Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bishop Nicholas Dimarzio presented a plan Saturday to turn four Catholic schools in Brooklyn and Queens that are slated for closing into charter schools.

Under the new plan, students who are already enrolled in Our Lady of Perpetual Help and the three other schools would have a guaranteed admission into the new charter schools.

Speaking at a press conference, Bloomberg said charter school students score higher than their peers on exams.

?Those are significantly higher than the scores posted by other public school students,? he said. ?And it's also significant because charter schools [students] are more likely to be African-American and Latino from low-income families.?

According to Bloomberg, in 2008 Washington, D.C. was successful at turning Catholic elementary schools into charter schools.