It is not just teachers now that are upset with school "reform". Parents are organizing around the country. The tension between encroaching charter schools and parents and teachers in traditional public schools has been growing quickly. There are lawsuits on both sides. I believe that pitting public schools against charters and reformers will be a legacy of this administration....and one result will be wasted resources and wasted money.
Charter schools are being moved into public school space often now. In many cases they have forced public school classes into basements and hallways, taking over their classrooms. It costs them nothing, and it is devastating the public school which loses space and equipment.
Parents Union Sues Charter Schools, Says ‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’The New York City Parents Union filed a law suit yesterday against the Department of Education and a host of co-located charter schools in New York City to force charter schools to pay for their space and services in public school buildings.
United Federation of Teacher representatives and parents from at least three public schools in Bedford-Stuyvesant—including P.S. 308, Clara Cardwell School—have been at battle with the planned co-location of charter schools in their buildings.
..."Leonie Haimson, a public school parent and executive director of Class Size Matters—another plaintiff named in the case—says that co-located charter schools receive an illegal subsidy from the DOE in the form of free services and space that amount to more than $100 million.
“This means that co-located charter schools receive about $2,000 dollars more per student in public funding,” said Haimson. She added, the additional funding allows the charter schools to provide smaller classes, a better student/teacher ratio, more tutoring and, overall, give more attention to their students.
It's going on in many places. One charter simply took over the auditorium of the public school and made themselves some lounge and office space. No permission was asked.
Charter school moves into public school..moves furniture around, takes over auditorium.
From the album at the link:Gabriella Charter School Corporation continues to blatantly disregard the rights of the public school community at Echo Park's Logan Street Elementary School. Not content with having exceeded their allotment of space by several rooms, last week the well heeled executives of the corporate charter decided to forcibly annex Logan's entire auditorium. Here's an excerpt from one of the witnesses: "We looked into the school auditorium to discover that the Gabriella Charter School had moved its entire front office into the Logan auditorium. That includes desks, sofas, file cabinets, end tables and other various office paraphernalia. It was not there for storage. It was set up for business."
A day after the Echo Parque (Park) community learned that Gabriella Charter Corporation had ended their week long occupation of Logan Street Elementary School's auditorium, evidence that Gabriella had merely taken over another room and moved their furniture into that room once they had emptied it of its existing contents came to light.When a group seizes a school's auditorium, they are NOT thinking of the children first. The worst part of what is going on is that charter schools have all the odds stacked in their favor. They have access to money and the approval of leaders in both parties.
Stacking the OddsIt appears Mayor Daley was speaking of Urban Prep High School, and he was unfavorably comparing public schools to that charter school. Meanwhile in the world of reality in education:
Watching it all with a mixture of revulsion and disbelief was Eric Wagner, a social studies teacher at Kelvyn Park High School on the predominantly Hispanic northwest side. "I was there because one of my students—Jennifer Velazquez—had won the award," says Wagner. "I'm thinking, this is really inappropriate. There aren't even any charter school kids who won the award. Why is he ripping us?"
What Mayor Daley didn't say—what he probably didn't even know—is that just days before his speech eight students from Pritzker College Prep, a school just down the street from Kelvyn Park, unceremoniously showed up at Kelvyn's door, having flunked out, dropped out, or been kicked out.
"I'm sitting there listening to the mayor rip into regular public schools and public school teachers, and meanwhile these kids are showing up at our door 'cause the local charter doesn't know how to deal with them," says Wagner. "I don't want to start a fight with the charters, but after a while this stuff gets hard to take."
So Mayor Daley was praising the very charter whose not so good students were showing up at the door of the public schools. They are all either clueless and simply ignoring the facts on purpose. I go with the latter.
There are more lawsuits going on around the country with all this new tension arising from Arne Duncan's "reforms."
Lawsuits begin$850,000 went to Ivy Preparatory Academy of Norcross. Gwinnett County Public Schools is planning to make good on its threat to sue the state for taking funds away from its students.
A lawsuit is expected to be filed in Fulton County Superior Court Friday barring the Georgia Department of Education from reallocating money meant for Gwinnett to the coffers of a cash-strapped charter school. The suit also will challenge the constitutionality of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, the state’s newest charter authorizer.
And another lawsuit in Arizona:
Here's an early shot across the bow. The Arizona Charter Schools Association sent an email addressed to "Charter School Leaders" about a lawsuit it will be filing next week. The lawsuit focuses on student equity within Arizona's system of education finance and will seek declaratory relief that the method for financing public education in public schools violates the Arizona Constitution. he plaintiffs are the parents of public school children (both charter and district) and they are filing on behalf of their children. Grant Woods, former Arizona Attorney General, and Tim Casey, a former partner with Snell & Wilmer and now at a smaller firm, will represent the Plaintiffs.
And yet...though charters have not been proven to work any better than public schools, the House passed a bill on Friday to
expand them even more across the country.WASHINGTON — With a largely bipartisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives this week approved legislation aimed at expanding and promoting charter schools throughout the country.
The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act, passed 364-54, now goes to the Senate for further consideration. Although the bill, designated as HR 2218, had wide backing from both parties, including "ayes" from Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Rep. Frank Guinta, R-N.H., skepticism about the effectiveness of charter schools looms.
Organizations opposed to the bill include the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher organization, the American Association of School Administrators and Parents Across America.
It's a gift to the reformers and to groups like TFA who want to profit from education and turn teaching into a temporary kind of job.
Good luck to the parents' group in NYC. Good luck to the
striking Tacoma teachers. Good luck to all public school teachers with the nerve to strike back. They will need it.
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