High school students in York City, Pennsylvania, have been handing out fliers to warn parents and the community against the state’s plan to hand their district public schools over to a for-profit charter chain.
On Wednesday, school board members, parents, students, and school employees will meet to oppose the charter takeover.
“The 4:30 p.m. rally at Bethlehem Baptist Church, 474 S. Pershing Ave., will proceed a 6:30 p.m. board meeting Wednesday at the district administration building, 31 N. Pershing Ave.
“Margie Orr, president of the school board, and other members of the board will be there “to show that the York community is united against a charter takeover of its neighborhood schools,” according to a news release from the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
“A state-appointed official has advocated a full conversion of district schools to charter schools operated by a for-profit company.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m so pleased to see, again (as in CO last fall) students taking up the cause-their cause.
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Community meetings and handing out fliers is a good beginning. School board officials, parents and community members will not be heard until they up the ante on opposing the district conversion.
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Reformers modus operandi though is ignoring community outcry and going full steam ahead until it’s a “done deal” and people have no choice but to wait and weep for what they wanted as a community. The only thing that will save this school will be a monetary savior or a highly unlikely legislative change (a reversal of the same law that placed them in this situation after they’d received a loan already which they didn’t know was blood money).
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I’ve been saying this for years, but no one listens- if they decide to hand the schools over to a charter chain, then parents need to check their kids out of school and form a home school coop, Then the charter chain couldn;t make money and the public schools could open again. They could also write a school plan and reopen as a new public school district.
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I agree Barbara. If parents refuse, en-mass, to enroll their children in the corporate run, for profit school system, no corporate backed lackey will set up shop for long.
It will take intense and savvy organizing. Will a leader emerge in York PA?
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Was the Civil Rights Movement realistic? I think with outside donations, this could work. But the organizing has to start now.
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It sounds like a plan, but is it realistic in this district with 81% free/reduced lunch (i.e., families at 130-185% US poverty level)? That most likely means most if not all parents are working 1 or more jobs to keep food on the table – how to homeschool?
Maybe in this case it would be best to gather many signatures on a petition started by a local teacher/parent, where parents indicate they seek a traditional school option (required to be offered by law) to the charter school
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I used to joke about the “public option” in schools, because of course that was part of the health care debate. Now it’s happening.
It’s great that they’re using that language in York.
The last I read the only “public option” the privatization advocates had come up with was online learning, which is a joke. They’ll have to do better than that. Pennsylvania’s cybercharters are a disaster. They’re comparable to the cybercharters in Ohio. Sending people off to chase cheap for-profit “online learning” as a replacement for a public school is insulting.
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“If the district’s schools are converted into charter schools, with Charter Schools USA as management company, the law requires that the district establish alternative arrangements for students who don’t want to attend the charter school.
In court hearings, Meckley listed a cyber program as an alternative. Law firms that deal with education matters have said that wouldn’t be sufficient for special education students.
Since then, state education spokesman Tim Eller has said that cyber was one possibility but that additional public options would be considered to make sure students have programs and services as required by state law.”
If Pennsylvania didn’t have laws protecting special education students they’d be sending the people who don’t want to attend a for-profit charter chain off to one of Pennsylvania’s for-profit cybercharter chains? Gosh, I hope they don’t send them to the cybercharter that’s currently under FBI investigation.
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In a link to one of the linked articles, after Meckley listed the cyber option, a state ed dept rep said “cyber was one possibility but that additional public options would be considered to make sure students have programs and services as required by state law.” He went on, “The receiver could consider several alternatives to the charter school option, such as a district-run building, the cyber program, sending students to neighboring schools on a tuition basis, and partnering with the Lincoln Intermediate Unit,” Eller said in an email. “A final decision has not been made, but these are some of the alternatives the receiver will consider.”
I tend to agree with you, though– had not there not already been consultation with lawyers regarding state law reqts for SpecEd kids, this Meckley might have railroaded his plans right in before anyone squawked.
Of course cyber is a sub-par option for any kid– but as one parent of a kindergartner commented [no doubt dumbfounded at the idea of cyberK!]: “school should also teach young children how to get along with others”.. nu?
And speaking of railroading, the action to replace York City public SD schools with a for-profit charter chain is all about lame duck Corbett trying to push his poison pills through before gov-elect Wolf (who opposes the all-charter plan) takes office… next week….
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I don’t know how legislators can support cyber charters especially – they suck dollars right out of the local economy and to pretty much everywhere except where the taxes have been taken.
Even if charters and public schools were pretty much equal seeing as there is no magic charter bullet, it seems like a pretty bad idea to take the already few local tax dollars out of the local economy.
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“sending students to neighboring schools on a tuition basis”
What I love is how there’s absolutely no recognition of how children develop relationships with other children. You can just pack them off anywhere and they’re like solo flyers, apparently. It makes no difference to them, at all, when they leave people they know.
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Reminds me of an old bumper sticker, “What if they gave a war, and nobody came?”
The people don’t know their true power.
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I totally agree. What if they handed over the public schools to charters, and no one showed up? What if volunteers agreed to watch kids on their days off so no kids would be in school? On a negative note, remember that white parents in the south did this so their precious darlings wouldn’t have to sit next to a black child. It can also work in the reverse. Low income parents can keep their kids out of school.
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Just re-posting this comment here from an earlier post on the York situation, hoping someone w/more savvy than I have about school-funding/ tax formulas in PA will chime in:
I have another question… why doesn’t York City SD have enough taxes to support its schools? When you look at the school district borders, It’s like someone drew a little line around the poor people. The district has only 5k students (1 hi sch); free/red lunches [i.e. 185% pov level) are at 81%. Surrounding districts have 31% or less. No surprise that per-pupil costs are higher (on the order of 2k-3k more pp) & state has to kick in over half their budget (compared to about 30% in bordering SD’s).
York county does not lack for industry, & corporate tax generation. York City school district has a large mfr w/n its borders (Dentsply intl hdqtrs). Within 1.5 mis of district borders lies the plant that assembles 60% of Harley-Davidson’s motorcycles, the huge York Int’l HVAC/bldg. efficiency arm of Johnson Controls, & Stauffer animal crackers mfg. Go another 1.5 mis & you’ve got Voith Hydro large eqpt mfr, & Bon-Ton hdqtrs. & just a couple of mis further, BAE Sys mfr defense vehicles, American Hydro mfr large eqpt, York Barbell mfr.
How can it be that w/n its borders or w/n 1-6 mis outside its borders, there are 3 major, 3 mid-size, & 2 small mfg facilities paying into state coffers, yet this one little district is singled out by its poverty/ poor student achievement/ higher per-pupil cost/state aid, & relegated to be closed/ replaced with a mediocre charter chain?
I think the something rotten in York must have to do with the state tax structure.
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Unfairness in funding by property tax levy is so well known it can only be seen as a feature of this system, not a bug no one has been able to correct. The better off don’t like their money being redistributed to the more needy or to have integration judging by our country’s long battle with segregation.
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Do you have to make so much sense ? You are ruining the reformer’s argument that charter is the only way to go.
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The reformers in state after state have demonstrated that they don’t care what the majority of parents, voters, school boards, students and teachers think, and that the word “choice” is only a propaganda tool used to fool people, because in reality, to the fake reformers, there is only one option and it is the one they want.
Democracy is being dismantled.
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From the CSUSA site:
“JACKSONVILLE – The largest celebration of school choice in US history will officially start on Friday, January 23, 2015 at a special event in Jacksonville, Florida.
National School Choice Week 2015 will kick off at the Florida Theatre at 12:30 pm on January 23. The event is the first event of an unprecedented 11,082 independently planned and independently funded special events taking place across all 50 states during the Week, which runs until January 31, 2015.
Additional speakers include Gary Chartrand, chairman of the Florida State Board of Education; Frank Biden, the president of Mavericks in Education and the brother of Vice President Joe Biden.”
Frank Biden also appeared in York, Pennsylvania to encourage privatization of York schools. Was he paid by CSUSA ?
Has Frank Biden ever appeared and lobbied on behalf of a public school? If he’s for “great schools!” one would think there would be at least one public school in the country that would merit his help and his famous name and connections to powerful people. Why, I bet there’s a public school in Pennsylvania that could use the support of such a famous and well-connected person. Why no advocacy for public schools among the School Choice politician/famous person speaker line-up?
http://charterschoolsusa.com/nations-largest-ever-school-choice-celebration-kick-jacksonville-next-week/
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