Friday, February 23, 2007

CP: Charter Schools

Check out this City Paper piece on charter schools and you'll see some familiar names (both schools and people). To give you a taste you've got the Capitol Hill Cluster School, Gina Arlotto and Two Rivers (see the end of the article for a mention of the ongoing lawsuit coutesy of Save Our Schools).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting article but it gets a number of 'facts' wrong. Just one example: No charter school attempted to purchase and locate in the Results building. At the time Results bought the site, there were still relatively few charter schools in DC and none expressed interest in this site.

Since then, Mary Landrieu managed to get a law passed mandating that DCPS offer all former school sites to charter schools at a substantial discount from the assessed value of the site. In other words, DCPS must sell to charters for less money than any one else offers. Since it is unclear who actually owns the property in the event of the charter school closing, the real truth is, DC loses money on these sales.

I hate City Paper bc. their reporters never actually research the issues and this is a case in point.

Anonymous said...

Are you saying that the article gets facts wrong by reporting that no charter school tried to buy the former surplus school building that is now Results the Gym? Where does the article say that? I read the article and it says: "Gym Rats In the Capitol Hill area, look no further than the old red-brick Giddings School on G Street SE for an idea of what Hill residents want from a stately DCPS building: a fabulous health club with an art gallery in it. The District sold the building in 1998 for $1.8 million and it became Results, the Gym in 2001. Ward 6 D.C. Councilmember Sharon Ambrose supported the deal."

So how did the article/reporter/City Paper get this "fact" wrong? I am totally confused. Thanks.