Bobbi Macdonald, president of the City Neighbors governing board, which plans to open a second school in August, said she recently heard a principal complain that City Neighbors is taking his "best" families away. "My response was, 'Look at your program,' " said Macdonald, also co-chair of the Coalition of Baltimore Charter Schools. "If every school looks at their program and makes sure they are creating the best school they can imagine, we won't be worrying about which families are going to which schools."
With 55 percent of students black and 44 percent white, City Neighbors is one of Baltimore's most diverse schools.
"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense at this point to speak of charters as a whole," said Jeanine Hildreth, an author of the report. "They're very, very different and need to stand on their own merits."
