The New York Times reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has approved 18 new charter schools in that city, including an all-girls elementary school where everyone will study Spanish and a school where all students must learn at least two musical instruments. Elissa Gootman writes:
The city’s charter schools generally outperform traditional public schools on standardized reading and math tests, and many charters have been flooded with applications and have had to turn away hundreds of children whose names are not drawn in admissions lotteries. But charters have not been universally embraced. In some places, parents have complained about the mayor’s policy of giving charter schools space in existing public school buildings and about the unfairness of their smaller class size, and have called them a diversion from his responsibility to fix the school system overall.
Lisa Prevost wrote about Bloomberg's educational reforms in this year's special Education issue of CommonWealth.
Comments