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Late last year there was word that Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, which is currently located in Sunset Park High School, would be building a new facility on Douglass Street between 3rd Avenue and Nevins, and that’s been confirmed by a lease agreement that was recently recorded in public records for the properties at 182 and 188 3rd Avenue and 267 Douglass Street. The school’s website, meanwhile, says that it’s in search of an interim location for next year. (Controversial plans to temporarily occupy space at P.S. 32 were recently withdrawn.) It seems to be the case that the warehouse on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Douglass is going to be torn down to make make way for the schohtol, since its owner just got a permit to demolish the building. As of Monday, though, there was no visible construction or demolition under way on the block.
Charter School Expanding to Gowanus [Brownstoner] GMAP


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  1. “This charter school has become very hot among the aspiring classes of Slopers and Cobble Hillers and the like — those who have enough dough to send their kids to private but want to feel in touch with the masses so they go public, but not quite. They’d send their offspring to G&T programs, but cannot get in and so dismiss them as “elitist.” Meanwhile, these charter schools are not only NOT public but drain vital resources from the real public schools and undermine teacher unions. It’s times like these that I prefer the straight up of the GOP.”

    Househunt said it all. Give me the straight up GOP over these “progressives” with sensitive children for whom a zoned school just isn’t a “good fit.”

    Did you read the letter CRCS sent out to parents essentially blaming the union for the fact that they weren’t allowed to expand in such a way that would have had severely disabled students learning in the stairwell? Seriously, you guys are one of the wealthiest schools in District 13, co-located with one the poorest and a school for autistic children and YOU’RE the victims? (Why wasn’t that covered on Brownstoner, by the way, or did I miss it?)

    Now Arts and Letters is doing its best to strip every zoned school in the neighborhood of “the aspiring classes” househunt mentions.

    Meanwhile, these parents congratulate themselves on “contributing” to the community by segregating the schools, all the while patting themselves on the back for sending their kid to a diverse school because it has kids with brown skin (most of whom have parents with PhDs and lifestyles very similar to their own).

    Yuck. Is it like this in Queens?

  2. idisagree, your model is interesting, in that you seem to think it’s fine to compare children to parcels of real estate. Is this really what you’re trying to say — that the interests of some kids are worth protecting, while others are worth bulldozing? Or are you attempting to say, since some schools are landmarked and wonderful, they should be preserved, while others should be bulldozed and replaced? (I assume that latter, but even saying that makes me wonder. Much like the construction of the Target, many charters aren’t exactly doing a great job of replacing what was there before — even if it wasn’t much. And where’s the standard? Where is the accountability?)

    The charter school that was being added to PS 9 was also a lottery school. Since it was a lottery, just like Arts & Letters, it has every reason to exist too?

    Parents are big hypocrites. If the end result suits their kid, they are for it. If not, then not. This model may end up creating a lot of good school options — and more power to it. But there are some disturbing effects that I’m not that comfortable with.

  3. The kids who go to Mary McDowell can’t be very well served with pull out services. Most parents who send kids there would be thrilled if their kids’ LDs were so mild. They aren’t sending the kids there as state-subsidized private school, but because the public schools aren’t really equipped to serve most of those kids.

  4. The kids who go to Mary McDowell can’t be very well served with pull out services. Most parents who send kids there would be thrilled if their kids’ LDs were so mild. They aren’t sending the kids there as state-subsidized private school, but because the public schools aren’t really equipped to serve most of those kids.

  5. Funding is key, of course, but we’re also talking about an ideological shift from improving the public schools to quick fix market models.

    When it comes to draining public funds, however, it’s not charters that get my goat. I still cannot believe that we have a system in NYC whereby public funding is used to send rich, MILDLY LD kids to private schools, like Marymount.

    These are kids who could be very well served with pull out services at the public school (inclusion classes) but their parents want private. Nothing wrong with that, but then pay for it if you can. Not so in several cases I know of — these families can well afford paying for it themselves and instead they sue the city! I’m talking families who own Brownstones in Park Slope AND vacations homes in places like Fire Island, the Hamptons, and the Berkshires, and your tax dollars are spend to send their kids to private school.

    But let’s cut 6000 teaching jobs from the public schools, because we have only enough money to build charter schools and send rich kids to private school.

  6. You read your link wrong – look at the chart you referenced: charter school kids housed in private buildings get less money than (1) public school kids and (2) charter school kids housed in public schools.

    Your link shows that the guess I made in my first post seems to be correct.

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