If you read all the media outlets in the Metropolitan area, one would think that the Eva Moskowitz's charter schools were taking over vacant space and not causing any negative consequences to the existing school. That's far from the truth. Besides taking precious funding from the public schools. The Harlem Success Charter School #4 (middle school) will have 194 carefully selected students who survived the extremely high student attrition rate approaching 50%, to make it into the middle school. To make sure the "elite 194"has enough space they will take over many areas that are used for the PS 149 "Special Education:" population such as the Science, Art, and Music rooms and causing some services to be preformed in storage closets, hallways, and anywhere else the staff can squeeze into to give these Special Education students services that they are required, by law to have.
Had the City approved the Eva Moskowitz charter school for the "elite 194", it would make the PS 149 building at 132% of capacity. How was the Bloomberg Administration going to get the building back to the 100% utilization rate? Let's just kick out the Special Education students in PS 149! That's right, the most needy and severely disabled of students were to be removed from their only school they knew for the "elite 194". Yet, except for Juan Gonzalez, no media outlet bothered to show what would happen to the Special Education students when the Harlem Success Academy charter school moved into the PS 149 building.
Where will the severely disabled students be bused to for their services? Probably to the already overcrowded District 75 "Mickey Mantle school" on the West side of Manhattan which already lost space to Eva Moskowitz's Harlem Success Charter School #1. Or to schools further downtown. Did the Bloomberg Administration care what the community thought? The answer is no of course.
I can't understand why the De Blasio Administration doesn't counterattack and show that Eva Moskowitz's Success charter schools are taking away space from the severely disabled students in the NYC public school system. The very same "Special Education"students that will never be accepted to Eva's charter schools in the first place, add these students with other no-entry students such as English Language Learners, and "high needs" students with academic, behavioral, and attendance issues. Heaven forbid that Eva allows these students to attend her "elitist schools"and take the State and National tests. No way would any of these students make it to the"elite 194". Only the best make it and goodbye to the rest.
Its too bad the other side of the charter school story is ignored by the media but its been that way for years and with Chancellor Carmen Farina bumbling her way through the school year, I expect nothing will change.
P.S. Leonie Haimson was on MSNBC last night and did a great job in presenting the case against charter schools. You can find it on her blog NYC Public School Parents Here.