RATHER than embrace Chicago's ambitious Renaissance 2010 program as a vehicle to advance school reform and the small movement while integrating greater accountability into the system, William Ayers and Michael Klonsky, pioneers in small school development, attack the initiative with inaccurate, misleading statements. Academics are supposed to stick to the facts and remain impartial, but Ayers and Klonsky have clearly failed the test. It's especially surprising coming from Klonsky, because he is currently bidding to open a new school under Renaissance 2010. First, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) opened 22 new this fall, and 14 of them use union teachers, so accusing us of focusing on privately managed, non-union charter schools is fundamentally inaccurate. We evaluate proposals on the merits and do our best to be as responsive as possible to the community. It's misleading to say that Renaissance 2010 is turning over ... new to private owners. Charter or contract do not own their any more than principals and elected local school councils own a school. Outside operators--including many teacher groups--run Renaissance 2010 under five-year performance contracts that include annual reviews. CPS can cancel these contracts at any time for lack of performance. In eight years of managing the most successful charter school program in the country, Chicago has closed down two charter that failed to measure up--the ultimate form of accountability. It's also wrong to say that this initiative is certain while others. Describing the closure of a low-performing school as punishing reflects indifference on the part of the authors to the welfare of the children trapped in a failing educational environment. There is nothing capricious about the process, as they claim. The closing criteria are public information, listed on the CPS website. As for rewarding others, all in Chicago--small, charter, contract, performance, or traditional CPS--are funded under a consistent per-pupil funding formula, although we provide extra dollars to small because the fixed costs--administration, maintenance--are spread over a smaller student body. There are no winners and losers. Closing and reopening is both educationally sound and morally warranted. We are hired to fight for kids--not for bureaucrats, reform groups, teachers, principals, or local councils. We close when kids are getting hurt. Under Renaissance 2010, the adults involved are held accountable because the school ceases to exist. And what replaces them? Consider the first two Renaissance schools, Dodge and Williams. Back in the spring of 2002, when they closed down, the percentage of kids meeting national reading norms was in the teens. Some students were gaining as little as 11/2 months of learning during the entire school year, so they were falling further and further behind. Today, the percentage meeting national reading norms in both is two to three times higher, and the rate of gains for the exact same students is roughly 11/2 years of learning for each year in school. …