In this article, Alan Singer of Hofstra University connects the dots behind the effort to allow charter schools to hire uncertified teachers. He follows the money, and it leads to one man: Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Charters need to hire uncertified teachers because they churn through teachers and need newcomers who can devote long hours to the job without the diversion of a family.
“The finger points at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Politicians and wealthy business leaders with ties to Cuomo are behind the push to exempt some of the state’s charter schools from hiring certified teachers. It is a move that would weaken University-based teacher education programs, undermine teacher professionalism, and seriously hurt the education of children across the state.
“Cuomo has long been a supporter of expanded and minimally regulated charter schools. In 2014, while preparing to run for reelection, Cuomo spoke at a pro-charter rally on the steps of the State Capitol Building in Albany. In his speech he praised charter school groups and Republican and independent Democrats who were joining with him to “save” charter schools, although there was no movement trying to destroy them. Curiously, Cuomo never discussed pulling the children out of school and shipping them to Albany for a staged rally.
“In 2016, while no one was paying close attention, the State Legislature with Cuomo’s endorsement extended the regulatory authority of the Trustees of the State University over charter schools. The SUNY Charter Institute, a sub-committee of the Board of Trustees, now claims this legislation empowers them to permit charter schools under their jurisdiction to hire uncertified teachers and train them according to their own guidelines.
“The Trustees of the State University of New York currently authorize 165 charter schools in New York State including those operated by some of the most politically connected networks. Six SUNY charter schools operate in the Capital Region (Albany and Troy), six are in Buffalo, two are on Long Island, and over 140 are in New York City. The New York City charters include seven sponsored by Carl Ichan, ten affiliated with Achievement First, and 38 Success Academy Network Schools operated by Eva Moskowitz. Ichan is a corporate raider and real estate magnate with ties to the Trump Administration. Achievement First is connected to former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein who left the city’s Department of Education to work for Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. Eva Moskowitz is New York City’s Charter School Queen with political ties to Andrew Cuomo and hedge fund companies and foundations.
“According to a 2015 expose by Juan Gonzalez for the New York Daily News, between 2000 and 2015, 570 hedge fund managers made nearly $40 million in political contributions to New York State candidates, including $4.8 million to Andrew Cuomo. Several of Cuomo’s 2014 reelection campaign donors including Carl Icahn, of Icahn Enterprises, Julian Robertson of Tiger Management, and Daniel Loeb, of Third Point LLC, are major supporters of charter schools.”
Cuomo appointed all four members of the SUNY charter school committee that will make the decision.
Cuomo needs the hedge funders to finance the presidential run everyone expects he wants. But, as Alan points out, he also needs the votes of the public so he may be open to suasion.
That is why I hope you will use this link to protest this unwise decision before it is too late.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The US Department of Education is marketing “course choice” this week- that’s where lower income rural kids get cheap online programs offered by contractors like K12 instead of actual courses with actual teachers:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/06/14/course-choice-efforts-grow-in-rural-schools.html?cmp=soc-twitter-shr
Why is the federal government promoting low quality garbage for lower income students? Is this a good value for public schools, buying this stuff? Should public schools take advice on resource allocation from the US Department of Education when they offer such lousy advice?
Upper income students get real teachers and lower income students get cheap garbage online courses? Is that the goal here?
This funneling of resources sends the wrong message. IMHO it is designed to give students what the powers that be believe these students deserve. Once again we see the promotion of separate and unequally applied policy instead of promoting opportunity for all.
I’m not sure it matters. With the big ed reform push to replace teachers with cheap online courses we won’t need those pesky, demanding “employees” anyway.
Hire a 15 dollar an hour aide and the lucky students can sit in front of a screen 8 hours a day. Rebrand it as “personalized learning” and give them a free Chromebook and they’ll never know they’re being cheated.
Awesome and disruptive, I must say. Why, it’s just like how Target and Wal Mart train employees.
and think about who, exactly, is writing up that 8 hour a day curricula: what will be taught, what will never be mentioned
“Playing together: Trends in game-based education”
US Department of Education again. Peddling ed tech product to public schools. Again.
Why is ed reform so fond of photos of small children staring at screens?
Is it really the role of public employees to sell ed tech product to public schools? Is this what we’re paying them for? Don’t these companies already have salespeople?
Hi Diane,
If hiring uncertified teachers is a bad thing for charter schools, then won’t they simply fail as a result of their own stupid choices??
If they think that they can train teachers better than teaching colleges can, why not let them try? If they fail, then public schools will prevail and the public will know the truth. If they find better ways of training teachers than the current certification process, then perhaps everyone can learn something from their methods.
Trying to thread the gauntlet between warring factions as always…
Dave Kristofferson
eduissues.com
Do you really think charter schools fail because of poor performance or bad choices? Have you not been paying attention for the past 20 years? As long as you can convince parents that those horrible gubmint schools are worse, you can get away with practically anything in a charter. Anyway, as Chiara said above, give students a free Chromebook, stick them in front of computers, call it “personalized learning”, and most of them will never know how badly they’re being cheated.
In any case, what about the children you are advocating being experimented on? Don’t they have rights?
The parents make the decision to send their children to the charter schools, so the parents are in effect exercising their rights.
Here in California, curriculum experiments are constantly carried on in the public schools without the students’ or parents’ consent, so, yes, I am concerned about that issue, too 😉!
Well now we are at the crux of the matter. When new curriculums are piloted, or a public school teacher tries out a new lab activity I will grant you that those students are being experimented on. That said, those teachers are qualified, certified, and probably have many more years experience than the teacher temps that make up charter school faculties.
In a true public school, you can go to the principal, the superintendent, even the democratically elected school board and complain, have your child moved to another teacher, etc., all impossible to do with most private charters. So it’s not the same thing, not really.
Secondly, we as a nation have many laws and regulations that are designed to protect the public from itself. Many go too far, but an argument can be made that some parents who exercise their right to send their kids to charters do so because of charter propaganda and marketing, knowing very little of what they are getting into. Who protects them and their children? Or do we just throw up our hands and say “too bad for them…they deserve what happens because they didn’t do their research”.
If we could ensure that all citizens have the same knowledge needed to make informed choices, then fine. But they don’t, and that’s why we have labeling laws, and workplace safety rules, and required disclosures, etc.
And that’s still not enough for everybody to become informed enough. No, to create and support a just, fair, and well-educated society we need to strike a balance between personal and collective freedoms and responsibilities. Charters have the advantage on this playing field. They seem to have all the freedoms but few of the responsibities public schools have.
We need to change that.
Charter schools could be closed.
Here we go again, the bidness fantasy that deregulation promotes “innovation”. David, you & your funders must think preparing teachers is like training MBAs & Walmart cashiers. By setting the bar for teacher prep below sea level, you’ve revealed contempt for the profession & the children subjected to your craven ideas.
We know how to prepare teachers & it’s not channeled from19th century’s punish & humiliate. Stacked ranking, outsourcing public services and hyper-competition are proven failures in both business & education (Examples: Success Academy scandals; systemic Wall St fraud; empty malls & their tax abatements.)
So let’s cut the BS and you answer this question: I realize charters need cheap labor to keep investors happy but why is dumbing down professional credentials the preferred model for poor, brown & black kids? Are the hedge fund backed charter chains experimenting on US poor youth for a future scaling up privatized education around the world?
I want my children to have professionally prepared teachers. If you want to sell something people want why not try furniture or cars?
Dear jcgrim,
Funders??? What funders??? I am a retired teacher and made under $30,000 last year as a private tutor cleaning up the mistakes that the public school system made in the math education of my students due to ill-conceived curriculum experiments often promoted by textbook publishers.
One of the joys of participating in blogs (not to mention most public discussions today) is that people are so partisan, they immediately jump to conclusions without listening to the other side.
I agree with the vast majority of the the well-reasoned comments from Rockhound2 above. Unfortunately we reached the limit of nested comments, so I can not let him/her know that.
I also agree with the following points about charters and routinely warn readers of my blog on eduissues.com by passing along articles from Diane regarding charter scams:
1) Privatization opens the doors to massive corruption and lack of accountability in many cases.
2) This does not mean that I am going to react in a knee jerk fashion and ban all charters. Nothing in life is black and white. I can not believe that absolutely nothing good has ever come from any charter school.
3) Charters are definitely used as a tool to undermine teachers unions by people on the extreme political right.
4) On the other hand, teachers unions have brought some of these problems upon themselves by shielding incompetence in their ranks. While the billionaires undoubtedly object to unions primarily because of their political clout in opposition to the right’s desire to cut taxes and slash social programs, I constantly deal with frustrated parents who get disgusted with public schools that can not deal with staffing problems in their midst on anything less than a 4 year time scale. A local middle school has negatively impacted the math education of several years of our local students, and many parents and I are still trying to get the superintendent to take action.
5) Regarding poor students of color, this gets to the one point that Rockhound2 mentioned about protecting people from themselves. This is a very tough problem to address. We seem to endorse the idea of elected school boards that are publicly accountable instead of private institutions with no accountability, but then, when a community of color decides that they want a charter school in opposition to our wishes, all of a sudden they are misguided and have to be protected?!? There is undeniable controversy in the black community around charter schools, and I, for one, can not believe that all the people on the pro side are simply stupid/misinformed. Black parents often deal with underfunded public schools and burnt-out teachers, and they are desperately trying to find a way out for their kids.
I listened to Diane’s Metro13 response to the Coulson’s PBS documentary (http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2017/06/june-12-2017-diane-ravitch-school-inc/) and agreed with most of her objections to his documentary, but there was one part around 7:55 in the video that gave me serious pause:
6) There is no doubt that charter schools are skimming off students and leaving public schools with the hardest to teach students as Diane said. This definitely gives them an unfair advantage that can be hidden in poor statistical studies. Diane around 7:55 mentioned that some charters are saving a handful of kids by isolating them from the kids that are disruptive, leaving the public schools to deal with the problems.
Very true, but this is where the “equity” issue rears its head. I would suggest that 99.999% of decent parents are going to do everything that they can to keep their kids away from “disruptive kids,” and I will also suggest that “disruptive” is almost a euphemism in these cases. I have taught classes with students on parole and have had female teachers in my school beat up by female students!
My bet is that the attraction of charters for black parents is precisely the isolation that Diane comments about above. Yes, it is unfavorable to public schools, but decent people in these neighborhoods are desperate. More affluent white parents typically pull their kids out of bad environments and send them elsewhere. Who are we to deny parents of color the right to try and protect their own children? This push towards “equity” sometimes seems like liberal blindness to me. By isolating disruptive kids instead of “mainstreaming” them, we definitely send those unfortunate kids on a further downward spiral. At the same time, mainstreaming those kids often causes more harm to the rest of the class than any good that results.
I agree that society has to deal with this intractable problem, and it is unfair to dump it on a standard public school, but it is also unfair to condemn all poor people to stew in a putrefying environment in the name of “equity” for its most unfortunate victims and deny them paths to find a way out.
The issue is definitely being used as a wedge by the right wing in their cynical political agenda to protect their excessive wealth. I unfortunately do not see a way out of this morass without a significant investment in social programs that I do not see happening under the current administration, or possibly even future administrations given budget shortfalls and our sacrosanct military expenditures.
Unfortunately it is definitely not “morning” in many parts of America…
I taught for seventeen years in Newark Public Schools. In my last year alone, the ceilings of three classrooms in the main building collapsed and OSHA condemned the entire fourth floor. One annex was shut down due to the proliferation of the rat population. Moreover, the school held a fundraiser for the church housing the second annex. It was an eventful year to say the least.
In Massachusetts, charter schools are not required to hire licensed teachers. At Sturgis Charter School on Cape Cod, 50% of its teachers are not licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE). Moreover, none of its teachers are required to be evaluated pursuant to the DESE Educator Evaluation Regulations (603 CMR 35.00 — http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/603cmr35.html) like ALL other public schools teachers in Massachusetts. And let’s not forget its exclusionary admission practices despite its public claim that all applicants have an equal chance of being admitted — it is simply not true. So, I just keep asking — how and why are these schools considered “public”schools?
MWG,
Charters are not public schools, so they get away with stuff like that.
What they get away with is getting public funding and then. calling themselves public schools when they are not.
Unfortunately, Diane, in some states the laws authorizing charter schools specifically state that they are public schools. For example, Missouri’s charter law states, the very first thing, that: “160.400. Charter schools, defined, St. Louis City and Kansas City school districts — sponsors — use of public school buildings — organization of charter schools — affiliations with college or university — criminal background check required. — 1. A charter school is an independent public school.”
In Madsaschusetts, charter schools are called and are considered public schools. Makes no sense.
Many states call charter schools public but treat them as private.
https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/nlrb-decides-charter-schools-are-private-corporations-despite-public
MA considers charter schools as public schools — http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/
The official name of the popular charter school on Cape Cod is “Sturgis Charter PUBLIC School” — http://www.sturgischarterschool.org/
MA charter schools are publicly funded, but, like you say Diane, they are treated like private schools — so incredibly unfair.
You can call a horse a cow. You can pass a law saying that a horse is a cow. The horse can wear a sign saying, “I am a cow.”
But a horse is not a cow.
David,
In New York state, requirements are for teaching licenses are standardized and discourage dilettantes. I’m not sure why there is a cry to loosen requirements other than to appease certain groups, such as the investors who see children not as students but as revenue streams. There is no teacher shortage in New York, although there are shortages in specific areas. So the real issue here is why can’t schools recruit the most talented teachers to the lowest-performing (lowest income usually) schools? We live in a first-world country, and there is no emergency that warrants requires us to do away with, partially or fully, state licensing requirements. Parents in the mostly white suburbs wouldn’t go for it, so why do we think it’s okay for children of color in NYC or Syracuse or Albany?
Kate
Parent
Kate,
You nailed it! The shortages are artificially created by a two pronged strategy; harassment of veterans and denial of tenure to novices.
Good points, Kate. Unfortunately I am busy for a few hours but will reply later today.
Hi Kate,
I was very busy yesterday after my initial post which raised a not unsurprising firestorm. I have tried to respond in more detail under a comment by jcgrimm above.
I think Bill Whitten below has a good point about not calling these people “teachers” if they do not meet the standards and will add more following his point.
Read these Orwellian talking points from the right-wing Wisconsin groups out to destroy the teaching profession — talking points that are to be used to anyone in the media, or to citizens who are critical of this de-professionalization of teaching:
Click to access 1.27.17-MessagePoints.pdf
On the one hand, the talking points claim the goal is to “maintain our commitment
to high-quality teachers in every classroom”, yet to do so, they must “reduce barriers to entering the profession, and improve career flexibility” — code for just let any warm body be placed in a classroom.
Here’s more of this coded “any warm body in the classroom will do” language contained in the right-wing, Koch Brothers-originated talking points:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
” — Broadens the pool of qualified, professionally prepared educators;
” — Creates fewer licenses and more flexibility;
” — Eases the licensing process for educators trained in other states;
” — Encourages more in-service opportunities and reduces the testing burden on new teachers;
” — Creates new advancement and career options for teachers that will add value to students, while improving career satisfaction and retention in the field;
” — Increases opportunities for all students to access challenging, high value courses;
and
” — Recognizes that schools face diverse economic and market conditions, and that flexibility is needed to provide all students with a comprehensive, high quality education.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
And as a result, teachers in Wisconsin (and elsewhere) will soon be the Midwest equivalent of FAST TIMES AT RIGDGEMONT HIGH’s stoner Jeff Spicoli: (guy w/long blond hair)
(0:34 starts talking)
(0:34 starts talking)
You can’t call yourself a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or attorney without a state license and certification. Let the charter train whoever they like, just don’t let them use the title “teacher”. See how that changes the discussion.
You are SO right!!! As a lawyer and now a high school principal, I have been saying this for years!!! People need to listen!
Bingo…..if more parents knew that their children were being taught by a teaching assistant or an Instructional assistant rather than an actual teacher, maybe they would change their minds about where to send their children to school. Personally, if I have to have surgery, I damn well want a certified surgeon to do the procedure and I really want RN or LPN behind the name of the person taking care of me during my hospital stay. As much as I detest what goes on in my children’s public schools, it’s a comfort to know that their teachers are certified professionals.
Bill,
Excellent point, and I think any law should reflect such a statement if the requirements are loosened for charters so as not to imply an equivalency.
That said, please let me relay an anecdote. When I was in high school and thinking about becoming a teacher, I would ask the teachers that I respected the most about their teacher training. Virtually all of them consistently reported that they had to sit through a lot of useless and excruciatingly boring nonsense, and did most of their learning on the job.
I am not an expert in the comparison of teacher training programs around the U.S. Diane undoubtedly has forgotten far more on this topic than I ever knew in the first place.
However, it is my possibly completely uninformed belief that teacher education in this country leaves a lot to be desired in my places. I am on the west coast and am not familiar with the array of teacher colleges in New York state, so can not express an opinion on that locale.
This is part of the reason why I initially posted that charters should be allowed to experiment. I also went into much more detail in a reply to jcgrim above which I do not want to rewrite here.
Cuomo will fit right in — as a Republican — when he decides to run for President.
Right in with the likes of Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Chris Christie.
what Curmudgucation is saying today: “Why do this? Because charters are too damn cheap to pay teachers a decent wage or offer them attractive working conditions. Or as Times-Union coverage of the story puts it:
Charter school advocates say the proposal would help schools that are struggling to find quality teachers who are certified in New York.”
the Lubienski’s book /study found parochial schools and traditonal public schools generally hire certified teachers (75% / 80% etc). but the “christian evangelical schools” only about 40% are certified. That gives the administration or supervisors more leeway in pushing the “hobby lobby” curriculum that defies science… the uncertified teacher probably has less knowledge about scientific method and also has no union to collectively back them up when they disagree with administration.
I am in the “curmudgucation”. parade : “nope, nope,nopity nope”. and when people write here about the benefits of the “free market”. all I can say is yeegadswish I could emulate a British accent….
A year ago, I complimented the mayor of my city who, when faced with the DFER “innovation” for charters said “we had an innovation too and it is called democracy.”
It’s ALL about the bottom line and nothing to do with children.
It’s far past time to punch some holes in free-market dogma & keep these dilettantes far away from public education & teacher preparation.
Innovation is really needed in MBA programs that resist changing despite repeated failures over the broader economic ecology.
I urge you all to listen to this interview with Duff McDonald on the moral failure of MBA elite.
https://majority.fm/2017/06/15/duff-mcdonald-on-harvard-business-school-the-limits-of-capitalism-and-the-moral-failure-of-the-mba-elite/#comments
One final point about Diane’s statement:
“Charters need to hire uncertified teachers because they churn through teachers and need newcomers who can devote long hours to the job without the diversion of a family.”
And, please, before reacting to this, read my just posted reply to jcgrim, Kate, and Bill Whitten above!
Possibly the reason that they need this kind of “slave labor” is because the social problems in poor communities are so intractable…
Sometimes it takes heroic efforts by an ongoing group of people who individually get burned out and pass the torch on to others in order to make progress on tough social problems. These situations usually do not afford the luxury of allowing people to work 9 to 5 and then turn things off and go home to their families
This is where the union mentality that all teachers have to be exactly the same blows up (“one for all and all for one” as the head of a local union here said to me recently).
As Bill said, don’t call these people “teachers,” but, at the same time, if it takes a heroic effort to make progress, don’t punish people who are willing to do this by restricting their work due to the spite of people who don’t want to look bad because some people are working much harder than them.
We should all realize that this effort is unsustainable and not use it as an excuse to punish people who have family commitments. At the same time we should not use family commitments of older people as a reason to prevent young single people from trying their best to better society.
David,
Young people who enter teaching without being qualified to teach are not solving the problems of society.
Absolutely true if the charter school does not train them adequately, but as I said in another comment, the quality of teacher training varies widely in this country, so I am not going to automatically conclude that just because someone has a credential they are “better” than a person who has gone through a different type of training.
Your post was specifically about New York which I assume does a great job in training teachers. I am speaking more generally to other locales, but also realize that when one creates a loophole around credentialing that unscrupulous people will drive a truck through it if they can.
As always I like to post the other side of issues, so that our society does not devolve into a set of isolated echo chambers populated by people of identical opinions. I don’t mind it if I take some heat for doing so.
As a self-identified older person, I can attest to my heartfelt efforts to change society every day of my tenure. It is ridiculous to imply that the motivations of young people are purer than those of older people.
Abigail,
I am almost 64 and am still working in education in my retirement. I did not mean to imply that the motivations of younger people are purer than their elders. All I tried to say is that younger people without family commitments have more time to work on these problems and should be encouraged to do so.