A controversial charter school planned for Northern Brooklyn got a big boost from a local supporter of charters. We sat down with Eric Grannis, of the Tapestry Project, to ask why he thought the community needed a new charter. He said he met with parents to hear what they wanted, and then picked a school that fit that description. But he insists the drive to approve the school at tonight’s Panel for Educational Policy meeting came from the families, not him.

Reporter Beth Fertig reviews the findings of her Charters & Choices series on The Brian Lehrer Show. DOE data showed that charters have overall lower attrition rates than district schools but the debate remains open – and heated – about what kind of students attend charters and who is most likely to leave.

In our series on charter schools we’ve examined the role of discipline. Critics say charters with strict rules unfairly push out students or fail to communicate with families well. One school in Bedford Stuyvesant lost almost one of five of its students when parents thought its detention and disciplinary rules went too far. It has since toned down its approach.

Charter schools have become hugely popular in New York City because of their reputation for high test scores and strict discipline. But it’s a delicate balance. A school that’s too strict risks losing its students. But other families want a “no excuses” environment. We visited two charters that have struggled with how to handle kids who don’t meet their expectations.

Data on student discharges from both charter and district schools revealed lots of movement in the city’s epicenter of school choice: Harlem. SchoolBook’s analysis sparked debate over dumping and attrition, and it is still going. Join the conversation.

An analysis of the attrition rates for the city’s charter schools revealed that charters have lower attrition rates, on average, than district schools. But there were outliers. Here’s the Top 10 list of charter schools with unusually high numbers of students leaving the school. There are interesting stories behind these numbers.

In the past decade, about 150 charter schools have opened in New York City to provide more options for families. Harlem has the highest concentration of charters in the city and the influx has created a buyer’s market, one with a lot of student turnover but maybe higher expectations, too.

This interactive chart shows the movement of students between district and charter schools in three school districts in Upper Manhattan. It reveals a tremendous amount of mobility in Harlem, which has the highest concentration of charter schools in the city. It also seems to debunk the theory that charter schools “dump” low-performing students conveniently before test-taking time.