The following just in as the New York State Legislature responds to the pressure of a $5 million advertising campaign demanding free space for privately-managed charters. Also, the billionaires behind this ad campaign have given handsome sums to Governor Cuomo and other key politicians. Cuomo has received at least $800,000 from the charter advocates. Under the legislation below, the charters are given the right to expand as much as they want, without paying rent, pushing out the public school that once was sited in the building. The charters can afford to pay their “CEO” half a million dollars, but they can’t pay the rent. They can pay millions for attack ads on television, but they can’t pay the rent. They can hire the politically-hot public relations firm SDK Knickerbocker more than $500,000 a year, but they can’t pay the rent. Their biggest boosters are billionaires, like Paul Tudor Jones, whose Robin Hood Foundation raises $80 million in a single night, but the charters can’t pay the rent. The charters are proving to be public parasites in New York City, invading the host and doing harm to the 94% of children who are not in charters.
***
One more point: When the Common Core tests were given a year ago, students in charter schools got the same average scores as students in public schools, even though the charters have few if any students with severe disabilities (and the public schools in poor neighborhoods have nearly 15%), and the charters typically have half as many English language learners. There were a few high-flying charter schools, but even more high-flying public schools. On average, there was no difference between the public schools and the charter schools.
***
Looks like the City is forced to offer either space or rent to new or expanding charter schools.
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A08556&term=2013
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A08556&term=2013&Summary=Y&Text=Y
(E) IN A CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT IN A CITY HAVING A POPULATION OF ONE
24 MILLION OR MORE INHABITANTS, CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FIRST COMMENCE
25 INSTRUCTION OR THAT REQUIRE ADDITIONAL SPACE DUE TO AN EXPANSION OF
26 GRADE LEVEL, PURSUANT TO THIS ARTICLE, APPROVED BY THEIR CHARTER ENTITY
27 FOR THE TWO THOUSAND FOURTEEN–TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN SCHOOL YEAR OR THER-
28 EAFTER AND REQUEST CO-LOCATION IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING SHALL BE
29 PROVIDED ACCESS TO FACILITIES PURSUANT TO THIS PARAGRAPH FOR SUCH CHAR-
30 TER SCHOOLS THAT FIRST COMMENCE INSTRUCTION OR THAT REQUIRE ADDITIONAL
31 SPACE DUE TO AN EXPANSION OF GRADE LEVEL, PURSUANT TO THIS ARTICLE,
32 APPROVED BY THEIR CHARTER ENTITY FOR THOSE GRADES NEWLY PROVIDED.
33 (1) NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF LAW TO THE CONTRARY, WITHIN
34 THE LATER OF (I) FIVE MONTHS AFTER A CHARTER SCHOOL’S WRITTEN REQUEST
35 FOR CO-LOCATION AND (II) THIRTY DAYS AFTER THE CHARTER SCHOOL’S CHARTER
36 IS APPROVED BY ITS CHARTER ENTITY, THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT SHALL
37 EITHER: (A) OFFER AT NO COST TO THE CHARTER SCHOOL A CO-LOCATION SITE IN
38 A PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION AS PROVIDED
39 BY LAW, OR (B) OFFER THE CHARTER SCHOOL SPACE IN A PRIVATELY OWNED OR
40 OTHER PUBLICLY OWNED FACILITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
41 AND AT NO COST TO THE CHARTER SCHOOL. THE SPACE MUST BE REASONABLE,
42 APPROPRIATE AND COMPARABLE AND IN THE COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT TO BE
43 SERVED BY THE CHARTER SCHOOL AND OTHERWISE IN REASONABLE PROXIMITY.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“public parasites”. What a sad way to describe schools that thousands of families are selecting. Co-location has happened throughout the city for years, with various district schools sharing space. Julia Richman being a great example.
Should charter schools get a 2000 subsidy per student that public school kids in the same building don’t get?
If they do get that (and it looks like they are) can we finally stop bashing public schools and pretending this is a “level playing field”?
Because that’s the least Cuomo and his donors could do.
If public schools are to be “safety net” schools in this scheme, let’s admit that. Because you know exactly what is going to happen when parents see the disparity. They’ll flee to charter schools.
Are you really going to call that a “win” when you crippled your opponent? Really?
But that’s exactly what they do in the private sector. Business is war. To win, you cripple your competition.
For instance, Toyota started selling its cars in the US at a loss to price them lower than GM, Ford and Chrysler and literally steal market share away from US auto makers.
And what did Wal-Mart do to its competition, the mom-and-pop stores of middle America. Wal-Mart priced them out of existence and turned many small town in middle America into ghost towns.
Amazon is doing the same thing to Wal-Mart and other brick and mortar retailers. Amazon has already caused the collapse of Borders Books and is threatening the end of Barnes & Noble.
And the big bookstore chains did the same thing to independent bookstores a few decades ago. Remember “You’ve Got Mail” with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
The taxes that fund the public schools are now a target of these same greedy, ruthless people who are never satisfied with how much money they have. It’s a disease called greed. There’s even a story from Greek Mythology that reveals this mindset. The story was about a guy called “King Midas”
The billionaires are doing what billionaires do: buying influence, buying the win, crushing the opposition, which in this case is the 94% of kids in NYC’s public schools.
Billionaires Beat Kids! That should be the headline, but it won’t be because the billionaires own the mainstream media too.
The charter schools described in this debate are parasites. They have brought the animosity down on themselves through purchasing the political power to get their way at the expense of the majority of students. How else do you describe their desire to suck money out of the public system to protect their own profits?
Joe Nathan, to be clear: the charter schools are public parasites. Julia Richman Educational Complex consists solely of public schools that accept all children and who have the same proportion of children with special needs and English language learners as other NYC public schools. The charter schools, funded by billionaires, are public parasites. They demand not only free rent, but that the city pay their rent if they go to a private facility. Do you think the hedge fund billionaires can’t afford to pay the rent?
Spare us your “sadness,” Joe: as a front for the billionaires taking over the public schools, you have much to answer for, and your faux sanctimony is quite transparent.
Actually, as noted before, we work with district and charters. Fortunately many district school educators are open and eager to learn from and share with a variety of people, including other district and charter educators.
Joe Nathan, you want sadness? I invite you to come to my school, PS 149 in Harlem, home of Harlem Success 1 whose parasite intrusion has caused indignity after indignity to those students your beloved charter schools would never allow in their doors. (We also have some whom your beloved charter schools did allow in their doors until they threw them out, an ethical abomination not afforded public schools.) Come Joe. See with your own eyes how co-locations work. Come see how some people are treated like gold and others as if they were trash. Come Joe. I’ll show you around. And afterwards we can discuss the meaning of sadness and perhaps, as well, the plutocratic rape of our endemic democracy. Come Joe. I’m there every day. I’d love to see you.
thanks for the invitation. I’ve visited dozens of schools in NYC and if I’m in NYC, I may take you up on the invitation. Among the schools I’ve visited are the wonderful Julia Richman complex, which involves a very constructive shared facility. Others I’ve visited include El Puente (the Bridge), a New Visions School, KIPP in the Bronx (which shares space with a district school), and Central Park EAst.
I’ve visited the exclusive quasi private Styvesant school – how do you feel about that school – which clearly does not want the vast majority of youngsters attending most high schools in NYC. One of the things that troubles me about the antagonism toward NYC charters is that I rarely see any antagonism toward such schools.
Patrick how do you feel about that (and similar) quasi private NYC schools that screen out virtually all NYC kids?
You continue dissembling, Joe, but it will get you nowhere on this site, where people know better.
Special schools like Stuyvesant – whose admissions policies have justifiably been criticized, a separate topic for another discussion, rather than your tiresome red herrings – make no effort to hide their exclusivity.
The charter schools you shill for however, have created an elaborate way of pretending to be public schools, while cherry-picking on the front and back end.
Unlike the Michelle Rhees of the world, who make little effort to disguise their rapaciousness, you pretend to be a good guy and ally of public schools, while working as a front for the privateers, a far more dishonest and insidious role.
Shill is your word. Fortunately there are a lot of district & charter educators who are willing to learn from each other.
“nathan” unless you answer the question of “If you are being remunerated to post here, please divulge this fact”, you are forfeit and all should ignore him/her on this site. You have not answered this question in the past…
Sorry I have not communicated clearly. Answer to your question is “no.” No one pays me to post here.
It’s actually worse because if we don’t have space to give them, the public schools have to pay charter rent out of our own budgets. There’s no discretionary spending so those funds come out of our classrooms.
Come. I’ll show you around. Meanwhile, what “quasi private NYC schools” are you speaking about ? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.
http://www.stuy.edu/
Patrick – how many of the students are you school would be admitted to one of these NYC “public” schools?
“Stuyvesant High School and the other seven specialized high schools are public high schools established and run by the New York City Department of Education to serve the needs of academically gifted students. New York State Education Law makes a written examination the only requirement for admission to these schools. Places are awarded to those students who earn the highest scores on the entrance exam, the Specialized High Schools Admission Test….The New York City Specialized High Schools admission test (SHSAT) is offered to all eighth and ninth grade students residing within the five boroughs of New York City who wish to attend Stuyvesant or any of the other specialized high schools. The same exam is given for all eight schools, and students who qualify will be offered a seat in one of their choices. The qualifying score depends upon the number of seats available and the scores of all the candidates. The tests are graded and are arranged in order of rank, from the highest to the lowest score. Each school has a number of freshman and sophomore seats to fill. Seats are filled starting with the highest test scores. When all available seats have been filled, the cutoff mark is determined.
Students who miss the cutoff of their first choice school may be assigned to their second choice school if their score is above the cutoff for that school. This procedure continues until all seats in the specialized high schools have been filled.
It is required that students take the exam at the designated school in their borough. Applications for the exam and information about all the specialized high schools are available at all New York City schools serving eighth and ninth graders. The SHSAT is administered early in October of each school year. Students are notified of their acceptance into one of the specialized high schools the following February.
Believe it or not Joe, those schools are under attack for those policies too – and only a few of them fall under the control of the mayor and not the state. Of those under city control, there is a raging debate about how to get more students of color because to have the best schools in the city be majority white/asian when the vast majority of the population is of color, is not right, and we know it.
7 schools that we know are problematic, do not justify the pillaging of the rest of the public schools by the private sector. Should not the rights of charters be justified in their own merit – not because they see some faux equivalence with the 7 screened schools?
M I know there is controversy about those schools – yet I hear virtually no criticism of them here.
Hopefully, the new mayor of NY City will take this to court and fight it all the way to the top. But already, the signs say he doesn’t have the stomach for getting in the dirty mud of politics and fighting back.
It was Bill Clinton who got to him. We wants everything ok for Hillary’s coronation. Bill got started as Hillary’s campaign manager for her Senate race. I suspect that his first choice for Chancellor was crushed by the call from Arnie Duncan at the behest of Clinton. He gets the fig leaf of money for charters paid for by the working stiffs, which will include Common Core, the horror. Well, the sun will come up tomorrow.
Lloyd, the billionaires dumped $5 million into negative advertising against the Mayor to prove to him that they could crush him. He does not have $5 million in loose change to fight back.
Albany works by one rule: Pay to play. And the billionaires paid.
True. It must have felt as if he’d been hit by a Hellfire missile from a drone.
You don’t need a $5 million ad campaign to “fight back” when you’re the mayor of New York City, with the second-most powerful bully pulpit in the US. What you need is a willingness to fight, and De Blasio did not have that. De Blasio capitulated immediately after Moskowitz’s Albany rally. When the Senate released a budget resolution that proposed to gut De Blasio’s authority over school facilities, he didn’t denounce it, much less attempt to mount a sustained campaign against it. Instead he issued a statement *praising* the Senate resolution for including UPK funding. Since then, by my count, he’s made no attempt to advocate for NYC’s right to make its own decisions about school facilities. He could have issued press releases, given interviews, made the morning show appearances. De Blasio is the Mayor of NYC, you can literally just call up New York Times and generate a story. You can even have your staff do it for you if that’s too much trouble.
De Blasio chose to do none of this. Not because he didn’t have $5 million, but because he decided it wasn’t worth doing. As an NYC resident and public school parent, I’m not willing to overlook that.
Granted, it would have been a tall order for the de Blasio transition team to have a Plan B in place for what to do when the ace PR person decides to have a not-at-all-private love affair with Eliot Spitzer that necessitates her firing, but this will be taught in political science and communication courses for years to come. It has killed his administration, plain and simple.
And while I’m a charter supporter, this legislation is potentially a serious disaster. It forces the city to choose between letting charters effectively own and run DOE buildings or taking operational funds away from the schools my kids and Flerp’s kids attend.
I guess the only recourse now is to put massive amounts of pressure on the state’s charter authorizers: they can’t green-light charters in districts where there isn’t a need or room for them, they have to start making charters use weighted lotteries for ELLs and special ed and economically at-risk kids, and they most certainly have to demand that their schools start backfilling.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find a lawyer who’d be interested in suing Success for not letting a very academically qualified 5th grader who is hungry for additional public school options even apply for open seats in their middle schools, and I’ve got to help out candidates who are interested in primarying Jeff Klein.
The Great and Powerful Blaz has finally spoken. A searing indictment if ever I saw one:
We applaud what Governor Cuomo and our state legislature have accomplished for the people of this city. I look forward to continuing to work together with the governor to move New York City forward. We owe a debt of gratitude to Speaker Sheldon Silver and the New York State Assembly, whose two decades of advocacy and leadership on early education brought us to this moment. Their unity and commitment to truly universal pre-K for every child have achieved something truly extraordinary today. I am grateful for Co-Leader Klein’s work in the Senate to put our youngest children first. We also thank Democratic Leader Stewart-Cousins, Co-Leader Skelos, the Senate Majority, Senate Democrats and the IDC for standing squarely behind New York City’s children.”
Politics will always trump pedagogy.
and money, politics.
This is from a charter school supporter:
“Despite what the charter lobby says, charter schools in DOE buildings get a significant subsidy, on the order of $2000 per student, by not contributing to the operating costs of the buildings they occupy. Charter students have every right to space in these buildings, because their families support the city’s capital budget just like non-charter students. But under Bloomberg, charters did not pay operating costs like heating, electrical, security, food services, and janitorial.”
How do you justify giving each charter school kid a 2000 subsidy that the public school kids in the same building don’t get? How do you claim superior results when in fact those results could come from the 2000 bump in funding?
They’re painting themselves into a corner with this lobbying by the way.
Charter schools can’t survive without preferential funding. That’s the basis of the claim. It’s their argument.
If the public schools all close in NYC, charters will have to pay operating costs, because there won’t be any public schools to shift the burden to.
Eva better hope public schools survive this defunding and undermining. Her business model won’t work without those public school kids, and the hedge fund crowd aren’t going to subsidize this forever.
http://horacemanifesto.tumblr.com/post/80396504281/the-racial-myopia-of-diane-ravitch
Chiara, when the charter school movement first started in the late 1980s, early 1990s, its advocates said that they would save money because they have no bureaucracy and would be more efficient. But now they want either the same or more money than public schools. It is a hoax intended to privatize public education. And Governor Cuomo is the enabler.
Actually Obama is the enabler.
Actually, we did not say that charters would cost less money in Minnesota or a number of other states.
Chiara, did you read what this person said about asking Dr. Ravitch which NY district school that is open to a variety of students she would recommend? Worth considering:
http://horacemanifesto.tumblr.com/post/80396504281/the-racial-myopia-of-diane-ravitch
I wonder if Mr. Horace Manifesto knows that his site has no search engine rank and doesn’t appear on a Google search—at least on the first page of the search. His Twitter account appeared, and Horace has 33 followers on Twitter.
Wow, what a following he has!
Me thinks his Blog is a place where he impresses himself with his own thinking.
In Horace’s conclusion, he claims, “In all of Ravitch’s fever dream paranoia about the corporate conspiracy to destroy public education, if she’s so disconnected from the reality that low income families of color face that the best she can do is propose that public schools should get richer and whiter, is there any godly reason we should listen to her?”
I’ve been reading a lot of Diane’s posts and comments and I never heard her “Propose that the public schools should get richer and whiter”.
Better finding, early child literacy programs for kids living in poverty and additional support for at risk kids in the public schools, yes, but not what this fool claims she says.
Oh, and Horace hasn’t activated the comment function. I couldn’t find any way to leave a comment. What is Horace afraid of? That someone might point out the truth and back that truth up with links to the facts.
Horace’s site stinks of Troll.
Lloyd, I mentioned the blog because Chiara cited it as a resource.
I’m aware of that, but I clicked on the link and then wanted to know more about this Horace’s cyber footprint. It’s sort of small. I have to go back and find out why Chiara cited this fool as a source other than for humor.
All more enabled by the Obama administration’s educational policies promoting charter schools. As I’ve said before on this site we are seeing the destruction of public education and resegregation of K-12 education that is abetted by the educational policies of the first black president. How “cool” is that!
So where is campaign finance reform when we desperately need it. Cuomo is making decisions based on who butters his bread and not based on the role he was put in charge of… meeting the needs OF THE PEOPLE. Is this what “democracy” really looks like? This is sick! Is it really true what Patrick Sullivan says, “It’s actually worse because if we don’t have space to give them, the public schools have to pay charter rent out of our own budgets. There’s no discretionary spending so those funds come out of our classrooms…”
Wow, this is thievery at best!
The hedge funders are hosting the politicians they bought at this exclusive resort.
Do you think they should release the text of the discussions, (well, transactions might be a better word) or do we have to rely on a waiter with a cell phone, as we did with Romney?
https://register.edreformnow.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=1&utm_content=buffer15c38&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Thanks for the link Chiara. Here’s their description of the expected invitees:
“On May 4-6, Education Reform Now, the 501c3 partner of Democrats for Education Reform, will assemble the nation’s premier progressive leaders on education for the first ever Philosopher’s Camp. “Camp Philos” will be the insiders exchange for policy and political ideas on education reform among the nation’s top elected officials, advocacy leaders, and philanthropists.”
Educators are glaringly absent from the description.
Expect more rotten ideas to come out of this.
Any counter-protests being planned?
Camp Philos should be called Camp Privatization.
I can’t guarantee of course, but I think eventually the public gets fed up with this.
My hope is corruption and pay to play become THE issue in the 2016 Presidential race.
The fact is our “representatives” aren’t working for us.
“Out of touch” doesn’t even begin to describe it. They don’t even live in the same world that we do.
It’s celebrities, wealthy people and politicians with this rotating cast of pundits and media people orbiting around them. It’s a club, and we’re not in it.
We can only hope that a few pesky guests- black flies, ticks, mud, sleet, and snow- disrupt their plans for more disruption. time for a third party in NYS.
Here are the luminaries for the event:
(dis) Honorable Andrew Cuomo (honorary chairman)
Joe Williams, Executive Director, Education Reform Now
Special Guests:
Senator Mary Landrieu
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson
Russlynn Ali – now with pro-charter Emerson Collective
M. Night Shyamalan – film director
I loved the “Sixth Sense” by Shyamalan. Now with the Common Core we will have real zombies and not imagined. Cole never would have survived in a Charter. oh no I gave away my film idea. “The Return of the Living Charter Student”
Disgusting! There is nothing more. I can say than that.
Doesn’t this violate the equal protection clause under the 14th amendment?
I hope this goes to court.
And please, Mayor DeBlasio, fight back against the billionaires! We need you more than ever to do so. State the facts every chance you get, so the word gets out and the the people of New York will have your back. These parasitic hedge fund operators won’t stop until every public school has been charterized out of existence. Because when that day comes, it will be R.I.P. democracy.
Shame on Obama, Duncan, Cuomo (may he never have the audacity to run for president) and the rest of the elite rePhormers whose ultimate goal is to destroy public education in America.
God forbid that any commoner should have the same rights to a well-rounded education. The elites believe a good education is a privilege for themselves alone.
Perhaps the hedge fund managers and their ilk could use a refresher course in French history?
Didn’t you just read the governor’s statement on his budget? It was a simple compound sentence with a fourth grade level of vocabulary. Our elite doesn’t have an education in the European elite sense of the word. It’s unlikely the governor knows what Beouwolf is. He looks like a thug…
Looking at the text, I’m wondering how Governor Cuomo and his donors can include “privately-owned” property in their planned charter building boom.
OFFER THE CHARTER SCHOOL SPACE IN A PRIVATELY OWNED OR
40 OTHER PUBLICLY OWNED FACILITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT
41 AND AT NO COST TO THE CHARTER SCHOOL.
Wow. The public school has to,… what? Find them space to lease and then cover the cost? Are there any limits on what the publicly-owned entity has to pay to subsidize the privately-owned entity?
It’s a guaranteed subsidy to private property owners. When the public pays for the lease of the private property, are they gaining any equity interest in the property, or do all those gains (over time) go to the private landlords?
Worst investment opportunity ever for the public 🙂
You’ll be paying rent instead of owning anything, over time. Bad deal for you. None of these hedge funders would ever take this deal, BTW.
Many of DiBlasio supporters are owners of NYC real estate.
The City has air rights where they can build with no rent to be paid. These would be multi use bldgs. The City should not be paying rent for new school space, but build it above preexisting low buildings like schools and libraries and take a 60/40 split from developers.
I think it’s a really important question for the public to ask. These are private entities. If the public pays to improve/retrofit these new schools, who owns that increase in value?
If I took a map of a city, and colored publicly-owned space red and privately-owned space blue, what would that map look like after a “portfolio” school system was put in? I’m going to have a lot of publicly-funded space that is colored blue. Further, are the publicly-owned spaces where public schools used to be BECOMING blue?
What happens to the value that the public adds (over time) to the privately-owned space leased to charters? Who gets that? Who benefits from it? Because someone does.
Are you investing in a service that each parents buys, with no accrued value once their kid walks out the door?
Because that’s a very different idea than “public schools”.
Chiara, this is unprecedented legislation. If the charter rents private space, the city must pay their rent. I don’t know of any school district or state with similar laws that rob from the 94% of kids to accommodate the needs of the 6% in charters.
In Ohio, if we (as a community) decide to close a public school and build a new facility (we’re doing that where I live) we are mandated to “offer” the old building to a charter school.
It’s state law. So, in my town, even if the people in the neighborhood want a public park in the space where the elementary school will be demolished (which is what they want) we can’t do that without offering a “right of first refusal” to any charter school that shows up.
People here were really surprised to find this out.I read on this all the time and I didn’t know it.
But, you’re right that NY is more extreme, because the charter in Ohio would have to pay the public for the property.
We could end up with a situation where we would have to buy the old school and property we built and paid for FROM the charter school so we could create a public park on the site where the public school was. How crazy is THAT?
Watch out for their next scheme; The billionaire backers will form or use their already existing companies to rent their own space to themselves on the taxpayers dime. Another example of making all risks public and all profits, (there will be profits) private.
“Lloyd Lofthouse
March 29, 2014 at 1:18 pm
But that’s exactly what they do in the private sector. Business is war. To win, you cripple your competition.
For instance, Toyota started selling its cars in the US at a loss to price them lower than GM, Ford and Chrysler and literally steal market share away from US auto makers.”
Cami Anderson’s One Newark Plan is an admission that charter schools aren’t serving the same population as public schools.
That’s what she’s doing. She’s zoning kids into schools that aren’t “taking their fair share” to attempt to regulate her way out of the reality that she has created.
That ed reformers won’t admit this to the public school advocates and people who work in public schools and continue to insist this is a “level playing field” is belied by their OWN ACTIONS to remedy the situation they created.
You all were right. Charter schools were serving different kids. How do we know? Because ed reformers are regulating around it. Will scores drop in the charter schools under One Newark? Probably! She’s got some kind of mysterious algorithm that distributes kids to various schools, so charters will (supposedly) have to take the kids they weren’t taking. That is a REMEDY to the unequal playing field she created. That they continue to insist this reality doesn’t exist is bad faith. It’s not dealing with people in a fair and forthright manner.
Chiara, The relevant legal guidance for charters facilities in Ohio can be found on p. 19 and following at http://www.oapcs.org/files/u115/OAPCS_CLawGB_FINAL.pdf
In Columbus, most of the vacated public schools that might have been available for charters had a market value of over $1 million, out of reach for purchase by most charters, especially start-ups. Overall the policies in Ohio are less draconian than in NY, but it galls me that the law puts “a right of first refusal” to charters on the disposition of unused schools, especially charters operating for-profit.
Thanks. Are you following the Straight A Fund give-away?
It’s Race to the Top at the state level. It’s the Duncan/Kasich formula for public education. If your local public school rubber stamps some ed reform gimmicks and fads, you can have some of your own tax money!
This ridiculous concept where people have to “compete” for a share of their own tax money has now left DC where it was hatched and migrated to the state level.
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Straight-A-Fund
Event the children understand the inequity of education aid in NYS. Watch this video:http://youtu.be/7CKOJ6PzgCI
Isn’t it time for Randi to call out her teachers and set up picket lines around these charters and keep the non-union help (I won’t call them teachers) out and these factories shut until Cuomo and the legislature back down and promise to not turn their backs on the 94%? Would DeBlasio call out the police? Would the police break the strike? I don’t think so. DeBlasio if he was smart would march with the teachers. We need a game changer.
Really, what other solution is there? We clearly no longer live in a democracy where elected officials are responsive to their constituents. Time to march for public schools and public school teachers and public employee unions.
Unfortunately, Weingarten opened charter schools run by the UFT, which are co-located in public schools.
Weingarten, and her successor, Mulgrew, will do nothing to stem the metastasis of charter schools – the UFT’s silence on Cuomo’s grotesque charter bill is a case in point – since they are not bona fide trade unionists, but willing captives of the so-called reformers, co-managing the labor force and running dues collection agencies.
Retweeted by Peter C. Cook
Eva Moskowitz @MoskowitzEva 2h
This is a historic moment. @NYGovCuomo and @SenatorSkelos have championed parents and children by protecting the future of charter schools.
Expand
You will not find one word about public schools in the crowing over the big win for charters.
It was never about improving public schools. In fact, public schools were completely ignored in this whole well-funded, well-orchestrated political/media campaign.
I think that’s amazing and horrifying. A huge group of children simply disappeared. They had NOT ONE adult advocate in government.
How can one have a public school “system” where charter schools simply don’t consider anyone else in the system? They don’t even admit they are IN a system.
Diane, you were great on Bill Moyers. Can’t wait to watch the extended video. Luckily I am near retirement here in NY. Cuomo has balanced a 10 billion dollar budget deficit on the backs of the public schools in NY. Since 2008 nearly every teacher to leave our school hasn’t been replaced. Schools in NY are practically bankrupt and now in 2014-15 the Governor proposes to give a tax rebate to any property owner in a district that stays under the 2% tax cap. If you vote down an increase that is over 2%, I will send you a few hundred dollars. Democracy in action. So if your school is broke and needs 3 % this year because the legislature won’t fund education you won’t get the check from the governor unless you vote it down. I am amazed that this tampering with school budget votes is even legal. This from Newsday”
Offering a property tax rebate to homeowners whose school districts and local governments keep property tax growth below the state’s 2 percent cap and take steps to share services or consolidate with neighboring governments. Cuomo said the rebate would have the practical effect of “freezing” property taxes.”
Many schools have lost 10 million or more of in aid that was promised but cut by something called the Gap Elimination Adjustment which was used to fill a 10 billion shortfall. It is a starve the beast campaign. Underfund public schools and give charters free rent. Thanks for what you do. We will fight on here in upstate NY.
I don’t know why they just don’t go to a straight voucher system and cut the crap.
It would be more honest and it would stop the slow bleeding of public schools, which is brutally unfair to the kids in those schools and deceptive to their parents.
Oh, wait, yes I do. They’re “Democrats” so that letter after their name means they can’t run on privatization, which has to be obvious to even the most enthusiastic supporter of “ed reform” at this point.
In other words, it’s pure self-interested politics.
I have more respect for a Scott Walker or a McCrory in NC or a Kasich in OH. They RUN on hostility towards public schools. At least people knew what they were about when they voted for them. The Democrats involved in this are just garden variety weasels, talking out of both sides of their mouths. They stand for nothing.
Our great Mayor has finally decided to weigh in on the budget. Expressing his gratitude to Cuomo, Shelly Silver, and Jeff Klein.
http://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/116-14/statement-mayor-de-blasio-state-budget-agreement
This is De Blasio’s budget as much as Cuomo’s and Moskowitz’s.
Now let’s move forward and see how badly and with how little transparency the NYC DOE can botch pre-K this fall.
About pre-K. You won’t read this in the mainstream media, because they won’t cover it and upstate schools don’t count, but did you know that cash-strapped schools are actually considering CUTTING kindergarten to retain other educational services? These services are threatened by the 2 percent tax cap and Gap Elimination Adjustment (less money for public schools; more money for billionaires). Schools are proposing to cut kindergarten because state law says that students must be educated at age 6, which is 1st grade. So this pre-school funding idea does not consider the dire financial conditions of many upstate districts, which may be insolvent in two years. Next up: charter schools taking over buildings in the likes of Utica and Jamestown, not to mention consolidating small rural districts.
Ever wonder how Eva’s Success Schools achieved significantly higher test scores last year than all the other charters and district schools?? When Atlanta and D.C. schools showed unusually high test scores, there were investigations and widespread cheating was discovered. The NYC Charter Association 2013 Data Draft (Page 2) said that some could scrutinize these high grades. Maybe there should be testing audits of her schools as well as financial audits. Something seems to be rotten in the city of NY.
Center for American Progress has an article on how governors/states are in opposition to the courts that require educational funding to be substantial (cf. Kansas as recent example). Here is the quote from Center for American Progress. “courts are taking a stand to enforce constitutional provisions requiring states to provide an adequate education for all students, not just those in districts with more valuable property and more property tax revenue. The increasing focus on measurable results—in the form of student testing—in education has changed the nature of the judiciary’s role in education funding. “The states have promulgated content standards, assessment systems—they’ve promulgated lots of accountability,” said David Sciarra of the Education Law Center. “But what the states haven’t done is determine the cost of delivering standards-based education to all kids.”
equity is a broader issue than just bashing teachers and closing poverty schools because of test scores.
the billionaire strategy: “tax cuts” as it plays out in Wisconsin and Kansas
quote: “The huge tax cuts in Kansas have left the state’s schools stuck in the recession and continuing to decline. School districts across the state have had to layoff teachers and counselors, and cut programs for students since the recession hit.
The loss of revenue caused by the tax cuts in Wisconsin contributed to deep cuts in state support for schools, ranking Wisconsin among the states that have made the steepest cuts to education.” This is a knee jerk response Tax cuts therefore bring on the charter schools.
I should have cited this reference from the Wisconsin Budget Project: “Don’t Be Kansas: Impact of Massive Tax Cuts on Kansas Offers a Warning to Wisconsin”
March 27, 2014 – See more at: http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/#sthash.ahZrwitR.dpuf
Unbelievable and wrong. Why can’t anything meaningful be done about this? Or is the only thing that can be done is to just write about it? Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:30:54 +0000 To: rmw49high@hotmail.com
Have the $B-B-Billionaires pay the frickin’ Rent!