The fall 2009 edition of Education Next, a national quarterly journal on education reform issues, contains a lengthy and favorable profile of the work of the Brighter Choice Foundation in creating and supporting charter schools in Albany, New York. The article, "Brighter Choices in Albany," is linked here.

The piece was authored by Peter Meyer, a freelance writer and contributing editor, who resides in nearby Hudson, New York, about a 45-minute drive south of the state capital. Meyer has been a long time observer of the charter school movement in the state, and the significance of the expansion of charters in Albany in particular. Thus, the article traces the roots of chartering in New York, including enactment of the state's charter law; and the genesis and academic success of charter schools in the Albany City School District. The article also discusses some setbacks and lessons learned from chartering.

Meyer's article profiles several individuals who played varied but key roles in Albany's charter growth, including their previous careers outside of education that led to their involvement in New York's charter school movement. They are: Tom Carroll, the chairman of the Brighter Choice Foundation; Chris Bender, the Foundation's executive director; Brian Backstrom, the Vice President of the New York Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability and founder of one of Albany's charter middle schools; Jason Brooks, the Research Director for NYFERA; and myself, who co-founded one of Albany's elementary charter schools.

New York's capital city has fewer than 100,000 residents, and a public school population of approximately 10,100 students. In the current 2009-10 school year, nearly 2,600 students attend charter schools. This proliferation of charters in a relatively small city--educating more than 25 percent of its students and growing--occurred in the face of vexatious establishment opposition by district officials, politicians and the teachers union, both the local and statewide organizations.

Flagship Charters
The first Brighter Choice charter schools were single-gender schools approved by the state Board of Regents in December 2000, just two years following enactment of the state's charter law, and one year following the disastrous advent of Albany's first school, the New Covenant Charter School. This early charter fiasco in the capital city, in full view of the state legislature, was potentially crippling to the whole statewide charter movement.

In September 2002, the Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls and Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys, both small K-4 elementary schools, opened after taking a lengthy 20-month planning period to conduct a national principal search and, more significantly, raise funding to construct a new state-of-the-art facility to house both schools by rehabilitating and expanding a mothballed 19th-century school building in the middle of Albany. (The Boys' school since relocated one block away to its own reconstructed facility.) Around this time, the Brighter Choice Foundation was established, and chaired by the schools' founder, Tom Carroll, to fundraise for the two flagship schools and later support creation of additional ones with similar features: extended school day and longer school year, small enrollment, mandatory student uniforms and other non-negotiables.

The auspicious start and positive academic track record of these two single-gender elementary schools did much to counter negative image of charters stemming from the ongoing struggles of nearby New Covenant Charter School. But Brighter Choice did not stop there. By 2005, three more charter schools opened to serve grade five, growing yearly to 5-8. In contrast to the charter management organization replication model, these Foundation-supported schools were designed instead after other high-scoring charter school models: KIPP Tech Valley Charter School; Achievement Academy Charter School, modeled after the Amistad Academy in New Haven; and Albany Preparatory Charter School, based on the International Baccalaureate program.

Subsequently, the elementary charter schools were created with the support of the Foundation: Henry Johnson Charter School, modeled after Milwaukee College Prep; and Albany Community Charter School, designed similarly to the Community Day Charter School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. More recently, the Foundation assisted with the establishment of Green Tech High Charter School, an all-male 9-12 school now in its second year and modeled on several successful charter high schools around the country; and the comparable Albany Leadership Charter High School for Girls, which opens in 2010.

Two More Charter Approvals This Week
The latest Albany charter expansion came this week, when the SUNY Board of Trustees approved two more charter middle schools, the Brighter Choice Charter Middle School for Girls and the Brighter Choice Charter Middle School for Boys, opening in 2010 and growing to serve grades 5-8. These schools bring the total to twelve charters in Albany, eleven of which are supported by the Brighter Choice Foundation. Most interestingly, these schools are the last piece for providing a continuum of single-sex, public school options from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The key role played by Brighter Choice Foundation has been to prepare a facility, usually new construction (thereby removing an enormous burden from the school operators); assist and finance a principal search; and provide start-up funding. Otherwise, it does not manage any of the schools. Some of the Foundation's officers, including Carroll and Bender, serve on several of the charter school governing boards.

A National Model for Reforming Public Ed.
Education Next captures the significance of the charter school experience in Albany, including the key ingredients for providing an abundance of high-quality public school options to realistically and rapidly transform a troubled, low-performing urban education system.

The success of Albany's district-wide chartering effort, supported by the Brighter Choice Foundation, now educates one of every four resident students, and counting. Their academic success demonstrates there is no reason for anyone--including parents, educators, community organizations, churches, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, unions or politicians--to settle in peaceful co-existence with failing, excuse-driven urban educational systems that relegate successive generations of young people to a sub par future.

There is a better, feasible way for children.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard