Bingo Academy

This is EXACTLY the type of article I was talking about when I advocated inviting the press to attend charter lotteries.  By profiling four parents (and their struggles and prayers for a decent school for their children), it really brings home what's going on.

What do you think your chances are? I don’t know. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.
Is the school too demanding of parents? Oh, no. That won’t be a problem at all.
Are you doing anything to improve your odds? Yeah, I said my prayers before I left the house.

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Bingo Academy

Anxious parents gather to find out if their kids were lucky enough to get into a charter school.

• By Carol Vinzant, NY Magazine

• http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/30031/

Last Wednesday, hopeful parents of 414 kids crowded into Harlem Success Academy to see if they got one of 111 spots in the charter school. A projector flashed names that a computer had picked earlier, and the kids got a Willy Wonka–esque “Golden Ticket.” The academy, like all charter schools, operates semi-independently of the Department of Education bureaucracy, allowing it to be innovative. By law, charter schools have to pick students randomly, but making a spectacle of it is not required. But it seems the school, which stresses intensive parental involvement, wants the parents there from the beginning.