- See more at: http://blogtimenow.com/blogging/automatically-redirect-blogger-blog-another-blog-website/#sthash.Q6qPkwFC.dpuf Eva Moskowitz's Organization to Open Two Charter Schools in the Bronx | Bronx News Networkbronx

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Eva Moskowitz's Organization to Open Two Charter Schools in the Bronx

The Success Charter Network (SCN), the organization behind four high-performing charter schools in Harlem, is coming to the Bronx.

Bronx Success Academy 1 (located in Mott Haven at 510 E. 141st St.) and Bronx Success Academy 2 (in Morrisania at 968 Cauldwell Ave.) will open on Wednesday, Aug. 25. To begin with, each will have 188 students, all in kindergarten and first grade.

"For years we've had requests from families in the Bronx to bring this successful model to their neighborhoods," said Jenny Sedlis, SCN's director of external affairs, in a telephone interview. "We're really very excited."

SCN will also open another charter school in Harlem that same week. As with most charter schools, a lottery system was used to pick the students. "Demand for these schools have been off the chart," Sedlis said. "We had 7,000 applicants for 1,100 spots across seven schools."

The school year begins in August, not September (when regular public schools start back), because SCN believes a longer school year benefits students, Sedlis said. Likewise, the school day itself is lengthier: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. for kindergarteners and 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m for first graders.

"Our goal for our scholars is college graduation and in order to meet that goal we need more instructional time," Sedlis said.

SCN was founded in 2006 by Eva Moskowitz, a former city council member who served as the outspoken chair of the Council's education committee.

Moskowitz is something of a controversial figure, both loved (by parents at her schools and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein) and loathed (the UFT, State Senator Bill Perkins). Her supporters say she's trying to save public education; her detractors insists she's hurting it. Moskowitz, according to a recent New York Magazine profile, is "feared, revered, and reviled in like proportions."

Among other things, SCN - and other organizations which run charter schools - has been accused of crowding out existing public schools. (The Daily News' Juan Gonzalez has an article in today's paper about these bitter space wars.)

Bronx Success Academy 1 and 2 will be housed in buildings already home to schools - PS 30 and PS 146 respectively. According to the Department of Education there is adequate room in both buildings to accommodate the charter schools, at least for the moment (see here and here). As its student population grows, however, Bronx Success Academy 2 will relocate, and it's likely Bronx Success Academy 1 will, too.

SCN now operates seven schools.  Over the next decade the organization is planning on increasing this number to 40.

3 comments:

  1. Worth noting that Harlem Success Academy (Eva's first school) was the highest performing charter school in the state even with the Regents increasing the requirements for "proficiency."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Check out his profile on the test-taking machine of Czarina Eva:

    http://nymag.com/news/features/65614/

    All the far left anti-testing lunatics that protest everything should be outraged at the expansion of this standardized test factory.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Columbus,Ohio supports you wholeheartedly!!!

    ReplyDelete

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