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A consortium of educators and public
school choice advocates in New York State have received a $3.4
million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education
under the Voluntary Public School Choice Program. The program
will focus on implementing a comprehensive and aggressive public
school choice program in the cities of Albany and Buffalo. The
grant will be administered jointly by the Brighter Choice
Charter School for Girls and the Brighter Choice Charter School
for Boys, a pair of charter schools housed together and located
in Albany.
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This project will dramatically
expand public school-choice in two important and visible urban
areas in New York State: Buffalo, the state's second largest
city; and Albany, the capital city.
Both cities have been plagued with chronically
low-performing public schools that affect a disproportionately
large share of low-income and minority students. Large numbers
of failing schools, whether measured by No Child Left Behind
standards or by test scores on key New York standardized exams
in reading and mathematics, are present in both Albany and
Buffalo. Several thousand students attend the 37 public
schools in Albany and Buffalo identified as failing under the No
Child Left Behind Act. In Albany, two of the middle schools are
identified as failing, and a majority of elementary school
students and three out of four middle school students fail to
meet the state learning standards in English Language Arts. In
Buffalo, approximately two-thirds of elementary school students
and three-fourths of middle school students do not meet the
state standards in English Language Arts, and 54 percent of that
district’s schools have been identified as failing.
The proposed project has four primary objectives that would
provide the widest variety of choices to all students attending
low-performing schools, and whose combined effects will
positively and dramatically change public education
district-wide:
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Tuition Scholarships to Better Public Schools: This project
will provide tuition scholarships for students in
federally-designated low-performing schools in Albany and
Buffalo to attend better-performing public schools in
neighboring suburban school districts initiating competition
between the urban and suburban districts for students, and
the state education aid that flows to the school of choice.
Scholarships will finance some of the tuition charged by the
receiving (suburban) district, and the full cost of student
transportation.
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Expand Magnet School Opportunities: The project team will
work with the Albany and Buffalo school districts to create
new and expand existing magnet school capacity to provide
innovative program opportunities targeted to children
currently attending the federally-designated low-performing
schools.
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Create District Charter Schools: The project team will work
with the boards of education in Albany and Buffalo to enlist
them as partners in creating new charter schools, and
converting traditional public schools to charter schools.
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Create New Charter Schools: The project team will work with
parents, educators, and community members to create
independent charter schools to provide greater choices
within the public school system, particularly for students
in low-performing schools. Creating more charter school
capacity over the next five years is anticipated to result
in a minimum 20 percent of all students in both cities
enrolled in a charter school.
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This comprehensive, multi-pronged public school-choice project
is unlike anything seen in New York State. This volume and
variety of school-choice options will bring positive and
widespread benefits on a district-wide scale in Albany and
Buffalo:
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More students will be attending better-performing public
schools in neighboring school districts, an option that
children in the federally-designated Schools In Need of
Improvement do not now take. The number of students opting for
inter-district transfers will increase substantially under
this project, with that increase coming primarily from the
enrollment of students from low-performing schools.
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The expansion of the number of charter schools will
substantially increase the choices available to children in
low-performing schools in Albany and Buffalo. The increased
level of competition for students (and school aid dollars)
caused by charter schools also will improve education
district-wide, as school districts confront the challenge to
serve students and parents more as customers.
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The Albany and Buffalo school districts faced with increasing
public school options and financial and programmatic
challenges from public school competition are expected to
create their own public school alternatives to compete in this
new marketplace. This project will work with the school
district leadership in Albany and Buffalo to provide public
school-choice opportunities through the expansion of magnet
school capacity and the creation of district-sponsored charter
schools.
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The project team and its partner
organizations are prepared to pool their experiences and use
grant funds awarded to work in partnership with the school
districts and to challenge them to better serve children with
the greatest academic needs.
Public school choice is only starting to take hold in Albany and
Buffalo. This project will raise it to levels that will
transform these two districts, and build local capacity to
sustain and expand such options indefinitely. By transforming
these two key urban areas of the state, this project also will
pave the way for reform of urban school districts elsewhere in
the state and the nation that face similar challenges and
shortcomings.
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