Charter schools run by churches

CHURCHES MIX WITH CHARTERS, June 17, 2010, Wall Street Journal

Four of the 27 new charter schools opening in New York City this fall have ties with religious organizations, although leaders assert curriculum and instruction will be secular.

Supporters say the new schools are a welcome addition amid overcrowded classrooms and heightened demand for charters, especially in neighborhoods with low-performing schools. But the development blurs the line between church and state, and also calls into question the distinction between public education and private groups, an issue with which charter schools already contend.

Four pastors are involved in starting charter schools, which receive public funding but can be privately run.

The Rev. A.R. Bernard's Brooklyn-based nondenominational Christian Cultural Center boasts a membership of 33,000, with 5,000 coming to services on any given Sunday. Now, 120 kindergarteners and first-graders will be attending Monday through Friday as it opens a charter school called the Culture Arts Academy Charter School at Spring Creek. The charter school will share the same building—but on a different floor—as the private school Mr. Bernard previously founded, Brooklyn Preparatory School…

New York State law will allow in certain situations for tax money to be allocated toward the books, supplies or buses of private schools. Experts say while these measures are not intended to fund religious instruction, it has been tough for the state to police.

"There's a lot of gray in how we distinguish between at what point public money is being used to promote religious instruction," said Luis Huerta, associate professor of education at Columbia University's Teachers College…

In interviews, the four pastors opening charters said that though they had no data on the religious makeup of their incoming classes, they sensed a mix of congregants and others.

The idea for the all-boys Imagine Me Leadership Charter School arose when a group of educators in the St. Paul's Baptist Church congregation sought a solution for the troubled youth of East New York, said the Rev. David Brawley…

The Rev. Calvin Rice, pastor of New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens, expects 68 students in the entrepreneurship-focused Rochdale Early Advantage Charter School. Like Mr. Brawley, he saw the founding of a charter school as a way to remedy community woes. "In our church, we talked about the dangers in the local public schools," he said, where gang violence disrupts teaching…

The Rev. Leroy Mullings of the Community Church of the Nazarene in Far Rockaway, Queens, said he hopes to recreate Harlem Children's Zone founder Geoffrey Canada's work by connecting the new Challenge Leadership Charter School with youth programs. Rev. Mullings was resolute, saying flatly that "the school is not tied to the church."