When will we start talking to charter school parents?

by M.A.B.

Through my work with GEM and our efforts to counter the movement to privatize education in New York City, I have come across a common theme when my fellow activists talk about parents who choose charter schools for their children. While we challenge the existence and necessity of these schools, we often say that we understand why parents send their children to charter schools. While I of course respect charter schools parents and I do not want to draw a line in the sand—I think some revision of this position is necessary. The argument often made by charter school supporters is that parents choose charter schools because they are dissatisfied with their neighborhood public schools. They allege that our public schools are failing and that charter schools provide a better alternative to families.

I worry that by simply saying we understand why these parents choose charter schools that we are also, in a way, condemning our public schools. By saying we understand, I fear we stop ourselves from actually dialoguing with these families. When we say we understand, I believe we are sending the wrong message.

I argue that we need to change our position to this: “We understand why parents think they need to send their children to charter schools.” Let me explain…

Since September, five of my Kindergarten parents have approached me asking if they should send their children to charter schools. They showed me numerous mailings they received in the mail and appeared quite confused. Many thought they were required to fill out the paperwork, but didn’t have a true interest in sending their child elsewhere. One parent actually had a letter that claimed her child had been accepted to a charter school, yet she had never heard of it, much less applied for admission.

Parents across the city are being bombarded with similar advertisements, while the media continues to condemn and criticize our under-resourced public schools. The message many parents receive is oversimplified—“public schools are failing and you should get out while you can!” The reality is that many of our public schools—particularly those that serve low-income and high-poverty communities—are not receiving the support or resources they need to be successful. It isn’t that they are failing—it’s that they serve the most difficult populations and are expected to deal with the challenges of poverty all on their own. Rather than actually addressing the causes of poverty, our mayor and other corporate education reformers are creating a system that encourages people to ignore and avoid societal realities. They have vilified the schools that serve the highest needs students and are encouraging parents to enroll in privately managed charter schools.

When parents opt for charter schools, I often wonder what has actually transpired to lead them to that point. There are those who have actively sought out charters schools, but I wonder how many others are enrolling their children simply because they have been overwhelmed by the million dollar advertising and messaging machines at work.  

While I know that many of our public schools need more support, resources and attention, and that the system needs a serious overhaul, most of the charter schools in New York City are not actually providing children with an education they deserve. Instead, they have been able to market the perception that they are doing what is best for children. 

I recently discovered that Success Academies (Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain that currently operates five charters in Manhattan and two in the Bronx) was going to try to edge its way into District 14 where I live. A few months ago a woman approached me on the subway platform. She asked if I would sign a petition to help a new public school open in district 14. I was curious, so asked to see the petition.

The Success Academy logo was right at the top. I handed her back the clipboard and attempted to explain why I could not sign. I crossed my fingers that their plan to invade my neighborhood would fail. A public hearing was recently held in an attempt to co-locate an 8th Success Academy here. Within days of the hearing announcement, bus stops lining Graham Avenue (one of the neighborhood's busiest streets) were outfitted with large, colorful Success Academies’ advertisements. A beaming child’s face was surrounded with the words, “Next Stop, College.” Next, the subway station was home to these ads and finally Success Academy flyers hung on every doorknob in District 14. Many of these ads began with the phrase, “Better schools are coming to your community.”

As a resident of District 14, I know of a great number of high-performing public schools and I would be proud to send a child of mine to one of the public schools near my house. Moskowitz’s declaration that our district is in need of her schools in order to improve is misleading at best. A large part of her marketing campaign is selling the message that the schools we already have are not good enough. While Success Academies likely spends the most on its advertising (sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats), other charter operators use the same deceptive and divisive tactics.

When exploring the Success Academies website I came across a section titled, “Why choose Success Academies?” It listed many of the claims I have seen on their advertisements:

• We hire only the best teachers.

• Our public elementary schools have proven track record of success.

• Our schools are joyful and promote a love of learning.

 When we look closely at what actually goes on inside the doors of Success Academies, it is quite apparent that they are not, in fact, providing their students with the kind of education they claim.

The best teachers?

Success Academy schools hire mostly young, novice teachers and show a high rate of teacher turnover. My partner works at a public school that has the misfortune of co-locating with a Harlem Success Academy. HSA’s teaching staff struggles no differently than any other teaching staff that is predominately made up of rookies. They struggle to maintain focused connections with so many children simultaneously and find it challenging to keep order in their classrooms and hallway. Like many new teachers grappling with how to lead a group of children, some HSA teachers rely on threats and give out checks (their version of demerits) when dealing with discipline. Parents are routinely called in to either supervise their own children or take them home early from school. It is not easy or simple work guiding a group of young children during a long school day. It requires great skill—skill that is not a taught in school, learned over the summer or developed in just a year. Mastering the art of teaching takes commitment, dedication, humility and most of all, experience. Success Academy teachers are much more ordinary than Eva Moskowitz wants us to believe.

 A track record of success?

While Success Academy students do often score well on standardized tests, this is not a true measure of success. Success Academies have a track record of counseling out students who have behavioral or academic difficulty. When examining their enrollment data one sees stark drops as students get older. Large groups start in kindergarten (usually around 80 to 100 students), but by 3rd, 4th and 5th grade these numbers are between 30 and 60 students. My public school experiences some degree of attrition, but we never see enrollment fluctuate to this degree. Public schools that share space with the Success Academies schools frequently report former Success Academy students enrolling in their schools. Often these students were asked to leave or the parents withdrew them out of frustration with the school's punitive practices. In The test scores gains that the schools tout are less significant when one considers how many students the schools failed to educate along the way.

Success Academy schools also seem to equate success with a test score. Instead of teaching their students to be thoughtful, self-motivated learners, they are teaching their students how to recall information at the most basic level. Instead of teaching their students to be independent learners, their students are completely dependent upon their teachers. Both the New York Times and New York Magazine have published articles about the structure of the day at Harlem Success Academies. The routines are so regimented that students are actually timed while using the bathroom and putting away their coats and bags. What will happen to these children when someone isn’t threatening them with a check or holding a timer in front of their heads? Children need to be taught to control, manage and be in charge of themselves.

A successful school would also be a place with a low turnover rate for teachers. Low turnover rates are a good indication of a stable school environment. Success Academies schools have higher turnover rates than all of the public schools with whom they share space. At Harlem Success Academy 1, 50% of the teachers left after the 2008-2009 school year. Not only do teachers turnover quickly, but principals do as well.  Moskowitz routinely removes and replaces her schools’ administrators, often in the midst of the school year.

Joyful schools?

Success Academies teachers tend use very controlling and authoritarian measures with students. “Checks” are dolled out by the minute as punishment.  When students are not meeting expectations, the teachers yell out “that’s a check!” What does this empty attempt at discipline teach students? It certainly doesn’t seem to send the message that school is a joyful place.  

Students seem to be kept in check with fear and intimidation. And it doesn’t stop there. Parents of Success Academies’ students are required to sign very detailed contracts. Moskowitz has a harsh approach when it comes to working with families, “Our school is like a marriage, and if you don’t come through with your promises, we will have to divorce.” What about marriage vows that say, "Through sickness and health, for richer and poorer ‘til death do us part?" Do we want schools that can “divorce” our children and parents, or ones that are faithful and do their best to educate and provide for our children and families, no matter what?

When students are late or come to a Success Academy school unprepared, Saturday detention is often the consequence—for both parent and child. Parents are also required to attend various functions to promote the school. Recently, I attended a Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) meeting where a motion regarding Success Academies was on the agenda. Moskowitz bused in hundreds of parents and students to testify and cheer at the hearing. Instead of asking her parents to speak about their experiences, they were given detailed scripts and told what to think and what to say.

The motion on the PEP agenda proposed co-locating yet another Success Academy school in an existing and fully functioning public school building. Moskowitz has never opened one of her charter schools in her own building. Rather, she works her way into public school buildings and little by little takes space away from the school that is there. She overtly recruits their public school students and takes their classroom space—all the while claiming that her schools are revolutionizing education. But what message is she sending to her students? Isn’t she teaching them to take what they want without regard to the feelings or rights of others?

Success Academies is just one of many charter school networks operating in New York City. While charter schools currently serve fewer than 5% of our city's children, they garner substantially more support than our deserving public schools. These schools are not the reform our city and our country so desperately need. Rather, they are a distraction. Instead of investing in the reforms proven to impact student learning (class size reduction and maintaining an experienced teaching force), our mayor and President are promoting charter schools as the cure-all.  Until parents begin to understand the realities of what is going on in these schools and the inaccuracies of their advertising, this ineffective model of education reform will continue.

Starting the dialogue?

At the PEP meeting I attended, I was sitting near some Harlem Success Academy families. One parent seemed quite annoyed by our comments and began to question our position asking us, “Why are you so angry?!” Two of my fellow GEM activists responded and were able to start a dialogue. They explained the reality of co-location and the devastation it has had on our public schools that have been forced to share space with a Success Academy school. The parent was quite shocked. Our perspective was completely new to him and by the end, he seemed to appreciate our struggle. While he certainly did not storm over to Eva Moskowitz and demand change or threaten to remove his child, I could tell that when we left him, the wheels were churning in his head. He had more questions.

When I had been standing in line to get into the meeting, I was next to a group of Harlem Success Academy parents/teachers. I desperately wanted to engage with them, but I hesitated. What if they got upset? What if they thought I was disrespectful and wrote me off? Instead of asking these “what ifs,” I should have just tried to start a conversation.

This past week I attended an informational session for Brooklyn Success Academy and attempted to dialogue with the parents there. I found that the majority of the parents in attendance were there simply because they had received multiple mailings advertising the event--they were not necessarily interested in leaving their public schools, nor did they have a true understanding of what a charter school was. The Success Academy spokesperson called their charter school a "public school," and presented a compelling (albeit inaccurate) case for why parents should enter their lottery. While I know many of the parents there will likely enter the lottery for this school, I did have some promising and fruitful conversations. If we do not begin to engage with parents in this way, then they will be left with only the destructive and disingenuous messages they receive through advertisements and the media.  We need to bring people the truth, even if it is done one conversation at a time.


M.A.B. has been a New York City public school Kindergarten teacher for 5 years. Previous to this she worked in a charter school and a Montessori Preschool. She has been involved with the Grassroots Education Movement for the past 2 years.  
 

Upper West side community blasts charter co-location

But is anyone listening?

Apparently, the DOE plans to spend $500,000 at this time of fiscal distress to reconfigure Brandeis HS to make space for the elementary charter school, Upper West Success, including building a new, separate cafeteria.

Unmentioned by the NY1 reporter below is that Zoe Stein, the one parent speaking up for the charter school placement in the video, who says her local public schools "isn't good enough" for her child, is the wife of Gideon Stein, a board member of the Harlem Success Network. Stein is also a partner in Argyle Holdings LLC, which, according to Wikipedia, is a real estate development company of luxury residential properties in Northern Manhattan.

Click here, to add your signature to protest the co-location, which the local Community Board, Community Education Council and all the local elected officials oppose.

And come to the protest rally tomorrow, Thurs. Jan. 27 at City Hall Park, against the mass school closings, charter co-locations and privatization, more info here.

What would Martin Luther King Jr. say about class size and charter schools?

On this, the holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we should remember that African-American children still suffer from inequitable conditions in our nation's schools - foremost among them, larger classes.

This is despite the fact that class size reduction is one of the very few reforms that have been proven to narrow the achievement gap, as poor and minority children receive twice the benefit from smaller classes than the average student. (See this recent issue brief from ETS, with data revealing the persistent inequities in class size, and pointing out that the achievement gap narrowed substantially in the 1970's and 1980's but stalled in the 1990's -- just as progress in reducing class size stalled nationally as well. )

Yet the corporate reformers who have hijacked educational policy in this nation, including Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, and Michelle Rhee, are all calling for even larger class sizes in our nation's public schools.

Rather than support equitable conditions, they are promoting the further expansion of charter schools, which as the UCLA Civil Rights Project has pointed out, leads to more segregation, not less. See also this excellent article by Jim Horn on the charter school issue, "What would Dr. King say?"

See below; one of the first in-depth televised interviews ever given by Martin Luther King Jr., first broadcast on NBC news on October 27, 1957.

(thanks to Mona Davids of the NY Charter Parents Association for pointing out the Jim Horn article.)

Gates-funded charter school "compact" vs. the real thing

Bob Hughes of New Visions and James Merriman of the NYC Charter Center, beneficiaries of gobs of Gates money, join together in the Daily News to praise the one-sided Gates-designed “compact” signed by Chancellor Klein as well as the leaders of other districts around the country who receive Gates money. Nice little self-appreciation club, guys.

Real parents and other stakeholders were as usual left out of the discussion.

Not mentioned in the “feel-good” oped is how the actual “compact” requires that NYC continue to provide charters space in district buildings – which has sparked controversy and bitter battles as district public school children are increasingly squeezed out of their own schools, into basement rooms or even hallways.

As usual, the heedless charter lobby continues to be their own worst enemy, as resentment against charter schools grows as a result of their greedy actions. Unfortunately, in our chronically overcrowded, space-starved and underfunded system, the provision of a quality education continues to be a zero-sum game, as many of our neediest students suffer under worse and worse conditions with the continued proliferation of charters. While the city is contributing more than half a billion dollars to charter schools, the budgets of district schools continue to be slashed to the bone.

Finally, although the "compact" calls for sharing best practices, it would be more convincing if they and their sponsors admitted what is obvious to most independent observers: that many of the best charter schools and small schools benefit from the smaller classes which are denied the rest of New York City students. But I imagine that would be taboo, given the insistence of Bill Gates that class size for public school kids doesn't matter. (For more on this, see my latest Huffington Post column, Bill Gates, Bloomberg, Cathie Black and the Condescension of the Oligarchy, and this Alternet article, Where Does Billionaire Bill Gates Come Off Saying Bigger Class Size is the Answer?)

For a charter/district compact with principles that, if enacted, would provide real equity and opportunity for all NYC children, check out the framework of common principles that Class Size Matters and NY Charter Parents Association developed with input of actual public school parents from both sets of schools. As parents had a say in its design, it includes the key issue of class size.

Comptroller Di Napoli and Harry Wilson: where do they stand on fiscal oversight of charter schools and DOE?

New York State Comptroller Thomas Di Napoli has done several highly revealing audits of charter schools, showing their flagrant misuse of public funds. One of his audits revealed that KIPP Academy charter school in the Bronx had spent nearly $68,000 on "staff development" retreats in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. His office also released audits of the Western New York Maritime Charter School, showing that big-screen televisions, computer equipment and security devices purchased with public funds were delivered to the homes of school employees; and the Enterprise Charter School, which had a two-year, $60,000 consulting contract with its former CEO.

In 2007, DiNapoli released an audit showing the NYC Department of Education’s lax oversight of charter schools. According to the NY Post,

“The audit, which focused on the 2004-05 school year, found that the DOE doesn't ensure that charter schools provide it with required performance data, and that it lacks a formal process for reviewing the information. It also noted that the DOE doesn't generally require schools that aren't making adequate progress to take corrective measures, although meeting academic targets is essential to charter renewal.”

Di Napoli also did an absolutely scathing audit of the NYC DOE’s use of no-bid contracts, amounting to 291 no-bid contracts in three years. The audit revealed how “vendors often won the no-bid contracts without any proof that avoiding the regular process would save the city money. In some cases, school officials actually destroyed records about the contracting process…” (See this GothamSchools story.)

The charter lobby sued Di Napoli, to block all further audits in a lawsuit financed by the New York Charter Schools Association and the NYC Center for Charter School Excellence, on whose board Joel Klein sits. The Court of Appeals decided that he did not have the authority to audit charter schools. (The home page of DOE’s charter school office still features links to a press release by the charter school lobby, praising the court decision.)

In response, the recent state legislation that lifted the charter cap last spring specifically gave the State Comptroller authority to audit the use of public funds by charter schools – though the charter school lobby has said that will continue to try to block any more audits in court, despite the new law.

Yet this may not be necessary if the GOP candidate for Comptroller wins. His name is Harry Wilson, and he is a former hedge fund operator, who has accused di Napoli of launching “politically motivated” charter audits, and has pledged not to “harass” charter schools by auditing their use of public funds, no matter what the new law says.

Not surprisingly, Harry Wilson is the favored candidate of Mayor Bloomberg, as well as Bryan Lawrence, co-founder of Girls Prep charter, and Whitney Tilson of DFER fame, all of whom have contributed to his campaign. Here is Tilson’s endorsement of Wilson:

Harry is personally close to many in the charter school movement and was considering starting a charter school when he decided to serve in the Obama Administration instead….. DiNapoli engaged in a number of nuisance audits designed to harass charter schools in his early tenure as Comptroller. His attacks were so over the top, that the NY Charter Schools Assoc. sued him and the court agreed, finding that DiNapoli overstepped the bounds of his audit power …However, with the recent passage of legislation to race the charter school cap in the state, one of the provisions that was snuck in grants the Comptroller this same audit power over charter schools.

Want more? Harry Wilson is a close colleague of Steve Rattner, the Mayor’s personal financial adviser. Wilson served with Rattner on Obama’s auto task force, and is portrayed as the “hero” in Rattner’s new book about saving GM. In turn, Steve Rattner is the best friend of NY Times’ publisher, Arthur Sulzberger; and was one of the power brokers who convinced Bloomberg to run for a third term.

A couple of weeks ago, Bloomberg and Sulzberger were the two co-hosts of Rattner’s book party, which was attended by the financial and power elite of NYC, including the head of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Joel Klein etc. This very public celebration of Rattner and his accomplishments occurred just as Rattner was pleading guilty to a “pay to play” kick-back scheme of bribing the former State Comptroller to grant Quadrangle, Rattner’s investment company, millions in state pension funds to invest in 2004 when Hevesi was Comptroller.

Rattner paid $1.1 million in finder fees to Henry “Hank” Morris, Hevesi’s former chief political consultant, and he also agreed that Quadrangle would help finance a B-movie made by the brother of the pension fund manager. Rattner first claimed he had nothing to do with this B-movie deal, but emails apparently reveal that he helped put it together. As a result, he has agreed to pay a fine of $5 million and accept a ban from the securities industry for at least five years. He could also face perjury charges for lying about his involvement in the bribery scheme.

Yet despite this, the mayor not only hosted his book party, but has pledged to keep Rattner on as his top financial adviser, helping to run Willett Advisors, the group set up to invest the mayor’s personal fortune. (The company is named after Thomas Willett, NYC’s first mayor.) As Bloomberg told reporters, “Steve Rattner's my friend, of course I'd keep him on. Why would you not? If he can do anything to help, I value his advice and he's a close friend of mine and you stick by your friends.” (More on the Bloomberg/Rattner connection at Gotham Gazette.)

Here is an excerpt of the NY Times’ endorsement of Wilson for Comptroller:

“It is rare for someone of Mr. Wilson’s talents and expertise to compete for one of the most important and least glamorous jobs in state politics. Mr. Wilson went to Harvard Business School and worked for Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and Silver Point Capital. Mr. DiNapoli tries to make that résumé sound tainted, but the investment and management skills exhibited with General Motors are just what are needed for New York’s financial and ethical blight.”

Unmentioned in Times’ endorsement, of course, is the fact that Wilson’s friend and former colleague, Steve Rattner, had bribed the previous holder of the office that Wilson is now campaigning to fill, and who surely participated in that “financial and ethical blight” which the editorial claimed to decry.

Meanwhile, Di Napoli has banned all “pay to play schemes” by prohibiting the pension fund from doing business with any investment adviser who has made a political contribution to the State Comptroller, and has appointed an independent Inspector General to safeguard all the comptroller’s investment decisions. And he has never been accused of financial corruption, even by the same three editorial boards that endorsed his opponent.

Not coincidentally, all three papers are owned by men personally close to Bloomberg, and all three papers also supported the elimination of term limits as well as the renewal of mayoral control.

Fix failing charter schools, but don't bother with our district public schools?

Stunning juxtaposition at the Gotham Schools links today:

· SUNY wants to try fixing failing charter schools instead of shutting them down. (Post)

· The city says it is considering closing up to 47 schools this year. (GS, Times, Post, WSJ, NY1)

Why doesn’t this administration try helping our regular public schools, instead of closing them down? Is it because they would rather replace them with charter schools?

Joel Klein came to District 2 and told lies

Chancellor Joel Klein came to PS 33 in District 2 on Wednesday night. He told a number of outright lies to the assembled parents, assuming (I suppose) that we didn't know better. This is on top of all the misrepresentations and obfuscations.

- Klein said there are no for-profit charters in New York City. This is patently untrue. There are currently nine for-profit charters in operation in the city and more being considered.

- Klein said Contract for Excellence money is "fungible" in school budgets and this is why class sizes rose, despite billions more in state C4E funding. This is untrue. Contract for Excellence money is supposed to be targeted to specified purposes by state law and it is illegal to use it otherwise.

- Klein said he "wished we had more resources" for meeting the needs of special education students. Special ed services are also mandated by state law, and it has been well documented, by the Public Advocate's office among others, that under this administration, students with IEPs have not received the services and funds to which they are legally entitled.

- Klein also said that 5000 seats had been added to District 2. Where? The 2004-2009 and 2010-2014 capital plans funded about 7,000 seats, but most of these seats have not yet been built, and many are replacements. By my count there are under a thousand new D2 K-8 seats now in operation, and Manhattan has lost 1,000 high school seats in the last year alone to lapsed leases, but I would welcome a more detailed reckoning by the DOE.

- Klein said that enrollment projections are available on-line. The DOE has never made its full enrollment projection analysis available to the public or the CECs responsible for zoning. Only partial data and the discredited reports of a few expensive contractors are available on-line.

- Furthermore, Klein said repeatedly that charter schools would add seats to District 2. There is no way this is possible. School real estate in D2 is a zero-sum game, as he pointed out himself several times. Every new school that is added within an existing building removes seats to make space for additional administration and duplication of cluster rooms, and every new program that draws students from outside the district (as charters do) bumps out district students.

Unless charters can obtain their own space--which doesn't happen much in NYC--they can only subtract from the number of seats available to district students.

He also kept saying no sites are available in D2 and it is hard to find more, without commenting on the large number of sites put forward by parents (including most of those that have been developed under the last two capital plans). Parents have been pushing hard on various sites and the DOE refuses to put its weight behind these efforts.

---Ann Kjellberg, Public School Action Committee

Oh, Valerie!

Every day I check my fabulous blog roll. I look up and an hour (or more) has passed and the item I was going to blog about has turned to mush. So I often end up copying and pasting links.

Thus, my deterioration as a blogger with something of his own to say. Everybody else seems to be saying it first. And better.

Today, Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet, has such a delicious post that I have printed it out, shredded it and sprinkled the pieces all over my morning toast. Mmmm, Mmmm, Good!

Here are just a few tidbits from How billionaire donors harm public education to wet your appetite:

Today the foundation set up by billionaires Eli and Edythe Broad is giving away $2 million to an urban school district that has pursued education reform that they like. On Friday a Florida teacher is running 50 miles to raise money so that he and his fellow teachers don’t have to spend their own money to buy paper and pencils, binders (1- and 2-inch), spiral notebooks, composition books and printer ink.
Together the two events show the perverted way schools are funded in 2010.
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Very wealthy people are donating big private money to their own pet projects: charter schools, charter school management companies, teacher assessment systems.
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What this means is that these philanthropists -- and not local communities -- are determining the course of the country's school reform efforts and which education research projects get funded. As Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent James A. Williams said in an interview: "They should come out and tell the truth. If they want to privatize public education, they should say so.”
-----

That none of their projects is grounded in any research seems not to be a hindrance to these big donors. And they never try to explain why it is acceptable for them to donate to other causes -- the arts, medicine, etc. -- without telling doctors and artists what to do with the money. Only educators do they tell what to do.
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[$2 million] is the same amount of money that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave away earlier this year to a company simply to market the education film “Waiting for Superman,” which portrays a distorted idea of the root causes of the problems facing urban school districts as well as the solutions.
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Surely these philanthropists think they are helping. But they don't understand education and have been somehow led to believe that "the answer" is specific and around the corner: a longer school day; a longer school year; charter schools; technology; standardized tests in every subject; assessing teachers by standardized test scores; for-profit education; training new college graduates for five or six weeks as teachers and then sending them into the toughest schools in America.
The fact is that there is no strong research to show that any of those elements will do much to help education, and many will actually hurt.
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let’s not imagine for a minute that the millionaires and billionaires giving out all this money are doing anything other than making it harder to fix the public schools that America needs.

Now on get over there and read the whole thing.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/how-billionaire-donors-are-har.html#more

Charter Schools Mysteriously Survive the Budget Ax that Falls Hard on "Regular" Public Schools

A memo from the law firm White, Osterman & Hanna to the New York Charter Schools Association (circulated on nyceducationnews) urges members to file a "Request for State Aid Intercept" with the NY State Education Department to preserve their "legal right" to increased per-pupil funding--a right they seem to have acquired through a combination of stealth statutory insertions and legislative inattention in the confusion of budget negotiations. So, we'll be looking at even more money being taken out of our schools to satisfy the hungry Charter School Monster that's devouring the public school system.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:

• The Governor and the Legislature intended to freeze 2010 aid payment to charter schools at 2008 levels, and such a freeze was actually in the Governor’s budget and in the relevant Assembly and Senate bills (that seems eminently fair and just, given what they've done to "regular" public schools in the same period).

• Somehow, those provisions were not enacted into law.

• Therefore, charter schools now will now get increased funding by operation of law (a statutory formula found in §2856 of the Education Law, according to the White Osterman memo and I’ll take their word for it)

• Charter schools have a mechanism, kindly provided by the State Education Department on a handy form, for “intercepting” from school districts money due to them under the funding formula, which apparently inexorably “mov[es] forward” to ever increasing levels of funding unless stopped by vigilant legislators.

Some quick research reveals that financing uncertainties are probably the biggest impediment to the spread of charter schools. (for an overview, see the paper presented by Jonathan Kivell of United Bank at the Charter Schools Facilities Finance Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board in September 2008). Several states (e.g., Colorado) help charter schools through "Intercept” programs that guarantee payment of principal and interest on charter school bonds by literally "capturing" funds allocated to school districts.

New York caters to charter school operators’ dislike of uncertainty by guaranteeing their per-pupil allocations through State Aid Intercept. Nothing wrong with that in principle because after all, we wouldn’t want to disrupt kids’ education by not giving their schools money they have already taken into account in planning the school year.

No, sir—that would be unfair to the kids, though we do allow it for “regular” public school kids……to wit, the great “midnight raid” of February 2008, when each NYC school principal woke up to find out DOE had snatched a pile of money from his/her school, literally in the middle of the night.

The biggest thorn in the side of charter school operators, however, is facilities funding--most states (including New York) bar or restrict direct public funding for it. But even here, there’s government help: US DOE has a program—the Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools—which provides full or partial guarantees of principal as well as interest (pretty generous, really) to lenders that finance construction or renovation of charter schools. But why bother with all that paperwork and uncertainty (it’s a competitive program) when you can just snatch space from hapless "regular" public schools?

LESSON: IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE BACKSTOP--IT'S ALMOST INVARIABLY PUBLIC FUNDS.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: WRITE AND CALL GOVERNOR PATTERSON (1-877-255-9417, press 1), AND YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS --ASK THEM TO STOP CATERING TO CHARTER SCHOOL INTERESTS AND TURNING PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN INTO SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS.

Here's my sample letter:

Dear XXXXX:

It has come to my attention that provisions freezing 2010 payments to charter schools at 2008 levels, contained in the Governor’s budget as well as in Assembly Bill 9707 and Senate Bill 6607, were never enacted into law. UNLESS YOU ACT, charter schools will be entitled to increased funding, which they intend to capture under the “intercept” procedure provided by state law. That would be both contrary to legislative intent and grossly unfair to our “regular” public schools, which have been asked to absorb budget cut after budget cut. Please do whatever is necessary to prevent this injustice when the Legislature reconvenes.

OH, AND YOU MIGHT ALSO ASK WHY THERE ISN'T AN "INTERCEPT" MECHANISM FOR THE CFE FUNDS THAT ARE NO LESS "DUE AND OWING" TO NYC SCHOOLKIDS THAN INCREASED PER-PUPIL FUNDING IS "DUE AND OWING" TO CHARTER SCHOOLS.

New York Charter Parents Association endorses Bill Perkins for State Senator

Contact Information:
Mona Davids Phone: 646-912-4794
President Email: mdavids@nycharterparents.org



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


New York Charter Parents Association endorses Bill Perkins for State Senator

August 23, 2010, New York, NY----- The New York Charter Parents Association (NYCPA), the first and only independent charter parent association in New York City and New York State, today proudly endorses State Senator Bill Perkins for re-election representing the 30th District.

“Bill Perkins showed the courage to stand up for parents and do what is right, without worrying about the political consequences,” said Mona Davids, founder and President of NYCPA. “All the money, attacks and threats of a challenger, funded by the charter school lobby and hedge fund millionaires, did not sway him from standing up for us. At NYCPA’s request, Senator Perkins convened the first hearings on charter schools in their 10 year existence in New York State that exposed many of the questionable practices of charter school administrators that were violating the rights of NYC children and their parents.

“It is only because of Senator Perkins that we now have charter reform with increased transparency and accountability. Senator Perkins committed what many people called political suicide, putting his political career on the line, to fight for the rights of charter parents, enhanced transparency, financial accountability and real educational reform. Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson and Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, Chair of the Education Committee, both commended Senator Perkins for his courage and credited Senator Perkins for his role in passing the new revised charter law that includes much needed charter reforms with the lifting of the charter cap.”

Mariama Sanoh, Vice President of NYCPA, and a charter school parent added, “Bill Perkins listened to the cries of charter parents whose children were being pushed out and counseled out of charter schools. He stood up for us and agreed to help us fight for our right to have parent associations in our schools, to include special needs children and English Language Learners in charters, to require that charters have monthly board meetings and to notify parents and the community of the meetings. He stood up for us and now we are standing up for him.”

Said Mona Davids, “We support Senator Bill Perkins because he is not anti-charter, but for protecting the rights of parents wherever they choose to enroll their children, whether at district or charter schools. Senator Perkins proved to us that he is not bought and paid for by the charter school lobby and we trust that he will always put parents and children first.”



About NYCPA
New York Charter Parents Association is a nonprofit organization founded to advocate for families with children in the New York State public school system - both public charter and public district schools seeking public school choice. We are the FIRST AND ONLY independent charter parent organization in New York City and New York State. We are "OF THE PARENTS, FOR THE PARENTS AND BY THE PARENTS". We are not controlled by the charter center, NYC Department of Education or any charter school therefore we put our children first before any special interest group.

Community Organizing Group Compiles Studies on Charter Schools

A community organizing group based in Mississippi, the Southern Echo, has compiled a list of studies on the charter school movement on their website. The studies include those by the Rand Corporation, Stanford University, Teachers College, Columbia University, the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and others. For our readers who would like to check out the various studies in one place, we are providing the link to the research on their website.

The Southern Echo describes its mission as working to empower the African American community through an intergenerational model of effective community organizing. With the mainstream media always covering educational change from the top down model, our readers may be interested in examining this grassroots movement directed at change.

Call Senators Schumer and Gillibrand now!

The US Senate is back in session, and is considering a bill that would save thousands of teacher jobs and prevent class size increases, by cutting $100 million for charter school expansion and $100 million from teacher merit pay.

PLEASE call your Senators today!

Thanks to the NEA, you can call toll-free at 1-866-608-6355. You will hear some talking points about the need to save teacher jobs, and then you will be connected to the United States Capitol Switchboard – just ask for Sen. Schumer or Gillibrand. Remember to call back to speak with the other Senator.

Message: As a public school parent, to prevent increases in class size, I urge you to vote for $10 billion to save teachers jobs, and to support cutting funds for charter schools and teacher merit pay.

Then ask them repeat the message back to you, to ensure they got it right. (Last time I called Schumer’s office, the person answering the phone garbled the message to make it appear that I supported more money for charter schools and teacher merit pay.)

After you’ve called, you can read the editorial from the Wall St. Journal, one of the most right wing editorial pages in the nation, which openly supports privatizing public education. It praises Obama for having threatened to veto any bill that threatens charter school expansion.

One thing is true about the editorial; NYC could economize and trim the bureaucracy without having to lay off as many teachers as planned. Bloomberg and Klein have added 10,000 out of classroom positions and cut more than 1600 general education teachers since they came into office, despite a legal requirement to reduce class size. The budget for charter schools will grow to more than $545 million this year alone.

Unfortunately, they have no plans to reverse this trend, and have projected a loss of 2,000 teaching positions next fall. With growing enrollment, this could prove disastrous in terms of NYC’s public school class sizes, which are already the largest in the state and some of the largest in the nation.

Call now, for the sake of your children, and thanks!

Taking the stage today at the AFT convention in Seattle...

The most dangerous man in America.

Check it out at the Huffington Post!

Do we all really serve the Chancellor, and do the buildings belong to him?

On June 23, 2010, the Office of Portfolio Planning (OPP) from the NYC Department of Education attended a Community Education Council meeting in District 1 on the Lower East Side. This was in response to an invitation from our CEC to hold an initial needs assessment, before deciding how space should be used in our neighborhood’s schools.

When a CEC member asked, “What happens if there is a conflict between what the community wants and what the Chancellor wants for our district?” Elizabeth Rose, the OPP representative, responded, “We all serve the Chancellor, the buildings belong to him.” You could see the entire room full of parents bristle.

As a parent from a local elementary school who went to the hearing in a furious panic because word had gotten around that new charter schools were opening up and they might be shoved (given space constraints this is the only verb that is appropriate) into some of our public schools, I had a deeply mixed reaction to this statement.

Not surprisingly, I think most of us, including myself, took deep offense at what could only be described as a despotic message that utterly disregarded any value that a genuine democratic process would afford. Yet, there was something so deeply honest and clear about that answer, and so different from all the other vague and evasive answers given when hard questions were posed, that I almost wanted the thank her for at least stating things as they are.

So there it is, if the Chancellor’s buddy wants to start a pet project in the form of a charter school, parents beware and children be damned. Your art classroom, your class sizes, and your principal’s office are all up for grabs.

I was told by CEC members that OPP had agreed to come because parents and the community as a whole had strongly opposed inserting a charter school at the expense of the high need schools in our district, without even a needs assessment being undertaken. Given this context, the community input required as a trade-off for mayoral control was practically a farce.

The underlying bone of contention at this meeting was the formula for how space in measured in our schools. In my son’s school, our principal isn't even quite sure whether the space where he sits is considered “underutilized” (which also demonstrates how confusing the formula is). Right now, he shares an open space with eight administrators, the PTA was relegated to a what feels like a dungeon in the basement because as enrollment increased from 250 to 320 we have had to give away the parents room to create a new art room (a good trade, as the kids come first).

When our principal needs to meet with anyone, he has to wander the halls looking for any empty room because he has no office, and some classes (physical education for example) are held in the back of the large lobby due to space constraints. I have no idea whether the DOE thinks our library even counts.

In light of all this, when I look at the DOE latest "blue book" (or annual utilization report) that claims to show how much capacity each school has in terms of space, it appears that our school has room for a hundred more children! I have images of classes being held in the bathroom and our principal, wandering the hallways with a push-cart carrying all the school files.

One parent who also attended the meeting described this as the “fire code” approach to defining how much space a school has. So long as it doesn’t violate the fire code, they will keep shoving children into increasingly crowded spaces. But clearly we need a learning approach to counting space, and until we have one, none of the conversations with the Office of Portfolio Planning or any other DOE official will be in any way constructive.

The foundation is rotten, and so conflict, disaffection, and deprived children are the result. Until we have a formula that is based on what kind of space a child needs to actually learn, a “learning-based formula,” we won’t be able to say that “we all serve the children, and the buildings belong to them.”

-- Cathy Albisa, public school parent

Assembly member Gottfried on the pro-charter mailing sent out by ERN without his consent

See Assembly Member Gottfried's response to Jan Carr's email to him, about the pro-charter school flyer she received in the mail sent by the charter lobbyists Education Reform Now in his name:

I am appalled about the "Education Reform Now" mailing, because it utterly misrepresents my position.



I do not support charter schools, and have spoken out frequently against them. I support a long list of proposals to rein them in, make them treat teachers and students more fairly, provide transparency, prevent crowding out public schools, etc. etc. I voted for the charter school bill because it includes many of those important changes. For me, the part of the bill that increased the limit on the number of charter schools was a regrettable price to pay for the valuable parts of the bill. I felt we were destined to lose the fight to keep the number down anyway.



The "Education Reform Now" people supported the bill for the opposite reason. I understand they have sent out these dishonest mailings in the districts of many legislators who voted for the bill for the reasons I did.



The implication of what you wrote above is that these flyers were mailed out without his permission; AM Gottfried, is that an accurate interpretation of your statement?

Yes. I understand that the mailer was sent in the name of ERN, not in my name. The prominence of my name and photo give the impression that it was “in (my) name.” The mailer was sent without my involvement, knowledge, or consent or that of anyone on my behalf. If I had had any prior knowledge of it, I would have vehemently objected to it.

Have you seen the flyers? Exactly how do the claims on the flyer mistake your position? Have you been in contact with ERN about this issue, asking them to halt their mailings?

I have been in Albany since the mailer hit, and so I have not actually seen it. I have been told that it implies that I support charter schools, which is not true. My chief of staff called ERN and expressed my strong objection to the mailing and asked that they halt further mailings of this nature.

One more question, and I hope you do not take this as a slight on your integrity or honesty. There has been alot of discussion on the NYC Education list serv and elsewhere about the piles of money ERN and Democrats for Education Reform have offered elected officials and candidates, under their names and also those of the hedge fund operators whose contributions they "bundle" . Some candidates have reported publicly and in private that they were offered $200,000 to support charter school expansion.

See for example, the statements of Steve Behar, running for Assembly in Queens; and Tony Avella, a candidate for the State Senate, who reportedly has also told supporters he was offered a lot of money to change his position on this issue but refused.

Have you been promised and/or received any substantial contributions from these groups or individuals? And if you are in the future, would you accept these donations?

I have not been offered, promised or received any contribution from these groups. If any individual contributor to my campaign is associated with such a group, I am not aware of it. If in the future anyone were to offer me a campaign contribution under circumstances suggesting that they were doing so because they thought I support charter schools, I would correct their misunderstanding. While I may accept a contribution even though I disagree with a donor on an issue, I would not accept a contribution from a single-issue organization such as these where I strongly disagree with the organization.

Thanks so much for clarifying your position,

Thank you for asking. Richard Gottfried

Parents who have received a similar pro-charter mailing in the name of your legislators; please reach out to them and ask them these or similar questions. The influence and money of the charter school industry is frightening.

Open letter to AM Gottfried re charter school cap

Dear Assemblymember Gottfried:

I just received a big glossy flier that I assumed was from your office trumpeting the lifting of the charter cap. When I looked more closely, I saw that it was paid for by Education Reform Now.

I am a constituent and have appreciated your work on many fronts. But I'm upset to see that you're in bed with a cabal of hedge fund multi-millionaires masquerading as education reformers.

What is their interest in education? What spoils do they hope to reap? Contracts for testing and data? Real estate tax deals? When they thank you for "giving New York the opportunity to win $700 million in federal aid for our kids" I can almost see them salivating at the prospect of getting their mitts on those millions. And of course that will be much easier for them to do when schools are no longer subject to public school oversight.

It is NOT true, as the flier claims that "These schools are proven to work, with higher test scores and graduation rates." I trust you know as well as I do that charter schools cherry pick their students, taking only students who have AND MAINTAIN high test scores, that they don't educate ELLs, and that the tests results have been manipulated beyond meaning.

I've been a NYC public school parent for 10 years, and it sickens me to see these "re-formers" work so stealthily to systematically dismantle our public school system. It sickens me to see them demonize hard-working teachers who actually know something about education and care about our city's students.

Why are you in bed with them?

Sincerely, Jan Carr

A list of NY State elected officials who have received the largest contributions from the charter school lobby is posted at Albany Citizen One, though Gottfried's name is not among them -- yet.

Dan Wasserman on Readin,' Writin' and the Rich guys

Click on the cartoon to see what he has to say about Bill Gates and the Wall St. privateers.

For more cartoons from Wasserman on the charter schools and Race to the Top, check out his website here.