blogs.
According to stereotype, New Yorkers think it’s not just the best place to be but the only place. And while we would like to play against stereotype, fair warning, we are going to talk about New York a lot. It’s not just that we think New York City is the most fascinating hotbed of educational reform, experimentation, debate, and hope in the country, it’s also what we know.
Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ll stick with us through the week.
General disclosures: our major funders are listed here, and two of our seven board members are from the NYC Department of Education, including Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
| The Promise of Citywide Charter Strategies |
| Given this steady growth of the charter school population, and its concentration in cities, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) anticipated a need for correspondent growth and change of the network of charter support organizations (CSOs). NAPCS works closely with CSOs who provide advocacy and technical support services to charter schools. Most of these organizations are state-based associations and resource centers seeking to serve all the public charter schools in a state. However, in recent years, consistent with the growth of charter schools in cities, several city-based CSOs have been created. As these city-based support organizations are becoming more prolific, NAPCS sought to examine the potential for citywide charter strategies as a key leverage point for increasing charter school quality, and ultimately contributing to an overall improvement in educational outcomes in a city. The Alliance partnered with FSG, a leading nonprofit consulting and research firm, to study existing city support and develop recommendations for how to increase support for public charter schools in cities across the nation. This study finds that city-based strategies have the potential to create a shared focus on high-quality schools and improve charter sector coordination. These city-based strategies can be effective at streamlining the path to improving charter school quality and ultimately lead to improved student achievement for the children we serve. |
