New York City’s Chancellor Richard Carranza held a town hall meeting in Harlem and must have been surprised when the biggest concern expressed was the proliferation of charters.
The meeting “was dominated by parents’ fears of charter schools expanding in the neighborhood.”
What a surprise to listen to parents instead of the charter lobbyists.
The latter must have forgotten to pack the room with hundreds of students in matching T-shirts, chanting about the need to close public schools and open more charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The excuse Melinda Gates and Laura Arnold give themselves for taking public schools from communities is the same explanation that Bill Clinton gave for his behavior, ” because I can”.
LikeLike
I have a difficult time understanding why schools in New York City are so under funded when the real estate, particularly in Manhattan, is some of the most expensive in the world. Somehow the money seems not to be making it to the schools with large numbers of minority students.
Charters start with under funding. While this is true, it is also the case that schools with many poor black and brown students are targets of charter operators. Charters allow a system of separate and unequal treatment of minority students to proliferate. In addition to “marketing” public schools, parents need to be aware of what they are losing when children enter a private school. They lose lots of legal state and federal protections and rights including IDEA.
LikeLike
The Board of Regents November Agenda: adding two charter schools in District 15, one charter school each in District 6 (Washington Heights), District 7 (South Bronx), District 10 (Mid Bronx) and District 31 (Staten Island): the approvals contain no information on the community impact, and, does Staten Island really need a Hebrew Language Charter School?
LikeLike
There are an estimated 35,000 Jewish people living on Staten Island, roughly the population of Poughkeepsie, and the other Hebrew Public schools in NYC have enrolled surprisingly diverse student populations—non-Jewish families interested in bilingualism in general, e.g.
The beauty of charters, though, is this—if it turns out that there actually isn’t a need for a Hebrew-language school on Staten Island, the charter will be short-lived.
LikeLike
As a Jew, I see no rationale for a Hebrew language school. Hebrew is a spoken language in only one country in the world. If you expect to live in Israel it makes sense. If you plan to be a Biblical scholar, it makes sense. Otherwise, not.
LikeLiked by 2 people
By the way, these black and Hispanic kids who are learning Hebrew in the Hebrew Language charter schools will never get a job in Israel unless they can prove they are Jewish (by blood, not conversion). My grandson is teaching scuba diving in the Sinai, but could not be hired without proof from rabbis that both parents are Jewish. Maybe they are learning Hebrew as kids used to learn Latin, but Latin is the basis of other languages. Hebrew is not. I don’t understand the rationale for these charters, although I know they were created by billionaire financier MIchael Steinhardt and run by his daughter. He also endowed the NYU School of Ed, which is now the Steinhardt School of Education.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We continue to get unsolicited flyers from Harlem Hebrew regarding admission. They clearly don’t have enough students, but they aren’t closing either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Presumably looking only for parents who will not only send kids to the school but support it financially
LikeLike
Many years ago my district had a Title Vll bilingual education grant for our Haitian students. After a heated political debate, the district decided to offer instruction in English and French rather than Haitian Creole simply because there was no point to teaching a language spoken on one island. Many Haitian parents were very pleased with this decision as French is a useful, viable language.
LikeLike
For starters, NYC needs to address the Eva Moskowitch situation. Eva or evil wants to expand into the public schools like wild fire and Moskowitch does not care if she pushes out real public school students who have special needs, etc.
When Mke Bloomberg was mayor of NYC, Bloomy had the hots for eva moskowtich so he gave her access to our nyc public schools by moving out the students who were already in the building and giving the space to moskowitch.
When bloomberg left moskowtich became frustrated with the new mayor not treating her like the predecessor so she hailed her billionaire friends to bribe the governor cuomo to give money to charter schools out of public funds.
Fast forward to today and we now have a law which gives space to charter schools inside of nyc buildings. Cuomo was bought by the charter lobbyist mainly billionaires such as bloomberg. Walk down any nyc school hall now and you can tell who the charter school kids are vs the public school kids. How you say? Well the charter schools have freshly painted walls and classrooms bright with modern computers. The public school kids have old computers, cramped into classrooms with paint chipping off the walls and desks crumbling.
Now everyone knows why parents despise the invasion of charter schools especially the ones from moskowitch schools.
LikeLike
Carranza is impressive as reported here. Elected community reps took the lead right off the bat, objecting to Carranza meeting privately with elected officials earlier in the day, but excluding their CEC panel members. Carranza… apologized! & instructed his office to set up a meeting with them. And, in responding to local concerns about expansion of charters, he made it clear his priority is with traditional publics, not charters. He talked some about planned efforts to ‘advertise’ pubsch achievements, but his main point was equity in funding: that underfunded schools are neglected schools, which draw charters to the area like magnets.
I looked up his background. Not only is he a former public high school teacher [bilingual soc stud & music], principal, & supt of 3 major city school systems– he is the son of Mexican immigrant tradesfolk & the product of public schools, which he credits with his academic success.
It remains to be seen how well he– & DiBlasio– contend with the pernicious charter impositions of the state board of regents
LikeLike
He also said “he will “never” support a school system that spends all year preparing students for standardized test success.”
LikeLike
He’s probably just reading the crowd. The entire NYC public school system “spends all year preparing students for standardized test success.”
LikeLike
I’ve yet to see a scenario where charter schools benefited a community. I may be wrong on this.
LikeLike
Justin,
Charter schools may or may not benefit the students they enroll. I’ve never known an instance of charter schools benefiting a community. If anything, they weaken and divide the community.
LikeLike
???
How does one “support”
public schools, WITHOUT supporting the testing complex,
when public school teachers are “forced” to spend all year,
“teaching” to the test?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The educational-industrial complex must die. It hurts children.
LikeLike
Ask/answer two simple questions:
Is a test-centric educational program in the best interest of the students?
Why should students have to work for their school or their teachers instead of themselves?
LikeLike
The “testing complex” is one of many consequences of zero campaign-finance restrictions + barely-taxed trickle-up cash socked offshore, spawning billionaires who buy policies that fatten their wallets. You can support public schools and other public institutions by fighting for campaign reform et al get-the-$-out-of-politics causes/ candidates.
LikeLike
I’m glad these parents spoke out. I spend a good deal of time in Harlem. The charter situation up there is out of control. They are everywhere. It’s not just the brand name schools either. There are a bunch of no-name schools too. The DOE is really out of touch if they don’t understand why charter over-saturation is a problem and why parents would choose charters over a public school.
LikeLike