To the Editor:

I am writing to you to express my appreciation of your paper’s coverage of the Princeton Charter School expansion plans. As a parent of a child that went into PCS as a kindergartner in 2002 and graduated from it, I would like to express my support for its expansion.

PCS was a great educational experience for our daughter. An impish naughty handful when little, she was nurtured by the excellent teachers there to become a thoughtful person, and extremely well prepared for the challenges of high school. She attended PHS, and went on to attend Princeton University. We credit PCS for instilling the right academic habits and inspiring intellectual curiosity, and PHS for providing the additional challenge and social maturity.

When we had enrolled her in PCS kindergarten, we did so because we had been hearing anecdotal comments from parents of older children that they chose PCS to avoid John Witherspoon middle school, which, in the early 2000’s was, supposedly, not as strong in academics as PCS. Over the years, the grapevine script has changed: we have been hearing how wonderful JW is, which means that the competition from PCS must have facilitated changes that improved its quality dramatically. I believe that competition is a good thing. It keeps PCS on its toes, because its charter gets renewed only if it provides education at least as good as the district schools, and it keeps those schools on their toes as well. It also instills an ethic of constant improvement, which only serves our student population better.

 While our daughter was a student there, PCS received a “Blue Ribbon” award, as part of the “No Child Left Behind” act. I was proud as a parent, because this meant that the school did not cherry-pick the students, but instead worked with the students it had, and was able with its more limited resources to improve the academic skills of its most disadvantaged students, more than other schools in the area.

PCS is ready to accept the challenge of educating more disadvantaged students by changing its charter to a weighted admission lottery, which would favor them substantially. I would like to ask for your support and the support of the entire Princeton community in this challenge. It is a noble challenge, in the spirit of a cooperative competition, and it is something open-minded Princeton citizens should embrace.

Nadia Braun

Cherry Hill Road