Prometheus 6

They've been talking this nonsense for three years now.

City Tries New Tactic to Convert Catholic Schools to Charter Schools
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ

The 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 Albany, 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.

The plan to turn the Catholic schools into charter schools was announced in February as a way to save several Catholic schools that were scheduled to be closed this year by the Diocese of Brooklyn. The plan would also avoid a potential influx of students from the closed Catholic schools — which have faced declining enrollment and rising operating costs for decades — into crowded city schools nearby.