The SUNY charter committee recently voted to allow the charter schools it authorizes (including those of Success Academy) to hire teachers who cannot meet the high standards for teachers set by the state.
The Regents and SED say that allowing SUNY charter schools to hire “inexperienced and unqualified” individuals to teach will “erode” the quality of teaching in the state and hurt children who are most in need of well qualified teachers.
Bravo, Chancellor Betty Rosa and State Superintendent MaryEllen Elia!!!!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wow…lawyers make money while Charters steal money at this country’s and its citizen’s expense. All that money could have gone to educating our young with CERTIFIED Public School teachers.
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Kudos to the Regents and NYS DOE, who in years past were enablers of privatization-aiding policies such as this.
It’s a measure of how much the terms of debate (the control of which is a large determinant of victory or defeat) have changed in recent years. Credit for that belongs to many people, but not to any single individual more than you, Diane.
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Please note the chart showing attrition rates for charter schools which are double or triple the attrition in public schools.
Will lowering standards reduce attrition? I doubt it. Might increase it by allowing more unqualified people to teach.
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I totally agree, Michael.
Pat
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NYS actually brought in a group of seasoned, authentic public school educators to serve as Regents. These are people that care about equity, excellence and access. Kudos to the Regents for filing a lawsuit against SUNY and the wholesale deprofessionalization of charter teachers. Eva’s head must be doing a 360 as she is used to New York doing her bidding. We need authentic educators in key positions that determine education policy.
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this type of lawsuit precedent is so desperately needed
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Filing suit should mean that the SUNY Charter Institute board and staff — led by Joseph Belluck — must answer questions under oath about their relationship with Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy’s board (which are the real people pushing this). The SUNY Charter Institute will have to answer questions about what convinced them that Moskowitz should train her own teachers with the over oversight being SUNY.
They will have to answer question under oath about how they have dealt with videos that show what MODEL teachers are trained to do and rewarded for doing. They will have to answer questions about what investigations they did when they learned that principals trained by Success Academy network had “got to go” lists. They will have to answer questions about how they reacted when they learned of the testimony to the NAACP about how Success Academy sends their own “trained” staff to identify children the first week of school and tell their parents to withdraw them.
The SUNY Charter Institute will have to answer questions about why they would give Success Academy early renewals years before they should have AFTER they learned that the attrition rate at this high performing network was twice as high as the attrition rate of nearly every other charter network in NYC.
The SUNY Charter Institute board will have to answer questions about what their reaction was when they learned that 18% of the Kindergarten and first graders in Success Academy Springfield Gardens were given out of school suspensions and what convinced Joseph Belluck and company that the cause of so many children supposedly acting violently in their kindergarten and first grade classes had nothing to do with the training those teachers received from Success Academy. When Belluck is questioned under oath, will he say that he knew there was no need to look any further because that school has no white children so he was convinced by Eva Moskowitz’ claim that of course 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds would be acting out violently and it had nothing to do with the Success Academy MODEL teachers that Belluck believes are so good?
Will Belluck say “yes 18% is a high suspension rate for 5 year olds but we didn’t see any need to question it because we feel certain that any teacher trained by Eva Moskowitz is perfect”?
Education journalists have failed to ask any of these obvious questions. They have let Belluck get away with “but the kids whom these high performing charters allow to remain in their school do so well” without asking Belluck why his oversight agency doesn’t care that all these exclusionary practices are going on.
If Belluck really believed that the teachers trained by the charters themselves were so terrific, he would wonder why the charter would be forcing the kids who need good teachers the most are pushed out and the only ones allowed to replace them in their class are those who prove they are already performing at grade level.
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The chart is certainly interesting. And, it’s nice to see “state regs” being put to good use. Those “regs” are always held over principals, teachers and students heads as some kind of ultimate authority.
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This complaint underscores why the SUNY Charter Schools Committee must be abolished, and why control over ALL charter schools in the state must be restored to the Board of Regents. The SUNY Charter Schools Committee has no expertise whatsoever to make decisions on who is qualified to teach NY’s children. The Committee comprises 5 people: all are white, all extremely wealthy. Not one has a school-aged child, and only one has a background in education; the others are lawyers/businessmen. And they make statements that they refuse to follow, such as Chairman Belluck’s statement in August, after Success Academy Board Chair Daniel Loeb made a racial slur against Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Belluck said that expanding Success Academy would be difficult with Loeb remaining at the helm — and yet he continues to allow expansion, effectively saying that the SUNY Charter School Committee is ok with Loeb and his slurs at the helm. In contrast, the Board of Regents is a diverse group, and comprises many many educators, including former superintends of large districts in NYC. Why on earth wouldn’t we want these experts determining the rules governing charter schools?
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This absolutely true.
Which is why I hope this lawsuit leads to Joseph Belluck and the top staff being put under oath and having to answer questions about their (lack of) oversight. Especially because the media has given them a completely free pass.
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Can someone please send the NY Regents out to CA where the charters are having a field day?
CA legislature continues to fund the charters, while Jan Napolitano, the President of the U.C. system allowed Smarter Balanced to move from UCLA to UC Santa Cruz to seal the testing companies future in Silicon Valley.
Even after being charged with misspending state funds Napolitano has stayed on.
Who’s pulling the purse strings in CA and protecting substandard teachers in charters funded by public education monies?
It’s maddening.
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CA has been bought by the charter plutocrats
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“Saved from Themselves”
The charters were saved
By Regents, it seems
For teachers unshaved
Would squelch funding dream$
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This is a BIGGIE. The fight against the political giveaway to the no accountability charter school movement has been joined over the issue of teacher qualifications. Kudos to Chancellor Rosa and Commissioner Elia.
Regents’ opposition to dropping standards and the creation of watered-down dual standards is a classic one. It recalls the days when the NYC Board of Examiners was arguing (unsuccessfully) about lowering entry teacher requirements, because there wasn’t a large enough supply of recruits who could meet them and fill all classroom openings. These days the charters can’t attract and hold enough teachers. Ergo, they are looking for an open gate.
And once alternate standards are sought to satisfy the demand to fill job openings, there is an inevitable dilution of talent and commitment among hirees. [Smith’s Law].
This is a legal fight that goes beyond teaching. The Regents are responsible for the licensure and certification of employees covering a statewide spectrum of jobs and professions. Qualifications matter. Loosening them and lowering job-related eligibility requirements opens the door to corruption [Smith’s Second Law].
The Pendleton Commission, which gave rise to the civil service system, recognized the need for protection against the patronage and cronyism that fill the void absent merit and fitness.
And one more thing: It is important for us to get behind the Regents principled fight to preserve the integrity of teaching. It is an election year. Incumbents and all candidates for office should be litmus-tested on where they stand on this matter. It has broad implications for larger issues of good government. The public at large and people with a special interest stake in the outcome of this contest (e,g, administrators of schools of teacher education) must be motivated and united to finally stop all those–Belluck and Tisch included–who have given charters wide latitude and advantages in how they operate outside of reasonable boundaries.
We need to call attention to this vital case lest it be settled in the dark by judges who are often no more than politicians in black robes
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“The Regents are responsible for the licensure and certification of employees covering a statewide spectrum of jobs and professions.”
Indeed they are! And NYSED is responsible for ensuring that private schools provide a sound and safe education, too, which begs the obvious question—if NYSED and the Regents believe that teacher preparation and certification is so vitally important, then why do they have no concerns about private K-12 schools where significant numbers of teachers are not only not certified but have no intention of ever becoming so?
That will be an interesting question to see NYSED and the Regents address. Another will be when they are asked to prove why traditional credentialing and preparation is necessary, and why alternative certification is suboptimal. They will be fighting an uphill battle against the best available evidence.
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But Tim, you said the charter schools are PUBLIC schools.
Have you changed your mind?
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No, I’m referring to the 1,780 non-public schools in New York State, from expensive selective schools like Dalton and Trinity, where as much as 20% of the faculty has only a BA and no non-on-the-job training at all, to parochial and religious schools, to little Waldorf and independent and boarding schools. NYSED is ultimately responsible for ensuring that these private schools provide a safe and sound education. If as NYSED and the Regents allege alternatively certifying teachers is a grave threat to providing a sound education, then why is a sector of schools educating hundreds of thousands of New York students (far more than public charter schools) strangely absent from this legal maneuver?
It almost makes me wonder whether this really has anything to do with kids, or whether it is a political move meant to prop up the state’s comical oversupply of traditional teaching preparation programs and to protect jobs at traditional public schools. Almost.
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So, Success Academy is a private school and should have the same treatment as other private schools?
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No.
NY State education law had already given charters a mandate to adopt experimental and innovative approaches to education. The new laws passed last year simply gave the SUNY charters more latitude in this area. SUNY charters will remain open to any resident of NY State, they will be required to report fully transparent third-party financial audits every year and have monthly board meetings open to the public, and they will still be held accountable for results.
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Private schools don’t receive public funds.
If Success Academy wants the same freedom, it should not take public funds.
Deal?
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For the same reason that the SEC does not regulate hedge funds as much as it regulates stocks and mutual funds. Even though there are some regulations . It is assumed that if you have the money to invest in a hedge fund . You do not require the “Nanny State ” to tell you what restrictions should be placed on your investment . Likewise if you use your dollars to educate your children, let the buyer beware . If you use my dollars to educate children there is a public investment to be protected.
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I don’t know to what extent hedge funds are regulated by the SEC or state governments, but I don’t think this is a good analogy.
State education law lays out very specific oversight responsibilities for NYSED with respect to private schools (see the link below to get a sense of this), and if alternative certification is a dire threat to public schools as they allege, then I fail to see how the same threat wouldn’t apply to non-public schools.
Click to access 21-item-checklist.pdf
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Private schools do not take public funds.
Neither should Success Academy.
If it wants to be treated as a private school, it should not ask for public money.
Like private schools.
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Tim,
Baloney. NYSED has no authority over teacher credentialing in private schools. You know that but you’re too busy trying to murder a straw man to acknowledge that fact.
Private schools aren’t required to have a 180 day calendar, satisfy a minimum number of hours of instruction or administer the same tests as public schools. Of course private schools are … wait for it … not publicly funded and are therefore less regulated than public schools. Shocking!
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This isn’t a complicated concept to understand.
NY State education law requires NYSED and local district to exercise oversight of nonpublic schools. Here is a very recent example of this oversight in action:
“New York officials are revising the state’s guidelines for instruction at private K-12 schools, sparking concern among some religious and independent school leaders about possible government overreach.
“State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia told a conference of private-school leaders this month that her agency is clarifying guidance that says children in these schools must receive a ‘substantially equivalent’ education to students in public schools.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-state-revising-private-schools-guidelines-1513546538
The lawsuit makes it clear that NYSED and the Regents feel relaxed certification rules will be ruinous for education not just at SUNY charters, but for the entire state. Why would the same not be true for the nonpublic schools NYSED oversees?
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Tim,
The Refents and Elia understand the law better than you. Private schools have autonomy because they don’t take public money. Public schools have less autonomy be ayese they take public money. Eva wants it both ways: the autonomy of private schools, funded by the public. Sorry, it doesn’t wash. If she wants autonomy, she should go fully private.
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Tim asks:
“why do they have no concerns about private K-12 schools where significant numbers of teachers are not only not certified but have no intention of ever becoming so?”
Because private K-12 schools are not getting PUBLIC money! Because private K-12 schools never claim to be “public” schools.
Because the state has not ordered public taxpayers to fund these schools.
It’s quite simple.
But your many posts demonstrate how desperate the SUNY Charter Institute and Eva Moskowitz must be feeling right now.
I guess they might be a little frightened of having to answer questions under oath. They won’t be able to claim “we are not public schools and don’t have to tell you anything” when they are under oath in a lawsuit. Unless they want to look like the Trump administration, with which they have much in common.
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I hope this willingness to suit spreads to other states.
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