As the New York Daily News broke the news that hedge fund managers behind a front group called “Families for Excellent Schools” spent more than $4 million for attack ads against de Blasio and for protection of privately managed charter schools–which are not subject to public audit because they are not public schools–parent advocates announced an emergency rally to protect the public schools and the 94% of children who attend them.
Media Contacts:
Julian Vinocur. 203.313.2479. julian@aqeny.org
Dan Morris. 917.952.8920. dlmcommunications@gmail.com
*** Media Advisory for Today, March 27, 12:15pm, Steps of Dept. of Education, 52 Chambers St. , Lower Manhattan***
BREAKING: Rally Against Corrupt State Budget Deal Being Made with Charter School Lobbyists
*At 12:15 today, Elected Officials Will Condemn a Deal that will Give 5 X More Money to Charter Schools Per Pupil than to Traditional District Schools in New York City*
***The Pay-to-Play Deal is the Result of a $5 Million Charter School Lobbying Campaign Funded by Top Donors to Cuomo, Klein, the IDC, and Senate Republicans***
WHAT: At a major rally today, elected officials, parents, and advocates will condemn a state budget deal orchestrated by charter lobbyists, who are top donors to Cuomo, the IDC, and Senate Republicans, to give charter schools 5 times more money per pupil than traditional district public schools. They will speak out against the $ 5 million ad campaign lobbyists used to get charter schools a sweetheart deal in the budget and to open the door to gubernatorial control of schools.
=> Participants will Tweet using the #NoGovControl hashtag
WHO: Councilmember and Chair of the Education Committee Daniel Dromm; Council Members Carlos Menchaca, Laurie Cumbo, Ruben Wills, Jimmy Van Bramer, Antonio Reyonoso, Helen Rosenthal, Mark Treyger, Daneek Miller; Public school parents co-located with Success Academy, at PS 149/811, Soundview Academy, Seth Low; parents and advocates from the Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change and Make the Road New York.
WHERE: Steps of the Dept. of Education, 52 Chambers St., Lower Manhattan
WHEN: Today, Thursday, March 27, 12:15pm.
# # #
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A home run interview on Common Core and Parents Opting Out
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Outstanding. If only this was happening everywhere.
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“front group Families for Excellent Schools” spent more than $4 million.”
I notice AQE is never referred to as a “front group” for the union. NYSUT spent $4.5 million on the 2012 elections.
“charter schools–which are not subject to public audit”
Not true. Charter schools get plenty of public audits. Only the comptroller is fighting for the ability to audit them in what many see as a union-sponsored move (actually announced at a union meeting)
“they are not public schools”
Not true. The law that creates them says they are public schools and they have to abide by most regulations for District schools.
“Corrupt State Budget Deal”
C’mon, if you don’t get what you want, it’s corrupt? If you do, it’s not? Was it a “corrupt budget deal” when charter funding levels were taken off the formula and frozen?
“will Give 5 X More Money to Charter Schools Per Pupil than to Traditional District Schools in New York City*
Blatantly trying to mislead readers into thinking charter schools get more money than District schools. This refers to “new” money this year only, and, of course, ignores that even with this new money, charters will get substantially less funding than District schools.
“sweetheart deal”
The “sweetheart deal” *begins* to address inequities in funding for charter schools, which will continue to get less funding than District schools even if this passes. Why is it OK to think that charter kids, who are more likely to be from economically disadvantaged homes, are worth less than District kids?
It’s fine to advocate for your position, but why is it OK to lie and mislead to get there? This is a thinly veiled effort by unions to get more money for the schools they are in and to stifle, if not kill, charter schools. It is also advocating for underfunding our most needy students in order to keep more money for schools serving more high SES kids. That is not progressive. That is self-serving.
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Show me an audit for a charter school in NYC – they may privately audit, but definitely not publicly – they are responsible for their own accountability.
What defines public school to you if courts say they are private entities not run by an elected board.
Charter schools don’t bear the same facilities costs in co located schools that public schools do, nor do they have legacy costs.
Funding is a big part of this bill – but it also forces public schools to provide space and money (hurting themselves and their enrollment) to enrich a charter operator who may or may not be better than the public school – and parents won’t have a way to stop them whether they want the school or not.
A budget that gives tons of money taken from public schools with space forcibly taken with nothing taken from charters is a sweetheart deal.
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jpr,
I’ll address two points.
First, I live in Michigan. A state in which 80% of charters are for-profit. Never once has the public been presented free access to the financing of those schools. This can only be done through FOIA requests and usually involve lots of delaying and lawyers. Traditional public schools have their budgets on their websites here. No FOIA required. Public audits of charters only occur through force, not through voluntary action in my state. In the most basic sense, you are correct but in a technical sense, you aren’t.
Second, charters are only public schools when it comes to getting taxpayer money. In multiple states, they have argued that they are privately managed and therefore do not have to disclose, you guessed it, their budgets. Therefore, they aren’t the same as public schools and do not function in a wholly transparent manner. They get a different set of rules.
Apparently, it’s fine for you to mislead through your statements, too. By giving answers that ignore details, your notes could be considered less than forthright. Disingenuous, perhaps.
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Steve K,
I was referring specifically to NY, which is what the original post was about. All charter schools in NY are not-for-profit. I’m involved with an upstate charter and our financials are published on our authorizer’s web site.
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The law in NYS prohibits for-profit charters. However, it does not prohibit them from contracting out management to a for-profit CMO (Charter Management Organization), so it’s a distinction without a difference.
Also, when the Eva Moskowitz’s and Deborah Kenny’s of the world earn half a million a year managing anywhere from a handful to a small network of schools, double what the Chancellor earns for managing over 1,800, the distinction between non and for-profit becomes even less relevant.
Any way you cut it, these people are predators and privateers.
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Michael,
You said, “The law in NYS prohibits for-profit charters. However, it does not prohibit them from contracting out management to a for-profit CMO (Charter Management Organization), so it’s a distinction without a difference.”
The law in New York does in fact prohibit any new charter schools from contracting with for-profits for management.
Regarding the salaries, when a charter school can afford to pay their top admin more and also pay teachers more while spending substantially less than a District school, it makes me wonder where all the District money goes.
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I see old Right-Wing Shill for the Privatizers is back again.
Hey, JPR, will you stop lying when you crawl over here? Is that too much to ask of you?
Also, tell your masters who are paying you, directly or indirectly, that they’re getting cheated, no matter what they’re paying you.
I could train most primates to simply cut and paste the talking points or regurgitate them with precision.
You’re about as transparent a shill as I’ve seen here. Go back and reregister under some other equally laughable screen name. Okay?
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The thing that you, Mr. JPR, can’t hide, no matter how much you try, is your absolute and total contempt for organized labor.
Every time you’re called out on any one of your outrageous, vile, lies, you refuse to address the substance of that and make some obtuse, meaningless accusation against the teachers unions, which, I guess, according to you should be abolished. Correct.
And you know what, maybe you’re absolutely right. Let’s abolish all the teachers unions and see if Nirvana comes about. Should we?
After all, there isn’t one single place, not one district, not one school that isn’t “ruined” by those lazy, shiftless, good for nothing unionized teachers.
If only there was an example of a district or….wait, I”m sorry, what’s that someone is whispering in my ear…Wow. You mean that there are FIVE states that don’t have teachers unions now and never did throughout their history.
Well then, they’re obviously the TOP FIVE and…whoa, what’s that? These are states with the poorest economies, the least healthy and literate citizens, the worst schools, teachers, graduation rates, etc.
YOU MEAN THE FIVE STATES THAT HAVE WHAT YOU CLAIM WILL SOLVE ALL THE PROBLEMS ARE FIVE OF THE WORST, LOWEST RANKED STATES IN THE COUNTRY?!?!?!
But how could that be? The NY Post, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page, Fox “News” and all of the other places that provide the information for people like JPR told me otherwise…hmmm, hey, I got it: This is another one of dem ‘liberal” conspiracies like that phony global warming, and climate change, and evolution—and, oh yeah that really nutty libtard one that claims that the earth revolves the sun when any bozo can look up in the sky and see that the exact opposite is The Truth!
So much for your “But the (sniff) unions did it first and they’re the only reason everything is wrong with our schools.” claptrap.
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Puget Sound Parent,
“The thing that you, Mr. JPR, can’t hide, no matter how much you try, is your absolute and total contempt for organized labor.”
Like so many people on this blog, you’ve made incorrect assumptions based on lumping anyone who wants change in public education together with everyone else who does.
I pointed out that NYSUT also spends a lot of money influencing politics and you assumed that meant I was anti-union. What I mostly feel about teacher’s unions is profound disappointment.
Here’s why:
1. I don’t think they represent most teachers, and most teachers that I speak with agree. They disproportionately represent retirees and people with influence due to seniority, and people who are activists on union issues.
2. IMO, they dropped the ball on accountability and teachers have their union to blame for the crappy accountability systems that are now being forced on them. If they acted more like a professional organization and less like the longshoreman’s union, I believe life would be a lot better for teachers.
3. In most cases, the union doesn’t represent the interests of the teachers in the school; they become a third party in contract negotiations with their own interests.
4. The union represents teachers, which is their job, but frequently the present themselves as representing the best interests of students, which they absolutely do not. That is my problem with public sector unions. Because they frequently control school board elections, there is nobody effectively negotiating with them, leading to lots of contract provisions that are not in the best interests of students.
5. Education in NY is largely ruled by the NYS Assembly, which is widely regarded as doing the bidding of NYSUT on education issues. I’ve certainly seen lots of evidence of that and little to the contrary. Parents and students don’t have a voice in this process.
6. The very fact that you brook no criticism of unions is an indication that they are broken. IMO, they are hard to defend if you use the measuring stick of what’s best for children, and I believe that’s the one that should be used. Many decisions made using that criteria will be aligned with the best interests of teachers, and some may be less so, but still inure to the benefit of teachers in order to attract and retain great ones. But many other decisions frankly would be different if that were how they were being made.
Many of the reasons these things are true are historical, and perhaps understandable, but still lamentable.
Finland has unions too, but administrators and teachers are in the same union and they work cooperatively for the betterment of education. I don’t see anything remotely like that here.
I was very disappointed in the union vote in NC for auto manufacturers. I think the UAW has come a long way since the old days and had a very responsible attitude about cooperatively working to make quality cars. Union workers in Germany get paid twice as much to make the same cars and manage to make them cost-efficiently.
I’m disgusted by the wealth gap in this country, and certainly see the systematic destruction of unions as a major contributing factor. But, I’m equally disgusted that the Buffalo Teacher’s union has insisted on holding on to their plastic surgery benefit during a time when key classes are being cut.
I also think that policies like LIFO, transfer rights, etc. are *not* in the best interests of students and function to completely limit accountability in schools, resulting in poorer quality public education.
Unions have to change if they want to remain relevant.
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JPR.
I have time to address only one of your completely false claims. You write “ They (charter schools) are not public schools” not true. The law that creates them says they are public schools and they have to abide by most regulations for District schools.”
I have no idea what regulations you are assuring us they must abide by. Certainly not the regulation that forbids children to be photographed, video taped and used during school hours as political pawns as Eva Moskowitiz has been allowed to do repeatedly. You do understand that if a public school teacher or principal pulled such a stunt but once they would be fired and possibly arrested for child abuse, no ?
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charter schools are subject to the same FERPA regulations as District schools.
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FERPA?
Are you referring to the FERPA that Arne Duncan eviscerated so that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos could monetize student data?
Or is there another FERPA that you know about that the rest of us are ignorant of?
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No, Michael, the same regulation as District schools. Are you aware of another regulation that applies to District schools and not charters, as you implied?
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Michael Fiorillo: I copy and paste here part of a comment I made on 3/10/14 on this blog. When considering the number of students and responsibility, Eva M makes vastly more than double what Carmen F makes.
[start copy]
Let’s see. A recent New York Times article put Eva Moskowitz’s salary at $475,000 for 6,700 students.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/nyregion/de-blasio-and-builder-of-charter-school-empire-do-battle.html?_r=0
According to the NYPost, NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña makes $212,614@year [same as her predecessor Dennis Walcott] plus is collecting a DOE pension (after 40 years) of $199,579. *She is responsible for 1.1 million students.*
Link: http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/new-schools-boss-to-collect-double-de-blasios-pay/
So Eva M is collecting $475,000 ÷ 6,700 students = $70.90 approx., rounded off to $70 of $tudent $ucce$$ for every one of her data points. *Notice how I gave her the benefit of the rounding off?*
Carmen Fariña is already getting a pension; nothing about that has changed and it is irrelevant to this point. For the extra, very onerous and serious responsibility of leading the largest school system in the country she is getting $212,614 ÷ 1,100,000 = $0.19@student.
I am not bending over backwards as I did in previous postings to favor Eva M and disfavor Carmen F. Even steven. No hypocritical double standards. None of that new-fangled charterite/privatizer math.
Eva M: $70@student@year. Carmen F: $0.19@student@year.
So for every student they serve, Eva M’s bank account gets 368 times what Carmen F receives.
Which supposedly proves—according to the leaders and supporters of the “new civil rights movement of our time”—that Eva M is worth 368 times what Carmen F is worth.
[end copy]
Actually one of my numbers was in error, as Eva M makes $485,000 @year.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/nyregion/gilded-crusade-for-charters-rolls-onward.html
Reminder: jpr is [literally] a charterite/privatizer. Hence the thin skin. See comment by same on this blog regarding that ridiculous [?!?!?] auditing accountability nonsense—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/14/nyc-judge-rules-that-state-may-not-audit-evas-charters/
So pay no heed to such statements as “Regarding the salaries, when a charter school can afford to pay their top admin more and also pay teachers more while spending substantially less than a District school, it makes me wonder where all the District money goes.” Why should we buy this hook line and sinker? It’s the usual rheeformish mix of proof by assertion and “take my word for it.” Of course, when it comes to public schools, no amount of facts and numbers and logic will suffice…
Remember what Robert Rendo wrote recently: don’t feed the shills and trolls; it just encourages them.
And besides, it’s impossible to move them off their Marxist dime:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
¿? The famous one, of course.
Groucho.
😎
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KrazyTA,
I think if I had “thin skin”, this would be the last blog I’d be on, true? 😉
Yes, I am a charter supporter. After decades involved in social service, I became disenchanted with how my local District schools were doing, including schools with zero % passing rates. I know it’s “cool” these days to dismiss standardized tests, but do you think these kids are remotely ready for life? What percentage of them are headed to college and what percentage are headed to jail? Hint, studies show more of the latter.
I assure you that people on this blog have no monopoly on progressivism, considering they support a school system that chooses the quality of your school based on the house you can afford or the rent you can pay, and they fight to shut down high performing schools because they aren’t union, etc.
I wish Eva M didn’t pay herself so much. It’s a bit of a black eye on the charter community. My assertion regarding *how* she is paid that much is meant to be food for thought. I don’t expect anyone to take my word on anything. I guess in her case, half her salary is paid by an external foundation, but the other half comes out of the operating budget. I’d be curious to compare the administrative costs of her school with the administrative costs of comparable District schools.
I’m not a “troll”. I’ve been quite clear about who I am and what I believe. There are some people on this blog that will engage with respect, and there are others who I guess are not interested in any other perspective. I have learned something from them and I hope they have learned something from me. You are clearly not one of them.
I am also no “shill”. I put hundreds of hours of volunteer work into this and pay all of my own expenses and more. I’m in it because students deserve better than what they’re getting in my area, which is low expectations and an eventual 50% high school drop out rate. I honestly don’t care about your opinion of me because you have shown no interest in who I am; you’re just more interested in a straw man you can attack and use to feel better about yourself. Spend some time with some high school dropouts or in a prison; it will bring you down to earth.
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You’re a liar. What is your name if you’re truly “quite clear” about who you are? Tell us.
And tell us how your charter “school” you’ve started has produced ANYTHING different from the public schools these children would have attended anyway.
Any “improvements” are Bull Excrement; you cherry pick the best—who would have done well anyway, and make sure, one way or another, that they get in, through the front door or the back.
Then, anyone who appears to threaten your “Perfect School” is “counseled out” so that then—wait for it, it’s hilarious—you can claim a 100% Graduation Rate! (Hey, my high school could have claimed that too, using the same process you guys use; 100% of those who still remain, no matter how many more actually STARTED!)
You’re there, like all privatizers, for one reason: Money, Power & Control. You like being around very, very, very wealthy—and arrogantly sociopathic—people, somehow thinking/hoping/fantasizing that some of that nice, endless cash will make its way into your pockets. Yummy.
But that’s just the gravy. Right? The main thing is what you can pilfer from the taxpayers to build an alternative system to end free, universal education in the United States of America.
You’re disgusting. My contempt for you, and all you represent is right off the charts. And you’ve earned every bit of it.
Oh yeah, just FYI, I’m NOT a teacher and I never have been. Neither is any member of my immediate or extended family, nor any of our close friends. I am NOT a union member, and neither is anyone in my extended family.
I tell you this so that you can stick a sock in it when you come back, inevitably, oh, “Mr. Hater Of Organized Labor And Treating Human Beings With Respect and Dignity” with some hoary, hateful cliches about the men and women who educate our children and have the “audacity” to join together for mutual protection and respect.
I guess you think that we should all be “free agents” getting paid uh, wait, let me guess, “What we’re worth in the marketplace.”
Take your Uncle Milty Friedman mentality and put it right where the sun don’t shine.
I’m so fed up with people like you, offering false hope and mendacious promises to so many poor families as you stick their children into these “schools” that are supposed to get them into Yale, when the truth is, given the odds against them, in any school, they’re more likely to end up in jail, especially when people like you are doing everything you can to drain their neighborhood schools of every last dollar.
You have a hell of a nerve to come here, troll around, and toss around a bunch of unfounded malarkey and claim to be all about “improving” children’s lives.
However, I will concede that if YOU have children, your boost in income from your charter scam will probably “improve” their lives. But at the expense of may others.
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PSP,
Again, so much of your post is wrong and hateful that I’m not going to respond to your points. But, what have you done for the “poor parents” you think I’m taking advantage of other than try to shut down the schools that they want for their children and spew hate speech against them.
If you’re like most of the charter-haters in my area (and I mean haters; I have no trouble with people who look at charters objectively and don’t like them), you’re white, relatively high SES for your community, have kids in low minority, low ED schools, and think charters will take away resources from those schools.
You are disdainful of low SES parents who want charters because you think the schools are just fine and it’s the parents and kids faults when they don’t do well in school. So, you see money leaving the school you support and don’t see the problem that charters are solving.
You have probably never been in one of your community’s low SES schools. You have probably never been in a charter school. None of your friends will be sending their kids to a charter school.
If that’s you, I have news for you. You are *not* the progressive liberal that you think you are. Your hate and spite are not helping your community (or at least not the people who need it the most). You can quite effectively ignore everything about charters except your perception of the impact they have on your child’s school. And, to top it all off, you are being lied to about that since charters almost always get substantially less money per student, leaving more to spend per student for your child’s school, not less.
If it’s not you, my guess was wrong, but there are hundreds of people in my community who are against charters for those reasons. I don’t lump them together with most of the people on this blog who are against charters because most are willing to objectively discuss charters and obviously want what’s best for all kids.
In the same way, I expect them not to lump me in with those that support the ed reform agenda because they are anti-union or want to save money on their taxes. Most of the time, that happens and we have respectful conversations. Luckily, you are the exception here, not the rule.
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“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.” [Frederick Douglass]
😎
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