The Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia, just released a report describing the ways that co-location of multiple schools into the same building reduces educational equity. The report is called “THE EFFECTS OF CO-LOCATION ON NEW YORK CITY’S ABILITY TO PROVIDE ALL STUDENTS A SOUND BASIC EDUCATION.”
Co-location was a primary goal of the Bloomberg administration, which closed many large schools and opened many small schools. Today, almost 2/3 of the city’s schools are co-located: “In 2013, 1,150 (63%) of the city’s 1,818 schools were co-located. Charter schools made up 10% of co-located schools (115); the other 90% were traditional public schools.”
Many of the small, co-located schools “suffer from inadequate facilities, oversized classes and instructional groupings, inadequate course offerings, insufficient student supports, and inadequate extracurricular activities….” In many cases, these conditions violate state statutory, regulatory, and constitutional requirements.”
The report spells out in detail how these conditions limit students’ educational opportunities.
Small elementary schools are unable to provide adequate instructional time in the arts, science, or physical education.
Some high schools were unable to provide basic chemistry or physics classes, or foreign language classes
No school was able to provide the academic intervention services to which students were entitled.
Many middle and high schools were unable to provide required arts courses.
Many lacked the support staff for struggling readers or English language learners or others in need of extra time and attention.
These, and many more shortages of staff and resources, short-change children.
Co-locations have meant that many children do not get the academic opportunities or the social services they need.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is not the issue of small schools or small schools within a larger school. As described this is an issue of abusing those schools by forcing large class sizes and insufficient course options. In my upcoming book, “Brainstorming Common Core: Salvaging the Fiasco of Reform” I discuss this and a way for these schools to team together to assure all arts and other subjects are included.
Let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Leave that for the tea party!.
By the way, in my book Common Core becomes unrecognizable as it is gutted
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With all due respect Cap Lee, there is nothing to salvage. The “reformers” are on a path of destruction for public institutions our ancestors toiled to build. I am horrified as I witness my meager efforts to advance the literacy of my students torn asunder by Common Core, Endless Testing and Data. I will not support the plutocracy in the pillage if all I hold dear.
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Well, NJ Teacher, the Overclass fervently believes that “It Takes a Pillage…”
(Apologies to Nomi Prins)
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@Micheal Fiorillo… it takes a “pillage” as you say and some “CCRAP” too (as one commenter coined in much earlier discussions of a curtained named CC test)!
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Politician reformers bend over backwards for the charters at the expense of the public school kids. I’m sure someone here can find the article about 2 schools at one location where the charter classes were painted and fixed and not crowded, and those “scholars” walked the same halls as the public school kids whose classrooms were left in disrepair, were overcrowded, and who had to share lunchrooms, auditoriums, etc. The public school kids suffered because of the activities that were taken away, even physical education. It needs to stop. Charters should become what they truly are, private schools, and stop sucking at the public school breast.
Also, the charter operators, the teachers, everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves for thieving in the name of saving children.
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As FLERP! pointed out and the study makes clear, collocations have little to do with charter schools. The study states ” In 2013, 1,150 (63%) of the city’s 1,818 schools were co-located. Charter schools made up 10% of co-located schools (115); the other 90% were traditional public schools (Winters, 2013).”
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Bravo. GFY – good for you.
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I just think it is a good idea to read the post before commenting on it. It appears that it is generally district run schools that are harming other district run schools.
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Of course, you’re right te. I don’t know how to read, and I’m not entitled to an opinion, and you always seem to shadow me. I don’t like your rhetoric, and I find you offensive and baiting. Go give Rhee a kiss, and leave me alone.
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Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but given the dominance of district run schools co-locating in buildings with other district run schools, the problems with co-location would seem to have little to do with charter schools.
What rhetoric? All i did was quote from the study that is the subject of this posting.
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There are 183 charter schools in NYC. 115 of them are co-located. That’s approximately 63%. That’s rather interesting.
Just wanted to add some perspective to the problem.
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So for every charter school that is co-located there are over 14 district run schools co-located. It seems unlikely that it is the charter schools that are driving the problems discussed in the report.
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It seems that they are equally responsible for “the problem.” And it is rather naïve to suggest otherwise.
63% of charters and 63% of TPS both have co-locations. Based on the report, neither of them are good for the students. There is nothing in the report that says TPS nor charters are “driving the problems discussed in the report.” It hints in many places that both are responsible. They both are not good for students.
You should also be cognizant that TPS are co-located with charters. This means that 115 TPS co-locate with 115 charters. This means that your math is slightly off about district run public schools in your last post.
Also included in co-locations are moderate to severe special education co-locations, alternative education schools (credit recovery), and night schools that co-locate. Many of the problems addressed in the report do not even apply to these types of TPS that co-locate.
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The passage I quoted above is the only mention of charter schools in the Colombia report. The report points out that “Nearly all of the schools were severely constrained by their physical plant and instructional footprint” and ” Many schools were unable to provide the full Regents-required curriculum” and “No school was able to provide all of its students eligible for academic intervention”. If by “no school” or “nearly all” the faculty at Colombia actually meant only the 10% of co-located schools that are charter schools they certainly have a written the report in a confusing manner.
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I NEVER implied that only charters were the problem, TE. I actually stated otherwise. Did you NOT read my comment correctly. Isn’t it “a good idea to read the post before commenting on it”?
Sometimes it is helpful to remove those biased blinders before you post a comment that is so off the mark of what I posted.
But I will repeat it for you since you either grossly misunderstood my point or you lack integrity with your own argument:
Co-locations are bad wherever they pop up.
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I was under the impression that we were all commenting on the thread started by poster donna’s comment where she contrasts only charter school students to public school students. I think we are both in agreement that the report is concerned with co-location and the concerns raised in the report arise primarily because of two district managed schools in a single building.
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Perhaps we are. But you should take your own advice to heart.
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co-location is another ‘interesting’ tactic by privatizers to undermine and weaken public schools.
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Co-location is alive and well in Carmen Farina’s DOE. Just look at my school where we are being ordered to clean out rooms for the new school that will take over half of our building in September.
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To be clear, most co-locations in NYC don’t involve charter schools. My daughter will be attending a co-located school next year.
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I cannot even believe such segregation can be allowed to exist. This separation is degrading and illegal. Why can’t people see this? It is so blatant.
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I wonder if the money people who funded the Vergara case in Los Angeles Unified School District claiming the civil rights of the students were denied because of unqualified teachers that the district had not been able to remove are the least bit interested in protecting the civil right to an equal education of children in charter schools.
Oops, forgot, charter teachers don’t have tenure (the real reason for the California lawsuit.)
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I have been wondering how much money Broad, et al. has “donated” to the Vergara plaintiffs as part of buying and backing this ridiculous law suit, the means to an end.
Its gonna be a really good future for Beatriz Vergara now. Ka-ching. Payday.
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The Brooklyn New School, Manhattan School for Children, Central Park East I and II, Castle Bridge School, and Ella Baker School are all co-located within a host school. The overwhelming majority of co-locations, including district-charter co-locations, are harmonious and run smoothly.
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