State Faults 3 Charter Proposals From Buffalo

The Buffalo, N.Y., school district has sparked controversy from many quarters in its unusually aggressive bid to operate a group of its own charter schools. Now its first official step toward building that network of schools has been very publicly rebuffed by the state department of education.

In letters to Buffalo’s interim superintendent, a top state education official said he would recommend that the state board of regents reject the three charter school applications. They represent the first concrete piece of Buffalo’s highly publicized plan to authorize multiple charter schools.

The letters outlined seven or more reasons why each application was flawed, ranging from an absence of evidence that fingerprint checks of the applicants had been performed to problems with the schools’ proposed admissions...