September 10, 2005
$250 Million City Program to Promote Charter Schools
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, NY TIMES

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In the city's most aggressive effort yet to promote the creation of charter schools, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said yesterday that the city would pay up to two-thirds of the cost of constructing new buildings for them.

He announced the $250 million program during a visit yesterday to Excellence Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, where he also urged the State Legislature and Gov. George E. Pataki to lift a cap that limits the number of charter schools in the state to 100.

The Excellence Charter School plans to construct a $32.8 million building, which city officials said they expected would be the first big project to receive the two-thirds city financing. The Excellence Academy Foundation, which operates the school, will pay the remaining third; in exchange, it will get a 99-year lease for $1 a year.

The program was lauded by charter school operators, who said it put New York at the forefront of American school districts in terms of the support the city is willing to provide.

"This is exactly the type of stuff that needs to be done if we are serious about trying to have more schools," said David Levin, the superintendent and co-founder of KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, a nonprofit foundation that operates 45 schools in 15 states and Washington, including four charter schools in New York City.

"This is what we have ultimately felt was holding back schools around the country," Mr. Levin said. "When people ask us what the major impediments are to starting more schools like KIPP, it's the three F's - funding, facilities and freedom - and facilities are kind of the most prohibitive."

Charter schools receive tax dollars based on the number of students, but are managed by private nonprofit or, in some cases, for-profit corporations. The charter schools operate largely outside the control of the local district, and can hire nonunion teachers, choose their curriculums and set their schedules.

Garth Harries, the city education official in charge of new schools, said the city believed that charter schools built under the new program would qualify for state aid, which typically covers a portion of most school construction projects.

As part of their wider effort to overhaul city schools, Chancellor Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have pledged to create 50 charter schools. They have created a nonprofit corporation, the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, to help start the schools.

Nine charter schools opened in the city last year and 15 more have opened this year, bringing the number of charter schools in the city to 47. In all, 85 of the 100 charters permitted by state law have been authorized.

Critics of charter schools say they do not often perform any better than regular public schools and that, particularly in small school districts, they siphon off much-needed money from the district.

For this reason, a number of state lawmakers representing small communities, especially elsewhere in the state, have not only opposed lifting the cap on charters but have actually called for a moratorium on new charter schools.

Mr. Klein, however, said that in New York City, charters appeal to parents as an alternative to long failing public schools.

"The cap is irrational and unfair and it has to be lifted," Mr. Klein said. "New York City alone has received 19 applications for next year."

Admission to charters is usually by lottery, and the schools must meet certain academic benchmarks. If they fail to do so, their charter is revoked and they must close.

This year, the New York City teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers, opened a charter school in Brooklyn, in an unusual effort to show that a privately managed school can operate successfully using the same contract and work rules that the Bloomberg administration criticizes as an impediment to good instruction.

Randi Weingarten, the teachers' union president, said yesterday that rather than pushing to lift the cap on charter schools, Mr. Klein and the administration should be fighting Albany to resolve a dispute over standardized testing that will require the city's third, fifth and seventh graders to take two different sets of reading and math tests this year.

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