Why Some Parents Resent the Success Charter Schools

The controversy in Brooklyn over the impending arrival of Success Academy charter schools made it onto the Op-Ed page of The New York Times this weekend, when Lucinda Rosenfeld explained just what is making so many middle-class parents so angry.

In an opinion article, Ms. Rosenfeld, a writer and the parent of a kindergarten pupil at Public School 261 Philip Livingston in Boerum Hill, said the addition of the charter schools into the gentrified areas of Cobble Hill and Williamsburg may siphon off middle-class students, destroying the delightful demographic mix at her daughter's school.

Saying that "the communities of Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill overwhelmingly do not support a charter in the neighborhood," Ms. Rosenfeld writes:

The apparent reason for opening a charter school in a gentrified neighborhood like Cobble Hill (or the Upper West Side, where a Success Academy opened last year) is to bring more middle-class and upper-middle-class families into the publicly funded charter system. But if the Success Academy succeeds in its mission, it could well end up destroying schools like P.S. 261 that already succeed in attracting these families. My daughter’s new friends include the children of both marketing executives and maintenance workers. At drop-off recently, I watched as she and a friend who lives in a nearby housing project walked hand in hand down the hall. In its promise of a more just world, the sight made me almost teary-eyed. I wonder how much longer those kinds of scenes will prevail.

The Success Academy schools, founded by Eva S. Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman, are, in fact, being aimed at middle-class areas, with intense marketing. Ms. Rosenfeld recounts how a man showed up after school for several days in a row to hand out fliers to promote the new Cobble Hill school -- until teachers and parents drove him out of the area.

There’s nothing wrong with providing families with options. When charters open in their own privately financed, state-of-the-art buildings in poverty-stricken neighborhoods where they’re welcomed by the community, there may be reasons to celebrate. But when charters co-locate in mixed-income areas, choice is only half the story.

The existing schools in which they set up shop suffer both in terms of resources (only so many kids can fit in the lunchroom at one time) and morale. If the Cobble Hill Success Academy opens as planned in the Brooklyn School for Global Studies, which also houses a second high school and a special-needs program, in five years the building will be at 108 percent capacity — unless, of course, the other schools shrivel up and die.

Call us paranoid, but parents like me are starting to wonder whether Mayor Bloomberg’s larger goal isn’t to privatize the entire New York City public school system. Why else would he be foisting charters on communities that don’t want them? And how else can he justify diverting tax dollars to organizations that employ people to blanket neighborhoods with advertisements and try to poach students from public schools that are already thriving?

Another controversy made it into the opinion section of nytimes.com this weekend, this time in Room for Debate, which asks experts what they think of so-called parent trigger laws.

The laws, which are being considered by as many as 20 states, would allow parents who are not happy with how a school is being run to shut it down, replace the staff or convert it to a charter -- as long as 51 percent of the families agree to it.

Room for Debate asked: "Do these laws give parents the first real power over their children’s education? Or do they put public schools in private hands and impede real improvements?"

The experts who responded include Diane Ravitch, author and historian; Ben Austin of Parent Revolution; Amy Wilkins of Education Trust; Rishawn Biddle, a blogger; and Caroline Grannan of Parents Across America.

Also in the news this weekend, Kyle Spencer kicked off a week of discussion on SchoolBook about the costs to parents of public schools with a wonderful article in the Metropolitan section of The Times about the "clashes over cupcakes and culture" at New York City public schools.

The article looks at how gentrified schools struggle to find the sweet spot -- no pun intended -- to both raise badly needed money for schools and not overly tax lower-income families.

Mr. Spencer wrote:

So along with cross-cultural exchanges, international festivals and smorgasbords, school diversity can mean raw feelings about race and class bubbling to the surface.

“It’s never just about the cupcake,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, who has written extensively about this topic. “The cupcake is the spark.”

SchoolBook is interested in hearing from readers about how much they have spent for their child's school and school-related activities so far this year, to help us report out stories about the topic. Read about the pressure on parents to raise money for schools, and respond to our query here. We have also posted the query and short form below.

Congratulations to Gotham Schools for winning a prize in the blogging category from the Education Writers Association.

And congratulations to the folks at the Edwin Gould Foundation, which supports an amazing yet under-the-radar program known as SEO Scholars. Last week they finally had a moment in the sun, in a feature article in USA Today.

SEO Scholars, which has been around for decades, provides mentors to low-income students from public school through college. And, as USA Today reported, 95 percent of SEO's students get through college compared with 8 percent of low-income students over all.

On this Monday, a panel of experts takes on the topic of "High Stakes 101," looking at the impact that high-stakes testing has on children, teachers and schools. The event, at 6:30 p.m. at the Brooklyn New School auditorium, 610 Henry Street at Third Place, is moderated by Meredith Kolodner. Panelists include Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's top acadmic officer; Sean Feeney, principal of the Wheatley School and author of the New York Principals APPR Position Paper, and Elijah Hawkes, former principal of The James Baldwin Expeditionary Learning School.