Chancellor Joel Klein hopes that replicating a Connecticut charter school in New York City will increase student achievement, but Henry Levin is skeptical about the outcome. "There's no shortage of individual schools that are doing well," said the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education. "There is a shortage of success stories in trying to clone those schools."

Klein plans to model five City schools by 2006 after Amistad, a charter school in New Haven, Connecticut. Leaders from that school will be working on the initiative. Although more than 81 percent of Amistad's eighth-graders scored higher than their Connecticut counterparts on state math and reading exams, critics question if this can lead to five great schools in New York City.

The article, entitled "New York to Emulate Connecticut Charter School That's the Head of Its Class," appeared in the July 26 edition of the Daily News.

Published Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004