Peter Goodman is a long-time observer of education politics in New York State and New York City.
In this post, he asks a reasonable question: Why, at a time of fiscal stringency and uncertainty, is the Board of Regents of New York State rubber-stamping the expansion of charter schools?
Charter schools, as he shows, cherry-pick their students to inflate their test scores. Despite state law, their doors are not open to all.
He writes:
If you look at charter school data virtually every charter school enrolls fewer than the “comparable” percentages required in the law. The reason is abundantly clear, students with disabilities and English language learners frequently have lower standardized test scores, impact the charter renewal process and are more costly to educate, i.e., lower class size = more teachers.
The Buffalo charter was out of compliance with state law. Why did the Board of Regents approve a five-year renewal of a charter in Buffalo when the Regent from Buffalo proposed a three-year renewal? Buffalo schools face a large deficit, but its charters are on track to take $108 million out of the city’s public budget.
Why did the Board of Regents approve the renewal of a low-performing charter school in the Bronx?
Goodman writes:
Later in the [Regents’] meeting three New York City charter schools were on the agenda, one of the schools wanted to add high school grades; although there is a moratorium on the creation of new charter schools State Ed staff interpreted the law as allowing grade expansion, in my opinion, an attempt to circumvent the law and should have not been allowed by the state.
The math scores in the school were in the “far below standard” category, ninety percent of teachers were “teaching out of their certification area,” the state average is eleven percent and the register in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade, was sharply reduced, from 71 (6th grade), to 46 (7th grade) and 29 (8th grade): what happened to the kids? In addition the school SWD and ELL students are far below the district averages.
Why did the NYC Department of Education approve the application? Why did the SED approve the application?
The school has a lobbyist who was a college roommate of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. I’m sure that’s only a coincidence. btw, who paid the lobbyist?
In spite of objections from some Regents members the SED lawyer bundled all three schools together instead of decoupling and voting separately.
Regent Cashin made a motion: a moratorium on approval of new charters and the grade expansion of existing charter schools for the remainder of the COVID emergency. She explained that with sharp cuts in district budgets, with districts facing layoffs and disruptions, to transfer money from public schools budgets to charter school budgets was unconscionable. The SED lawyer ruled her motion was “out of order.”
Any member of the Board can make a motion at any time. The Board should vote on whether to place the motion on the agenda. The Board “owns” the motion, not the lawyer, who is not a Board member.
If the lawyer meant the motion was not “germane” he was still wrong. If he was serving as a parliamentarian he gives advice to the chair, he does not participate in the debate, or make determinate decisions.
The whole business had what Goodman called “a noxious aroma,” a polite way of saying that the Regents’ rush to approve charters of dubious quality in the midst of a fiscal crisis stinks to high heaven.
Why incentivize privately run charters to divert funding and the students of their choice from the public schools.
Why are the Regents betraying the state’s public schools?
That noxious aroma is the smell that is released when politics seeps into decisions about school funding. Someone’s friends are being taken care of, at the expense of the public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Lobbyists SUCK and make HUGE $$$$$, too.
I know.
All the dirty dealings to expand under performing charters in New York likely come from the influence of hedge funds. They have been driving the privatization public education in the tri-state area and Massachusetts for the last decade or so. They have so much money, they can buy their way into public policy. Some of my Pennsylvania relatives think Cuomo can walk on water after his high profile media coverage battling Covid. However, Cuomo is under the thumb of hedge funds that have radar locked on access to the state pension system. New York State Teachers Pension has one of the most stable pension systems in the nation. If hedge funds gain the access they seek, they will raid the coffers just like they have done to other companies and organizations.http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2016/06/teachers-wage-war-on-hedge-funds.html
By the way, this is an interesting above link. Public unions, mostly the unions last standing, are getting smart. They are trying look at their investments, which are vast, through a critical lens. They are attempting to steer investments away from those that promote the privatization of public education. It is a reverse leverage. Randi has said, “Why should we invest with a company that wants to end us?”
You can have your conspiracy theories, but here’s what really happened in Buffalo. The Regents ignored their objective criteria and the recommendation of SED staff and denied renewal to one of the top performing schools in the city. They did not consider the best interests of the students in that school one iota, but instead focused on the financial impact to the District. They heard from hundreds of parents and community leaders and appropriately reversed their decision.
https://thechallengernews.com/2020/05/community-leaders-and-parents-rally-to-stop-the-closing-of-buffalo-science-charter-hundreds-of-minority-and-low-income-students-will-be-among-those-affected/
We need more schools like Buff Sci, not fewer. IMO, anyone who says otherwise is simply not thinking about what’s best for children.
Any charter with the freedom to choose its students can be “top performing.” Just exclude and push out all the low performers. Not complicated.
Allowing such private charters to divert funding from the public schools harms the vast majority of students.
John,
If you want more schools like Buff Sci, then the people who claim to care about this issue would be supporting having more choice lottery-based schools in Buffalo that are part of the system.
As proven in NYC, it is always possible to cluster students from the most motivated families into a smaller subset of schools, and leave the remaining students in the schools that are left.
We already knows that works well for the students from the more motivated families. Of course, that doesn’t do anything for the students left behind, so why anyone thinks it is a good idea to give the franchise for teaching the least expensive students to an outside operator is beyond my understanding.
The cost savings of teaching the least expensive students should be spent on teaching the students who need more.
Why wasn’t this school begun as a lottery based magnet school — like the schools funded by LeBron James in Akron — instead of a privately operated charter?
Andrew and Chris Cuomo went to private schools. It’s no surprise that Andrew colludes with Bill Gates to enrich Wall Street and destroy Main Street. Add in theocratic plotting, and the 1% own America.
Lobbying-
“New York State Catholic Conference Action Center, ” state budget…crucial to add our voice to…receive our fair share of funding…”
yes: it can be overwhelming to listen to so-called progressive leaders who attended private schools and thus have zero idea of what how public schools function in society — they so often expose that mental stance where kids having to attend public schools is a failure in and of itself