After I posted about the NYC DOE decision to place a new charter school into space that Central Park East wanted for expansion, many comments were received. Some accused the school of being exclusive or selective or no different from a charter. This parent at the school responded in hopes of clarifying what the school is and does.
There is an alarming amount of misinformation in the posts above.
There is no admissions test at CPE, and the school’s population is heterogeneous in every respect; the admissions process is designed to create a balance of students, not to select the most “gifted.” The most important criterion for admission is that the parents desire a progressive education for their children.
The curriculum that my son is experiencing at CPE is radically different from the traditional model that his brother got at a regular public school (also in East Harlem). There is more play, art, music, and movement incorporated into the school day, and my third-grader has yet to bring home a practice test for homework (his brother at this point in his 3rd grade year at his traditional school was doing nothing but filling in bubbles).
Not all parents would choose this non-traditional approach, but those who do feel passionately that it is right for their child and their own educational values. No one at CPE feels that there is an either/or between the progressive middle school that we have been applying to start for five years and the East Harlem Scholars’ Academy, which is desired by other parents.
THERE IS ROOM FOR BOTH, and BOTH are desired by parents in the community. Isn’t this what the much touted “school choice” is all about? But the DOE is acting with gross favoritism when it allows a brand new charter school to expand while the CPE’s application is rejected for lack of space.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is why we need choice in schools…I’m a huge advocate for public education, but there has to be choice. Of course the problem is that progressive education doesn’t jive with the accountability movement.
But liberals need to understand that choice is not bad. And charters are not all bad. And regular public schools are not all good.
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It’s not “choice” if the ones supposedly doing the choosing, parents, have no say in what there is to choose from. When the menu of choices is determined without parental and community input, it’s nothing more than the manufacturing of consent for the agenda of outside parties who have no stake in the system other than the money they can make from it.
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Public Schools are not all good and no one today whold dare tosuggeat that. But Public Schools are public and tax dollars should not go to schools are for profit or non-profit private organizations.
Public schools can provide choice and they have provided choice but whaen budgest get cut it is these schools that get cut. Taxpayers parents community groups and elected representatives have to demand that our education system provides equal quality appropiate education for all students. It is beyond me why anyone thinks Wall St. investors should profit from tax dollars that should be going to PUBLIC EDUCATION. What are people thinking?
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Ellie Wyatt,
Perhaps you would allow for schools like the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf? It is one of several state chartered private schools that depends on taxpayer funding and charitable contributions to pay for the education of qualified students.
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Amen. We need to give parents a choice in what they think is the best education for their child. In the end, every parent is coming from the same perspective of wanting their child to succeed– that could be in a zone school, charter or progressive school.
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Parents have always had a choice about where to spend their personal funds. When only parents of school-age children are paying the bills for education, then they may decide collectively how to spend their collective funds. In the meantime, the rest of the public still has a say about what kinds of educational institutions they choose to support.
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Jon, well said.
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Society routinely prohibits individuals from spending their own money on goods and services that are viewed as detrimental to society. If private limited admission schools are detrimental to society because they skim, destroy communities, and do not instill the correct values, they should be made illegal.
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“Some accused the school of being exclusive or selective or no different from a charter.”
Assuming the parent accounts are all on the level, how is the admissions process any different from what’s done at charters? It’s a residence-weighted lottery, with winners and losers.
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Public schools are public schools. Charter schools can skim, exclude, and kick out kids to boost their test scores. They are private schools operating with public funding.
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Once again, this post ignores the fact that there are “magnet” public schools all over the US that have explicit admissions tests. These magnet schools use standardized tests and or auditions to determine who will be admitted. These are verified facts.
Some district public schools also can and have expelled students for a variety of reasons (as have some charters). Yesterday I was at a statewide meeting of alternative public schools. Many of their teachers and administrators talk about how traditional district schools move students out of their schools shortly before testing in the spring, into alternative schools.
There are some great district schools. But a description of district & charter public schools should recognize what is happening.
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Joe Nathan, Magnet schools are not a monolith and should be seen in the context of where the schools are housed. In D14, for example, the magnets were designed to end latino isolation in neighborhood public schools. None of our neighborhood public schools, including the magnets, have waiting lists. If you look at the demographics, the magnet schools have only really attracted diversity (in our context that means white children) if they are housed in areas where de-segregation is well-solidified. There are no standardized tests or auditions to enter our magnets.
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WAGPOPS! I completely agree that some magnets do not have admissions tests.
Many do. I have posted several research reports on this. The national magnet schools association acknowledges this.
Some magnets have done a superb job of bringing together students of different races and economic backgrounds, and helping improve overall achievement, measured in various ways.
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Several posters in the original article suggest that this public school does skim and does destroy the community despite it being classified by some as a public school
Surely there is a fact of the matter. Is poster Paul correct when he said “By varying abilities and diversity, are you referring to CPE1′s “less than 1%” ELL population or CPE2′s 2.3% ELL population? The school is located in El Barrio correct?”? If that is true, that would be enough to condemn any urban school as a “skimmer”.
I have no doubt that Central Park East is a fine school, but that is not the criteria on which schools on this blog are judged. By the standards used by posters on this blog, CPE would appear to be nothing but a skimming charter school in disguise and should not be allowed to continue to operate.
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There’s no doubt that it has skimming effects. I wouldn’t condemn it on that basis, and I wouldn’t overstate those effects (it’s not a G&T program, and it has a much higher free-lunch eligible student body than a lot of other public schools in NYC). But it is what it is.
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CPE 1 has around 30 new slots available each year through the application process, plus around 15 pre-K slots. Many of those are taken by siblings, so we end up with about 20 slots available through the application process.
CPE 1 has no involvement in pre-K applications, except that the school is still allowed to guarantee a pre-K spot to siblings. Other than siblings, all pre-K spots are assigned by the DOE, based on applications submitted through the standard pre-K online process. Even though the school is not involved in the pre-K application process we still guarantee a Kindergarten spot for all pre-K families.
This all means we only need about 20 families in East Harlem each year to want a progressive education, and we have filled up our available K slots. Every year we get more than that number of applications from East Harlem and Harlem (Districts 4 and 5). There are enough families in East Harlem and Harlem who want a progressive education that we could easily fill all of our slots from that population.
In theory we could further restrict our geographic area. We could stop being a citywide school with a priority for East Harlem and Harlem, and become a District 4-only school. But that would not significantly alter the ELL profile of the school because there would still be at least 80 families in East Harlem who speak English at home who want to select a progressive education. As it is now we only offer between 5 and 10 slots to families outside of Districts 4 and 5 each year.
Fortunately, through outreach we manage to convince enough ELL families to apply each year that we don’t lose them all in the lottery. Each year several ELL families who never knew about progressive education give the school a chance, and are surprised and pleased by what they find.
It’s true that this is a different situation than the school faced when it started nearly 40 years ago. We have a long record of success, but we face a different environment than we did then.
The demand for CPE 1 remains very high. That’s why we want the DOE to create more schools like it, including a middle school. A CPE middle school might have as many as 70 students per grade, which would open up more slots to people interested in this type of education.
Wayne Collier
Parent
School Leadership Team
CPE 1
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Here’s a conundrum: Any school that requires parents to choose is effectively excluding the children of disengaged children… and the children of disengaged parents, especially the children of disengaged parents who are living in poverty or dysfunction, are the toughest children to educate. So by limiting their admission to parents who are interested enough in their child’s life to seek out a particular kind of school, the charters— public or private— are “skimming” the children of engaged parents.
The solution to this dilemma is to engage parents early by working with pediatricians, social workers, and child care centers to connect with parents early and often and to make parents of infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers fully aware of the help they can get for their children. Those “reformers” who want to measure how well schools are doing to meet the needs of children should keep track of the number of times someone from the public school system provided information to parents of infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers about their options once their child enters school and the support available beforehand… If we want to use a child’s poverty as a rationale for the challenges teachers face in school we should get out of our silo and work with medical and social service providers and do all we can to engage parents early and often.
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I don’t know about you, but after 10 hours in school and another 10+ on the weekends, not to mention evening grading sessions, I would have had little energy left to be out of my “ivory tower” working with medical and social service personnel. They squeezed the last bit of juice out of you. We did have school nurses, social workers and guidance counselors making some of those connections and they actually had a resource center for ECE and ESL/ELL services on a district level. I don’t think people realize what a huge job it is and the resources it takes. This was a lower economic urban/suburban school district.
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For teaching economist: I am still reeling over Diane’s 2/6 post by Joe Hernandez,”Charter Schools & the New Segregation.” Where is the oversight? Where is the explanation for how poorly (and, probably, criminally) public, taxpayer dollars are being spent? How do virtual on-line schools exist, run by a convicted felon (Michael Millken-sp.?–sorry), whereby students get–zilch, but we pay for it, & Millken gets his $$$. How many times do we have to repeat (and I’m reminded of “The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind,” here) that charter schools ARE PUBLIC schools, getting OUR money, strangling the REAL public schools, with REAL people as faculty and with CERTIFIED teachers? Please, everyone, read the Chicago papers (particularly yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Tribune) for an example of how to push back–THOUSANDS of older students, parents and community members–along with the teachers–have been appearing at meetings, protesting school closings (& 3 guesses what would replace these REAL, neighborhood, PUBLIC schools?!). The original list was 330 closings, now down to 129, due to THOUSANDS of people protesting…just like FIVE THOUSAND CTU members marched in Chicago. And…the people have pledged to not stop until the school closing list is…ZERO.
PEOPLE–DO NOT GIVE UP! DO NOT let them open strip-mall schools. DO NOT let them dehumanize & computerize education. Yes, WE can!!!
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I would agree that more over site is needed, but most here would argue that there is no amount of regulation that is sufficient for charter schools.
The issue at hand, however, is if CPE is vulnerable to the same criticisms of charter schools that are routinely voiced here. Perhaps this is misplaced. I only infrequently visit NYC, so am unfamiliar with the details of the various neighborhoods. Perhaps having 2.3% ELL reflects the population in Harlem.
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The CPE 1 population reflects the families who apply there. Please see my more detailed response above.
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Teachingeconomist,
You should admit you are really working for Jeff Ginsburg and East Harlem Tutorial. You are stating complete lies that you just pull from your rear end and you know it.
CPE is not exclusive and never has been. EHSA cheated its way into this space because Jeff Ginsburg and two of his Board members from EHT decided they wanted the building that parents at CPE 1 and CPE High School worked hard to raise money to rehabilitate the outdoor space. Jeff is stealing space in a deal he made with his fellow Harvard classmate Marc Sternberg.
This is a crime. And despite Mayor Bloomberg we parents fighting for a progressive education for our children are the “Special Interest”. He is lucky and so are we in NYC he is not running again. He would loose by more than 50,000 this time.
AJ Earl
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Marcia,
I have never heard of Jeff Ginsburg or East Harlem Tutorial. The factual claims I have made have been drawn from other posters on here. The statements condemning schools with admission procedures like CPE have all come from posts condemning charter schools. Having the lowest percentage of ELL students of any elementary school in NYC while being located in one of the highest percentage ELL districts (I am again using facts given by poster Tim below) would be taken as evidence that CPE skims and excludes. Dr. Ravitch condemns both practices in an earlier post in this thread, saying schools that do that are “private schools opp orating with public money”
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TE: The “facts” you cite are taken from a comment on this blog. They are not “facts.” Facts come from official data, not from people with an opinion.
But you knew that.
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Dr. Ravitch,
It has been the common practice to treat posters statements as truthful. With the unfortunate exception of the K Spradlin incident, that attitude has served the blog well. I am confident that posters will comment on Tim’s post if his statement was factually incorrect.
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Teaching Economist,
All comments are statements of opinion unless supported by external references. That is why I post so many links. For example, a recent post said that the Tennessee Virtual Academy was deleting failing grades from last fall. I linked to a news story in which school officials admitted the reactive and defended it.
As a historian, I am sensitive to the difference between verified facts and unverified opinion. As an economist, you should be too.
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Dr. Ravitch,
I took your posts about CPE to be factually correct despite there being no links to any outside sources because it is unreasonable to expect you to do the work of an entire newspaper staff. My default view is that every post here to be factually accurate unless it is shown to be false, as was the case in the K Spradlin post.
I look forward to seeing what poster Naomi says about poster Tim’s claim about ELL learners.
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The poster wgersen makes a critical point clearly: any school, no matter how much we might like its educational philosophy, that requires families deal with admissions hurdles that are higher than those of the “regular” public schools around it will effectively be skimming students.
I am a long-time educator. I have been a union member for 20 years. I work actively in my community to advance the cause of public education. I want desperately to believe in the power of what CPE is doing, as well as what its sister school in Boston, Mission Hill School, is doing. But we in the progressive movement need to be scrupulously honest with ourselves – especially since we demand the charter movement adhere to higher levels of forthrightness than it currently does.
When I visited CPE1 many years ago, it was immediately apparent to me that the student population there was different from the one with whom I worked in an urban school with sky-high numbers of poor kids, kids who didn’t speak English, etc. When I asked about how students got into CPE, and when the host described the ‘required tour’ process in place at the time, I immediately commented on how that automatically precluded the enrollment of children who needed excellent schooling the most. The host demurred, saying that the school had kids from families facing many obstacles, that there were kids whose enrollment tour was conducted by a state social worker, etc. Sorry, that answer just doesn’t cut it. Any child who has even a single adult in their lives who can: a) research the school system to find information on specific schools, b) identify certain schools to target for application, and c) get themselves to schools for a tour is a child who has a leg up on many, many other students.
When Mission Hill opened in Boston, and when many of us in the Boston Public Schools found out they had an interview process in place, there was an outcry. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander: if a progressive school somehow limits its population, then any success it achieves with its students must be viewed through a lens that takes into account the benefits that the pre-screened population brings to the school community. I have visited Mission Hill several times over the years, at times in my capacity as an educator and at times as a prospective parent. I was furious on one visit when the head of school (now gone) spoke disparagingly of “regular” Boston Public Schools – discounting their ability to provide excellent services to students. That was unfortunate.
If the CPE schools feel it is crucial that families buy into their philosophy, fine. What is completely not fine is for the schools and their supporters to obscure the resulting truth: the schools serve a population that de facto has more social resources available to it than most other urban public schools. Just be honest about it; I want to hear what you have learned about improving education – but don’t tell me that what you’ve learned is automatically transferable to any other urban school setting, because it’s not.
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Thanks to Around the Pond for this comment. I also visited CPE and observed the same things. I like many of the things that CPE does. But saying you must visit first does limit who attends.
Having agreed with the observation that CPE wants families to visit before enrolling, I do think that CPE has ideas that can be useful in many other places. For example, they have a well developed graduation process that uses a variety of approaches to assess whether a student has developed skills/knowledge that she/he needs to graduate.
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At CPE 1 we make a significant outreach to families who would otherwise not look at the school, and every year we convince families who did not want to consider progressive education to attend, and we pleasantly surprise them.
The demographics you see at the school reflect the demographics of people in the neighborhood who want a progressive education, plus the people we’re able to convince to consider an application.
Given my personal experience in reaching out to District 4 and District 5 families, it’s not unusual for a family to choose a school that is close to their home where they know their neighbors will send their children, or that has a curriculum they understand. Faced with uncertainty on both of those points, plus the chance they won’t be selected in a lottery, some families don’t apply to a school like CPE 1. That does not mean they don’t put in time and effort to register their child in the school they do attend, or to follow up with their child’s education there.
Long term the only solution to this will be be to have more schools like CPE 1, so there are more slots available, and more personal points of contact who can explain its value. I’m just one voice in these families’ lives. If they did get in, I’d be the only person they know. But if they go to the school across the street from their building, they will be with many families they know, and they won’t be surprised by what they find.
So we have a situation where families who trust this type of education are more likely to apply, and plenty of those families live in the neighborhood (including alumni who went to the school 30 years ago). As I noted above, we only have 20 slots available every year.
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You would be surprised at the number of people who do not agree with the progressive philosophy. My own school district has had a long history of progressive education. At the present time, it is slowly being dismantled by the parents who want to see results in the form of concrete data. They want their teachers held accountable (as does the state) on the basis of the that data. It does not seem to get through to them that our schools have always performed on a level with elite private schools. The culture is being destroyed by micromanagement and top down directives.
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I believe that good education involves a kitbag of strategies drawn from different philosophies. I like classical education, traditional education, and progressive education.
Every child is different, and teachers need the freedom to do what children need and what teachers do best.
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That all sounds correct to me. The only thing I would add is that children need the freedom to find the teacher(s) that do best what the children need.
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That’s a heavy lift for children don’t you think? How will you find that perfect teacher. Your child is in Kansas. What if the very best teacher to meet his needs happens to be in Oregon? And if you move to Oregon, will you follow the teacher when she or he moves to Maine? And what if that teacher is in your hometown, but already has a full class?
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It might be a heavy lift for children, and perhaps most would not take advantage of it. That is not a reason to deny the opportunity to those that will take advantage of it.
I don’t know if my child had the best possible teacher for mathematics and science when he was in high school, I just know that he had better classes outside his public high school than in it.
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2old2tch – Would you mind sharing whether the district is to which you refer? Has the district considered offering options – ie schools within schools with different approaches, as East Harlem did?
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As do I. I was responding to the posts that seemed to feel that a school based on progressive philosophy is inherently elitist so that admission policies led to skimming off the cream of the crop. While I mourn the loss of some of the positives that came with an appreciation for progressive policies, they were not necessarily unique to progressive programs.
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Such excellent posts here.
Yes, the schools that require parents to take initiative will have a student with more interested and involved parents. Since the parent is more powerful than the school in determining educational outcomes, the inequity arises. Unless we have equal parenting, kids are advantaged or not. That’s beyond the schools responsibility or ability. What schools CAN do is to assess student needs and respond to them.
The concept that all kids should be hooked onto a time oriented ( September-June ) train and that they will meet the end of their yearly educational journey with equal skills and in possession of equal knowledge is absurd, but society has been doing that since schools started. To allow maximum advantage for each kid, that has to end. Ultimately if what society wants is for each to achieve as best as he can, it’s the mastery which should determine progress.
The very concept that “talented” kids need to slow down so the “slowest” kid doesn’t fall off the train is nuts, and equally nuts is the concept of moving forward and disconnecting the slowest so they ultimately drop out.
That being said, every kid needs a SAFE schooling experience. If a child is worried about his safety ( or his food, clothing, and housing needs) education WILL take a back seat. If a parent removes a kid from school for days, weeks or months, that should be on the parents responsibility, not the schools, or its staffs. If kids need health care, or vision and hearing help, that should be a society responsibility, but with school nurses and health referrals completely gone from the school scene…
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I’d like to point out a few things that might help us refocus on the big picture.
CPE 1 has a long positive track record, with alumni parents and students who have had enough time to reflect on its influence in their lives. It has proven itself for decades.
But it is being challenged by an unproven school, in a way that has not been open or transparent.
In response, many of the comments have taken the tone of “well, CPE 1 must have done something wrong that would justify the wrong things the DOE and EHSA are doing.”
This concerns me on two levels. First, the facts, as I’ve tried to show in my comments. CPE 1 is open and welcoming; it serves the least advantaged; it integrates in the community and it asks for no favors or special treatments. It has been a successful example of an educational alternative, without banning teacher’s unions, seeking special funds, or requesting a separate method of accountability outside the democratic process.
But more important, this is not how fair and just societies work. In a just civil society we don’t say that it’s OK to break the law or bend the rules because of some perceived but unproven flaw in the system. We don’t tilt the scales of law and justice just because we have a “mission to do good”. And we don’t create unnecessary conflict just so our side can come out on top.
Momentarily placing aside the abstract question of whether or not charter schools are a positive thing, there are many ways the DOE could accommodate EHSA without restricting CPE 1. For example the building currently occupied by MS 54 in East Harlem will be mostly vacant by Fall 2013, and there will be plenty of space for EHSA there. What’s more, EHSA has continually promised to raise its own funds to build its own building, and it has also secured a promise of space in a parochial school. Let’s hope that EHSA and the DOE reconsider their current approach, and instead take one of these paths that does not hurt a successful public school.
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Wayne,
I have no doubt that CPE provides a fine education. I have no doubt that CPE makes considerable efforts to recruit applicants from all SES groups. It is just surprising that Dr. Ravitch supports a school that has so many of the attributes that she (and the vast majority of people who post here) condemn in other schools.
As someone new to the blog you may be unfamiliar with the number of posts concerning “skimming” or “creaming” by charter schools that use the same admission system as CPE. You may be surprised to learn that schools that draw students from outside the school district lines are routinely condemned for “destroying the community” by Dr. Ravitch. The search function on WordPress is not wonderful, but if you search over those terms you can get a flavor of the debate.
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teachingeconomist:
As far as I can tell, most objections to charter schools boil down to solid, reasonable concerns about
1. Their educational approach (high-pressure and test-focused, frequently pushing out low-performing students),
2. Their governance model (oversight by non-elected officials, no unions allowed, and frequent prohibitions on parent associations), and
3. Preferential provision of space (co-location causing space pressure in good schools).
In this context there is also a broader concern that any time charter schools distort their results through techniques like skimming, they concentrate more power to themselves, taking power away from the community and from democratic processes.
CPE 1 does not engage in any of these practices. We don’t seek out high-performing students or push out low performers. We are a public school, subjected to democratically elected governance, working within union guidelines and following all state public school laws; involving parents in school leadership, using space allocated through normal, transparent processes, avoiding high pressure testing, accommodating all types of students, and proving out alternative educational techniques.
If a charter school can say the same, then I’d say it is probably good to have that charter school in a community. In other words, it would be just another public school trying out some new, innovative ideas, and finding out whether families in the area like those ideas enough to keep the school busy.
If that means I would disagree with other commenters on this blog, then I’d be happy to disagree.
These are the issues that are leading to the present disagreements about current and future EHSA co-location in the Jackie Robinson complex.
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Wayne,
There are many posts opposing any sort of choice or selecting of students. Here is a selection:
From the February 8 2013 post “Why We Need Public Schools” we have “Charters and privates are not designed to serve all students—they are designed to serve students who are more like each other than not. Although there may be some diversity, those who are truly different either never apply, are never accepted or are counseled out. . One has to only look at New York City Schools, which are becoming more segregated and stratified by income than ever before, to understand the outcome of charters, selection policies and choice.”
From the January 8 2013 post “Petrilli: What’s Wrong With Skimming the Best Students?” we have “This commentary by Petrilli is refreshing. We can move past the claim that charters enroll exactly the same kids. We can acknowledge that they are created to skim off the best kids in the poorest neighborhoods.”
From the January 5 2013 post “The Problem with Choice” we have “The result: one set of schools with wealthier, less diverse students and fewer kids with special needs; the other serving children more diverse in ethnicity, income and educational needs (with fewer resources and more requirements).”
From the December 9 2012 post “Letting the cat out of the bag” we have “This is the goal–intended in some cases, unintended in others–of the current privatization movement: A dual school system: one system for the good kids, the other for those who were rejected or unwanted by the other system. The latter system, now known as “public schools,” will house disproportionate numbers of students who are learning English, students with disabilities, students with behavior problems, and students who can’t get higher scores every year.”
There are many other posts about charter selection, but these, along with the comments, should give you the flavor of the orthodox position here.
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Re: Wayne Collier
Putting aside TE’s Encyclopedia of Rhetorical Diversions, most sensible folks here and elsewhere never had a really big problem with the original scope and purpose of charter schools, and many of us know of charter schools that still operate on those principles. My personal recommendation to those types of charter schools is that they find some way to rebrand themselves, since the original brand has clearly been corrupted beyond all hope of reclamation.
But sensible folks, concerned with the whole system of public education as it really exists today, recognize the realities of our day — the de facto model of corporate corrupted charter schools has largely supplanted the de jure model of public interest charter schools, and that is the reality to which sensible folks are addressing their time and energies here.
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Thanks Jon Awbrey; that’s what I assumed.
Teaching Economist:
It seems like the posts you brought up are concerned about the same basic issues that cause much of the resistance to charter schools:
1. An educational approach based on high-pressure and test-focused, frequently pushing out low-performing students;
2. A governance model based on oversight by non-elected officials, no unions allowed, and frequent prohibitions on parent associations;
3. Preferential provision of space involving co-location that puts pressure on good schools
4. Accumulation of power outside of normal community and democratic processes, often through various types of distortions like skimming.
CPE 1 doesn’t do any of these things. And I think that in general charters would be a non-controversial topic if they completely stopped these four types of practices. Maybe there would be a few who would still challenge them, but they would not have any sort of critical mass.
As it is, these four classes of practices seem to be hurting everyone, in charter schools and in the public schools, as well as the rest of our society.
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Wayne,
Perhaps you missed the quotes. Let me emphasis it from only the first: ““Charters and privates are not designed to serve all students—they are DESIGNED TO SERVE STUDENTS WHO ARE MORE LIKE EACH OTHER THAN NOT. Although there may be some diversity, THOSE WHO ARE TRULY DIFFERENT EITHER NEVER APPLY, ARE NEVER ACCEPTED, OR ARE COUNSELED OUT.
No doubt CPE is a fine progressive school, but it has an application procedure, so there are many THAT NEVER APPLY. You yourself say that “The demographics you see at the school reflect the demographics of PEOPLE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WHO WANT A PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION”, making them MORE LIKE EACH OTHER THAN NOT.
Arguments like this are routinely given as criticism of charter schools. It just seems like basic fairness to recognize these criticisms when they apply to schools with the “public” label as well.
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If that were the only argument against charter schools, I would probably not argue against charter schools–and I doubt many others would either.
It’s the way this issue combines with the other much more negative charter school practices that causes problems.
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But even then, this is just an abstraction in the current discussion. CPE 1 is really, really diverse: economically, socially, racially, religiously, culturally. The only common thread is the school itself. This diversity comes from two facts: place a progressive school in a district that doesn’t have any; hold spots for the local community; and progressives will try to go to that school, which will result in diversity. The other fact is that the progressives who now more and more live in East Harlem and Harlem are themselves very diverse along many dimensions.
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Actually all NYC public schools have an application process. Here is what the DOE says:
“You must submit an application in order for your child to attend kindergarten at a New York City public school in September 2013. If you would like to apply to multiple schools, you must submit an application to each school….
“Admission is not first-come, first-served . All applications received by the deadline are treated the same, according to the school’s admissions priorities.”
CPE II’s DOE mandated admissions priority is District 4 and District 5.
In addition to the regular application process, we often admit District 4 walk-ins whose parents could not find placement in their zoned elementary schools for a variety of reasons. Of course we want them to tour, so they know what we are about and what to expect. We want to have parents make an informed choice.
I always say “If you want lots of test prep or if you want your kids to drink soda for lunch, CPE II is not for you.” As I said, parents should be informed.
Naomi, Principal, CPE II
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Thanks, Naomi. Mayor Bloomberg has spent more than a decade trying to charterize the NYC public schools, and not being able to do that, turning it into n all-choice system, with no neighborhood schools. The next mayor has a lot of work to do to restore public education.
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Naomi,
Someone posted on this thread that CPE has the smallest percentage of ELLs in the city or the district. I don’t know the facts. Please enlighten us.
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Wayne Collier wrote:
“Fortunately, through outreach we manage to convince enough ELL families to apply each year that we don’t lose them all in the lottery. Each year several ELL families who never knew about progressive education give the school a chance, and are surprised and pleased by what they find.”
Speaking of setting the record straight . . .
The most recent NYSED school report card shows that CPE enrolled a grand total of TWO ELL students in each of the 2008-2009, 2009-2010, and 2010-2011 school years. According to the current school year’s register, there are now 3 ELLs at CPE.
CPE has the lowest percentage of ELLs of *any* elementary school in New York City, despite being located in a district with one of the highest concentration of ELLs (14% of total District 4 enrollment). I think it’s safe to say that whatever you’re doing for outreach should be probably be re-examined.
On the other hand, given that in an average year 40-50% of the fifth graders at CPE score below proficient on the state ELA test, maybe it’s to the benefit of ELL families to have their children end up elsewhere.
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Further setting the record straight . . . Diane, here are the links to my “opinions”.
The state report card showing that CPE enrolled just two ELL children in 2008-2009, 2009-2010, and 2010-2011: https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2010-11/AOR-2011-310400010497.pdf
The NYC DOE register showing that CPE currently has three ELL students and 199 students overall: http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/04/M497/AboutUs/Statistics/register.htm
Results of last year’s state tests showing 40+% of CPE 5th graders weren’t proficient on the ELA exam (warning: this opens immediately to a 4MB PDF file http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/2012/DistrictandBuildingAggregates-StateReport.pdf)
Data on the percentage of ELLs in each NYC school district here: https://reportcards.nysed.gov/counties.php?year=2011. I did somewhat overstate District 4’s concentration of ELLs : it has the second-highest percentage of ELL’s in Manhattan and is in the top third of districts city wide.
My claim that CPE has as low a percentage of ELL students as any elementary school in the city was admittedly less precise and scientific. I searched Insideschools.org for schools I suspected to have a very low rate of ELLs, omitting schools like Lower Lab and Anderson that have an academic screen for admissions. My search included schools like PS 3, PS 6, PS 41, PS 276, PS 290, PS 107, PS 321, PS 1 Tottenville, and randomly selected schools in Districts 16 and 23, the heart of Brooklyn’s African/Caribbean-American community, schools in District 26, and others. I couldn’t find a single school that had as consistently as low of a number of ELL kids on its roster over the same 2008-2011 + current year time frame. I’m sure there’s an unscreened elementary school out there that has enrolled one or zero ELLs in recent years. If it exists, I will uncomplainingly eat crow and bump CPE up to second-to-last.
My opinion? It’s laughable for anyone connected to the school to boast of its successful outreach to ELLs or to claim that the school’s enrollment is representative of the district in which it is located. I think there are a lot of parallels to draw between charters and ultra-progressive schools: the charters make kids who can’t keep up miserable and encourage them to leave. Progressive schools have winners and losers, too: the winners are the self-motivated kids or kids with an intellectually rich home life. The losers are the kids who don’t have those resources and are sent off to middle school not knowing how to read. And before I’m accused of being a stooge for the charters, please know that any facility I have in looking up this sort of data was honed from debunking the “they educate the same kids” propaganda advanced by Moskowitz, Brill, Seth Andrew, Geoff Canada, etc.
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Both CPE I and CPE II are well known as excellent schools of. It seems that some people are happy to select a couple of statics and use them to judge schools. Others look more deeply.
Both CPE schools are diverse in so many ways and offer a welcoming environment to students and families alike. They have been part of the District 4/East Harlem Community for many years and have made positive contributions to the community, contributions that extend beyond the students that have been fortunate enough to attend.
If you look at last year’s pre-K applications, both CPE I (at 189) and CPE II (at 186), have the greatest number of applicants of any district 4 school. With 154 being the most for any other school. Since the DOE is in total control of Pre K applications and acceptances, we get what we get, based on the DOE priority regulations, and we are fine with that. But clearly, there is a demand.
I can speak best about CPE II. We have had a huge number of parents coming on tours and applying for Kindergarten, including many from Districts 4 and 5. I have been overwhelmed by the wonderful comments from our visitors. CPE II is a very special place. A calm, caring, supportive environment for a diverse community of learners.
Yes, it is true, we don’t have many ELLs. 1.51%. But the zoned school that we share a building with has only 2.40%, not a significant difference, so I don’t think this is in any way a sign that we don’t serve the community.
And please, do not confuse our small percentage of ELLs with a lack of Latino and other bilingual students. We have many. Some have entered Kindergarten with a significant knowledge of English (not necessarily proficient.) Others have reached the levels of English needed to move out of ELL status based on mandated DOE tests.
And while you are looking for information about us, please note that we have a very large population of children with I.E.P.s (a.k.a. special ed). About 20% as a matter of fact. All of them are educated in an inclusive setting.
Our doors are open and we are proud of what we do.
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In response to the dig on CPE1’s test scores, this is a compromise that families accept, because our children receive so many advantages on other dimensions. Rather than spending an inordinate amount of time preparing for tests and taking practice tests, our children are collaborating with their peers and teachers on projects, exploring their interests, and learning how to participate responsibly within a democratic community. You will not see teachers having students memorize facts or practice the tricks to good test taking, but you will see teachers encouraging students to make observations, to test their hypotheses, and to explain how they derived their conclusions. As a CPE1 parent, I am willing to forgo test score points for that sort of richness in my child’s education, because those are skills that will be beneficial to them in their everyday lives.
Some bloggers are using the ELL statistic to suggest that we are not a diverse, inclusive school and do not have kids who represent the community. Naomi speaks to the statistics of the ELL matter cogently. In addition, from the perspective of a parent of the CPE1 community, there is no question as to how truly diverse our school is in terms of culture, religion, race, economics, language, learning styles, and family structure.
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Some posters on this blog have been using the IEP statistics of CPE1 to suggest that we “skim” by not accepting students who have learning disabilities. First, as Naomi mentioned in a recent post, we take what students the DOE sends to us via the universal pre-k process, and we take who comes to us out of the standard application/lottery process for kindergarten. Second, many of the recommendations that are requested in IEPs (such as preferential seating, extended time, and integrated co-teaching classroom) are already a part of the CPE1 curriculum. Our classrooms already have many of these practices in place; our students are sitting in small groups on the floor, at tables situated around the room, or are actively working (and therefore not sitting at a desk). Our students are not spending lengthy amounts of time taking tests, and they work at their own pace on projects, so they are less likely to require formal accommodations such as extended time. The classes at CPE1 consist of a teacher, a collaborating teacher, paraprofessionals, visiting child development experts who observe our children, and student teachers. Why do we have student teachers? Because every year, graduate programs (both locally, as well as from other parts of this country and even internationally) send their students to learn from us because they believe that CPE1’s way of teaching is valuable. So to get back to my point, many of our children who may otherwise require an IEP do not require one at CPE1; they are in a school that already provides additional support. All of our students benefit from this. Furthermore, the mixed grade classrooms further facilitate an understanding by our students that all individuals work at different levels and different paces; this prevents any one child from being singled out by his or her peers as being “slower” than the rest.
Also, I want to address the themes of choice and fairness, which have emerged on this blog stream. Choice first: People are suggesting that in some way, CPE1 takes choice away from families within the community. That is illogical. What actually takes away family choice is when 2 schools (both established by East Harlem Tutorial) build themselves up so largely that other public schools are denied space to exist. This is the plan of EHS1 and 2 who intend to expand to over 1,200 students combined. This will decrease choice for families as it results in many slots, but at one type of school.
This leads to the topic of fairness. In order to sustain educational choice, schools must be afforded equal opportunity to thrive and expand. The East Harlem Scholars Academy Charter Schools 1 and 2 are being unfair when they have private funding to pay to lease a space for their schools, but they instead go after a public school space. This takes that public school space away from a true public school that does not have private funding to pay for a private facility or to lease space within a building, such as a church. Equally, it is unfair of the DOE to agree to give away the public education space to the privately funded EHS1 (whose track record is too new to be meaningful) and its sister school, EHS2 (which has not yet opened) rather than to the CPE schools (which have been around for almost 40 years and have a strong track record), who have been requesting to expand to a middle school for 4 years running, and were most recently denied due to “lack of space”.
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