A New School Hopes to Learn From the Charters

clipped from cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com A New School Hopes to Learn From the Charters A new primary school proposed by Teachers College at Columbia University aims to address this issue head-on. The school’s goal, its founders say, is to transfer some of the best charter school features to a school run by the Department of Education, while showing how a primary school can benefit from a close affiliation with a college. Called the Teachers College Community School, it is likely to open in September 2011 in northern Manhattan, and while there is no site yet, Teachers College hopes for a place somewhere between West 110th and West 155th Streets, an area that includes Morningside Heights, Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights. There are many charter schools in central Harlem, but far fewer in these neighborhoods. A zoned school, it will start with a prekindergarten, kindergarten and first grade and will expand to K-8 over five years. By SHARON OTTERMAN