Jake Jacobs reports the complicated political story behind the decision by the State University of New York’s charter committee to allow its nearly 200 charter schools to hire unqualified teachers. New York State has high standards for new teachers. SUNY has some of the best education programs in the state.
Yet a SUNY committee selected by Governor Cuomo decided that charter schools it approves need no qualifications at all, not even a college degree, not even a high school degree.
Behind this tangled tale is Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Chain, which has such a high teacher turnover rate (as much as 60% annually in some schools) that she is faced with a perennial teacher shortage.
Read on to learn why SUNY would undermine teacher professionalism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The allegedly legalized crimes conducted by the corporate charter school industry never stop. When one fraud fails, they just invent another one to pave over the failure.
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Joseph Belluck – chair of the SUNY Charter Institute board and big Cuomo donor – has made one thing clear:
Belluck trusts the word of the (billionaire-endorsed) Eva Moskowitz –who told him that Betsy DeVos would be a terrific and wonderful choice for Secretary of Education — because Belluck believes that the person whose over the top praise of DeVos helped her get confirmed is much more honest than the lying and dishonest NY State Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa and NY State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.
If Belluck is going trust the judgement of a woman, Belluck knows that the woman who strongly endorsed Betsy DeVos is the woman whose judgement he should trust.
Can you imagine if the press actually asked Belluck why he puts all his faith in the trustworthiness and GOOD JUDGEMENT of the woman who told us how great DeVos is? And why he is so quick to disregard long-term educators in favor of the woman who insisted over and over again the DeVos must be confirmed for the good of all children?
I mean, what kind of SUNY Charter Institute trustee would trust the judgement of the person who insists to this day that her endorsement of DeVos was right and good to train teachers when that woman’s charters are being sued and have been caught on tape and in e-mails condoning all sorts of reprehensible practices to rid themselves of the very students that DeVos also thinks are expendable!
It amazes me that journalists don’t ask Belluck why he prefers the “judgement” of the person who insisted that Betsy DeVos was wonderful and terrific over the judgement of people like Betty Rosa and New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.
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I keep wishing this would happen to those greedy criminals.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall”
BY MOTHER GOOSE
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
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and Humpty Dumpty is Trump
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from the article:
“In short, SUNY schools can now hire anyone, regardless of qualification, into a school with good Math and ELA scores. Administrators from schools ‘in good standing’ (i.e. Success Academy principals and executives) will be the arbiters of who gets permanent SUNY-only licenses—even if those administrators (i.e. those same Success Academy principals and executives) have no certifications, degrees or training in Education themselves.
“Worse still, there is no requirement for prospective teachers to hold a bachelor’s degree, to pass the state’s general teaching or content-specific exams, or to have student teaching experience. It’s also not indicated anywhere that new hires are even required to have a high school diploma.”
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Also, no need for anybody
to teach anything except test-prep for ELA and math.
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Here’s my favorite tidbit from this article (check out the last sentence punchline):
x x x x x x x x
“Politico’s Eliza Shapiro reported in July that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to have consented to the SUNY charter policy in an unwritten ‘side deal’ with (pro-charter, Republican NYS Senate Leader John) Flanagan renewing mayoral control for two years.
“Flanagan, who held the renewal ‘hostage’ throughout the 2017 budget process, was asked if his pro-charter stance was influenced by millions of dollars donated to him and his Republican conference by billionaires like Alice Walton or Puerto Rico ‘debt vultures’ Dan Loeb and Paul Singer. Mr. Flanagan said through a spokesman:
” ‘Campaign contributions have no effect whatsoever.’
“Just a few weeks later, in August, Flanagan checked into a rehab for problems with alcohol.”
x x x x x x x x
It’s like someone have to be drunk outta his / her mind to agree to this policy, or to deny the influence of campaign contributions.
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I always thought the statement that “NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to have consented to the SUNY charter policy in an unwritten ‘side deal’ to be one of the most idiotic things Eliza Shapiro has written, and she is generally a better reporter than that.
What does the Mayor of NYC have to do with anything the SUNY Charter Institute wants to do? They have never asked for his consent, nor have the pro-charter Republicans in the Senate who join with the few charter billionaire-owned right wing Dems and Cuomo to give charters whatever they want. Charters don’t need de Blasio’s consent for anything — including the right to grab taxpayer subsidized resources from the mouths of the poorest NYC public school children so that their already richly funded charter CEOs can starve the poorest children a little more.
It’s laughable that Eva Moskowitz’ and her billionaire supporters own enough politicians and Cuomo to give her free space in the most expensive neighborhoods in NYC for her schools against the will of NYC voters but somehow Eliza Shapiro could write that Flanagan needed de Blasio’s “consent” for Moskowitz to be given the right to hire as many teachers who will agree to target the kids she wants to target for removal, and that means she needs willing and untrained 22 year olds who think targeting low income African-American students is what “model” teaching is all about, then those are the teachers SUNY will let her hire. SUNY never needed de Blasio’s consent for that as they have always done exactly what Moskowitz and her billionaire funders wanted without de Blasio’s “consent”.
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The alleged teacher shortage is of their own making.
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the Get Rid of Teachers and Hire Low-Paid Computer Facilitators movement gaining momentum every day
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I’m waiting for a journalist to do a serious investigation of the corruption of the SUNY Charter Institution and their trustees, which has since 2011 bent over backward to break its own rules to serve then interests NOT of children but of Eva Moskowitz only.
2011 — SA applies for a school in District 13 — a very poor district — and in its application promises to give lottery priority to at-risk children zoned for failing public schools. SUNY gives SA a charter based on that application. But then Moskowitz arranges with Joel Klein to locate her charter in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brooklyn – Cobble Hill – which is located in one of the most affluent school districts — District 15. So Moskowitz demanded SUNY let them DROP priority for at-risk kids and give priority to the kids who could afford to live in District 15. Pedro Noguera resigned from the SUNY Charter Institute after the other trustees showed that they were abandoning their legal mission to serve at-risk kids when it conflicted with Moskowitz’ mission to serve affluent kids.
Since Noguera resigned, Joseph Belluck has gone whole hog to make sure Eva gets what she wants no matter what kind of regulations are broken.
In the October 2014 meeting of the SCI, SUNY and Belluck approved Moskowitz making a very last minute change to locate her school in a district where they had done no research as to whether there was demand. They published this approval but because it turned out that SUNY had IMPROPERLY approved this change SUNY had to take down their approval and change it to the original cite (which is what Moskowitz really wanted anyway, but SCI was trying to avoid the embarrassment of giving Moskowitz her 3rd school in a wealthy district where the first 2 schools had empty seats).
2015 – More scandals. A John Merrow PBS report showed that despite Belluck’s statement to look into charter discipline practices the year before, Success Academy’s suspension rate of 5 year olds was sometimes over 20%. Moskowitz releases private records designed to prove that the at-risk non-white 5 year olds who win her lotteries are disproportionately violent. Joseph Belluck and SUNY do no investigation.
2015 – More scandals. Belluck thought he could get away with ignoring Merrow’s report but then he learned of got to go lists. Belluck and SUNY say “tut tut” and do no investigation and give Eva more schools.
2016 – More scandals. Video of the MODEL teacher that SA had previous held out as exactly how teachers are supposed to act is secretly taken. Belluck and SUNY say “tut tut” but they know it is an anomaly and give Moskowitz more schools.
https://bklyner.com/success-academy-faces-investigation-by-suny-charter-institute-after-fort-greene-school-scandal-fortgreene/
This article was written 2 years ago and there was no “investigation” but instead Belluck and SUNY gave EARLY renewals to Success Academy schools because they decided that there was no need to look closely at their practices to improperly give them renewals.
It’s really shocking to me how co-opted Susan Miller Barker and Joseph Belluck are. The entire SUNY Charter Institute board — despite their dishonest claims to the contrary that journalists should have been pointing out — have NEVER care3d about high suspension rates of 5 year olds and high attrition rates as long as the kids remaining have good scores.
Joseph Belluck sounds like one of those pro-segregation southern politicians when he says: “I have visited a lot of charter schools and I talked to a lot of parents and the one thing I am convinced of is that the parents in the communities where these schools are don’t care about the politics, they want their kids to have good schools and good educations…”
THIS is the guiding “oversight” that SUNY takes. As long as Success Academy can attract parents who are happy that so many OTHER children are excluded because their own childfren benefit from the cost-savings, Belluck feels his job is done!
No wonder Eva Moskowitz endorsed Betsy DeVos and fought so hard to get her nomination approved. Joseph Belluck agrees! The guiding principle should be whether the parents in the school are happy, not whether the parents who are excluded are not. It’s the ideal Betsy DeVos philosophy — demonstrated by her biggest fan Eva Moskowitz and Moskowitz’ biggest fan Joseph Belluck.
And THAT is why Belluck will approve any and everything Moskowitz wants – just like he has done since Pedro Noguera stepped down from the SCI and Belluck made it the Eva Moskowitz rubber stamp organization. In that sense, Belluck reminds me of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell who are supposed to be a check on Trump’s powers but instead fawn over him endlessly.
Moskowitz wanted to make sure her new teachers were trained in the methods that the model teacher demonstrated to us on video and the got to go principal demonstrated. Belluck thinks that is just dandy.
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Reblogged this on Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning".
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It was reported Carl Heastie and the Democratic majority in the NYS Assembly blocked charter expansion in the last budget bill. This was a very sore point, delaying passage of the budget for days, so Senate leader Flanagan went around the Assembly for the side deal, agreeing to renew mayoral control in a separate bill in exchange for a number of charter school concessions by Mayor de Blasio. First was allowing revival of “zombie” charters, slots under the existing cap held by schools that closed or never opened.
From Shapiro: “…in exchange for a lengthier mayoral control renewal, de Blasio agreed to a series of administrative changes that will make life easier for charter operators.
The concessions are hardly game-changers for the charter sector, but will put pressure on City Hall to grant charters space more quickly and hew more strictly to existing pro-charter legislation.”
The certification policy was never an announced part of the deal, but the timing of the two events suggests relation, as does the fact that de Blasio has never weighed in on the policy. I even asked some well known NYC education reporters to ask de Blasio for a comment on the policy but no one seems ever to have done so.
Success has acquired some private space, but there were 27 charters waiting on City Hall to grant them space in public school buildings and the mayor seems to have played ball this time around, getting a two year renewal instead of the usual one year.
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