By Conner Dunleavy

Last week, the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio announced plans for 64 new PROSE Program schools in the city. This comes at the same time that de Blasio stated his intentions to fight against raising the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state of New York, which in turn would allow more charter schools in New York City.

The PROSE Program (which stands for Progressive Redesign Opportunity for Schools of Excellence) allows for traditional public schools to skirt union regulations in the city, so long as 65% of the teachers at a school agree to do so. In regards to expanding this program, de Blasio said “the sky's the limit”. While the Mayor and his union allies are opposed to the expansion of charter schools, both parties are in support of expansion of the PROSE program, citing enthusiasm for its opt in nature.

While the future of charter school expansion in New York City remains on shaky ground, the future of the PROSE schools seems to be very bright. With both union and governmental support, the program has already expanded rapidly throughout the city and continues to gain momentum. Studies have yet to tell if these PROSE schools actually do foster more innovation, but data does suggest that non-unionized schools generally yield better results than traditional public schools.

AAE finds the expansion of the PROSE Program to be an interesting step in education. As an organization AAE supports educational opportunities that foster innovation for the benefit of students and teachers, and our support for charter schools is steadfast. AAE is in support of any legislation that paves the way for new and innovative learning environments, including charters and virtual schools. Further, we support fully funded charter schools, lifting caps on charter schools and the expansion of virtual and blended education.

Have you heard of this program before? How do you feel about the PROSE program?

Tell us in the comments below!

As the 2015 summer intern for AAE, Conner supports the communications and marketing team in the DC AAE office. From the class of 2017, he intends to graduate from the University at Albany with a Bachelor's Degree in European History and a Minor in Education.

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