Long before Rupert Murdoch began throwing sloppy, wet kisses at your Senator and mine, Hillary Clinton, the NY Post began an annual tradition of honoring influential/heroic New Yorkers with its Liberty Medals. This year, two charter school chaps ended up on the list of 10 objects of the newspaper's warmth and fuzziness.

Frank Corchoran, a math teacher at KIPP Academy in the Bronx, won the education award. The write-up helps explain - but only partly - why it is such a treat to be able to watch one of his classrooms in action. It notes how he created a math cafe in his classroom ("Try the pi,") how he uses the Flintstone's theme song to teach math theory, and how he localizes Dickens' "Christmas Carol" each year. It also notes that 80% of his eighth graders manage to ace the Regents algebra exam that high schoolers statewide have trouble passing. The Chalkboard previously profiled Corchoran here, when he won a Disney Teacher of the Year award.

Also making the list was Geoffrey Canada, CEO of Harlem Children's Zone, a 60-block area that Canada essentially adopted as his own. Canada took home the leadership award. His organization, in addition to operating a charter school, provides an entire menu of social services - including pre-Kindergarten and asthma programs. Canada was profiled last week on CBS' 60 Minutes. (You can watch it here.) Some of the usual feathers were ruffled when Canada claimed that it would be impossible to properly serve kids the way HCZ is serving them if they had to put their focus on the teachers contract rather than education. Canada also was profiled in the NY Times Magazine in 2004.

Kudos to both.