The charter committee of the SUNY Board voted today to allow certain charters to self-certify their teachers, because they have a perennial shortage and high turnover. The same committee also voted to authorize a new charter chain run by the former attorney for Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy chain.
But here is the news. The United Federationof Teachers is suing to block lowering of standards.
Subject: ADVISORY: Teachers union to sue to prevent weakening of certification standards for charter school instructors
ADVISORY FOR THURSDAY OCTOBER 12, 2017
CONTACT: Dick Riley 917-880-5728; Alison Gendar 718-490-2964;
Alex Gomez 646-864-4241; Carl Korn NYSUT 518-461-7009
Teachers union to sue to prevent weakening of certification standards for charter school instructors
Oppose watered-down certification system that would undercut the quality of teaching for charter students
Teachers union representatives will announce the filing of a lawsuit in Manhattan State Supreme Court to prevent the Charter Schools Committee of the State University of New York from creating a new and less rigorous set of certification standards for the state’s charter schools.
Teacher leaders will charge that new regulations – adopted yesterday by the SUNY committee — would dilute rigorous standards because some charters have trouble meeting them, and that the regulations demand less training for charter teachers than the state requires for nail salon workers.
WHO: UFT President Michael Mulgrew, NYSUT President Andy Pallotta
WHERE: Outside Manhattan State Supreme Court Building, 60 Centre Street (Foley Square)
WHEN: Thursday, October 12, 2017
1 p.m.
*******************************************************************************
The views, opinions, and judgments expressed in this message are solely those of the author. The message contents have not been reviewed or approved by the UFT.
*******************************************************************************
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great news! Hope that this starts a chain of events to stop the Charters!
LikeLike
Charter schools have created such chaos in our education system today. These people continue to send all the inferior students back to the public schools and these people only keep the students who are academically superior.
Then, people like moskowitch go to the press and brag how great their test scores are but never mentioning the fact that many students were sent back to public schools because they are academically inferior! The circus show with mirrors and smoke continues now with the lowering of teaching standards degrading all other professional educators who have worked hard for certification.
The UFT needs to press this issue into the faces of these faceless charter people and I am sure the courts will NEVER approve of lowering the standards for our teaching profession. Further, how is it that lowering standards will bring forth better teachers?? Go UFT press this issue to their faces, period.
LikeLike
To further this point, Success school by moskowitch had a graduating class last June. The graduating class had 29 students in the graduation class yet the cohort of this graduating class originally started with 71 students!!!
So, success school moved 42 students back to public schools and only 29 students remained to graduate!! Moskowitch is really PT Barnum is disguise just look at the facts that I have presented here and this really tells the story.
LikeLike
I believe this year will be the first graduating class for Success Academy.
It is highly unlikely that all the 29 students are from the 71 student cohort that originally enrolled. More likely a much smaller number of those students are from the original cohort and some (many?) “ringers” were brought in for first and second grade. I use the term “ringers” because there have been news stories that describe the process: Success Academy forces any lottery winning post-K student to be examined by one of their so-called “experts” and if the child is not deemed up to snuff, the parent is told their child may not enroll in the grade for which they won the lottery but will be “retained” into a grade that they have already completed. That leaves the many open attrition spots for the “worthy” students to fill and effectively discourages some parents of “less worthy” students from using their spot so that a higher achieving student may take it.
The lousy reporting by journalists is evident in that no one has ever asked Success Academy how many of their oldest class started with the cohort and how many were added later. I believe once there was an article that implied less than 10 from the original class were still there. Alot less. And perhaps only one or two boys.
LikeLike
Inferior students?
LikeLiked by 1 person
As your question suggests, Dienne, naming/labeling matters.
LikeLike
Let me guess that you come from the politically crowd who cannot admit that some students are superior academically then others. I guess you come from the politically correct crowd that says all Johnnies are the same.
LikeLike
I am having a hard time understanding this – hasn’t TFA already opened this door over and over? Haven’t non-certified people entered the building in many ways? Isn’t UFT a little late?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A devastating truth avoided for so many years now…
LikeLike
OMG! THIS is MORE THAN CRAZY. Quick get a psychiatrist. These people are truly MENTAL.
LikeLike
The chair of the SUNY committee, Joe Belluck, spoke about the policy and lawsuit here: http://www.wcny.org/october-18-2017-joseph-belluck/
At issue is whether this policy bumps up against any existing law. NYC’s big union, the UFT, has pointed to Article 56 which requires that the board of trustees of a charter school, with minimal exceptions, employs teachers who ‘shall be certified in accordance with the requirements applicable to other public schools.’
Belluck says that NYC public schools use an alternative route to certification (I was certified this way myself) and that the SUNY policy would be identical. But it’s not – the “transitional” certification expires unless teachers complete a Master’s degree within a specified time frame. The SUNY proposal would let charter chains skip this, and even carved out “case by case” exemptions for teachers that don’t even have an undergrad degree.
SUNY can now grant licenses to probationary hires who complete three years in a charter school that puts up good test scores. But when did anyone agree that test-based metrics were reliable or verifiable? Belluck said he is prioritizing the 50,000 parents on waiting lists for charter schools over the 95% of N’s public school parents. He also says this policy will ensure more teachers of color find their way into classrooms, but wouldn’t expanding free tuition for teacher education programs do this much better, be more equitable, and serve 20 times more people?
LikeLike