Update on the New Covenant Charter School

An update on the New Covenant Charter School in Albany: rumors of its demise have apparently been greatly exaggerated. Victory Schools was brought in last August to try to turn it around and early indications are positive: test scores are way up this school year in all grade levels on the reading and social studies tests -- in fact, this year New Covenant outscored all other 5th and 6th grade Albany charter school students on the English Language Arts assessment test that was released last week -- and Victory Schools expects the same in math and science when those scores are released. Despite this progress, real legacy issues caused the board to nearly shut the school down, but the board has just reevaluated its decision and will likely allow the school to remain open.

This is the beauty of charter schools -- there's huge accountability and mechanisms in place to bring about meaningful change.

• Last year, just 37 percent of KIPP’s seventh-graders who had been at the school at least two years were proficient in English and math.

SUNY on Thursday will consider recommendations from the Charter Schools Institute to allow the school to drop the KIPP title from its name, and to require it to increase its reserve fund to $75,000 from $25,000 to cover any costs it might incur if it is forced to close.