New York City tries new strategy for converting 2 Catholic schools to public charters

From The New York Times: New York City has adopted a new strategy in its effort to turn two Catholic schools into charter schools, and will no longer press for changes in state law to accomplish the conversion. Seeking to avoid a potentially drawn-out battle in the state legislature, city education officials have decided to try to get around a 1998 state ban on converting private schools to charter schools by arguing that the new charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run, will open as entirely new schools.

FROM FEBRUARY 2009: Nicholas A. DiMarzio, the Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have unveiled a plan to convert four Catholic schools scheduled for closing into public charter schools. But despite the celebratory air this month when the idea was announced, the plan faces significant legal, political and educational hurdles.
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EARLIER: A reprieve has been granted to six Catholic elementary schools in the Brooklyn and Queens boroughs of New York City. But eight schools will close as planned this summer, the Brooklyn Diocese says. Officials said last month that 14 schools would be closed or merged by this summer, but they gave school officials and parents a chance to offer feedback. In the past four years, 32 Catholic schools in Brooklyn and Queens have closed because of declining enrollment.
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FROM JANUARY 2009: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., has proposed closing 14 elementary schools at the end of the academic year. If the plan goes forward, it would mean that one of the nation’s largest Catholic dioceses would have shuttered nearly 40 percent of its grade schools in the past seven years. The news shook students, parents and teachers, many of whom had joined in desperate fund-raising efforts in recent months to avoid the ax. Since September, diocesan officials had been scrutinizing the finances and neighborhood dynamics of its 109 elementary schools to determine which areas might no longer be able to support a school.
Read The New York Times article.