The New York State Senate legislation to protect charter schools is not limited in its reach to charters in New York City. According to the press release cited below, school districts across New York State will have to provide free facilities or public school space for charter schools that wish to open and will then have no jurisdiction over their own space. This is nothing but a brazen power grab by corporate charter operators.
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In a stunning decision, a judge in Manhattan ruled that the State Comptroller may not audit Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools or any other charter schools because they are “not units of the state.” In other words, they are not public schools. If they were public schools, they would be “units of the state” and could be audited by the State Comptroller. As private contractors, they audit themselves.
Charter schools have claimed in federal courts that they are not public schools and may not be held to the same laws governing public schools. In every case, the courts and the National Labor Relations Board have agreed with the charter operators that charter schools are private corporations with a contract receiving public funds from the government. When charter founders in Los Angeles were convicted of misappropriating public funds, the California Charter Schools Association defended them by arguing that charter schools are not public schools but private corporations. In other words, in their words, they are private schools, not public schools, so they are not subject to public audit.
The New York State Senate has drafted a budget proposal to make sure that Eva Moskowitz gets the eight charters she wants, not just the five that Mayor Bill de Blasio approved. This is how big money talks. Under the proposal, Eva can kick the special education kids out of their school to make way for her new middle school, which has no high-needs special education students. Furthermore, the proposal would protect all rent-free co-locations, allowing handsomely funded charters whose boards include billionaires to take public space at no cost to them. Even more astonishing, charters that are co-located inside public school buildings are given the power to veto any effort to move them; in other words, the charters are given greater “rights” than the public schools that they invade.
Amazing that the Republican-dominated State Senate would write legislation that guts mayoral control to benefit one charter entrepreneur, while simultaneously undercutting the education and rights of the 94% of kids in New York City who do not go to charters.
I am no fan of mayoral control, but I am also no fan of special-interest legislation written for the protection of privately managed charters.
If ever there was a demonstration of the toxic and divisive role of charters in politics, this is it. This bill to protect the billionaires’ plaything is not about improving education for all. It is about me-first and he devil take the other 94%.
Here is a response from the Alliance for Quality Education:
For Immediate Release
For Info:
Billy Easton 518-461-9171
Alliance for Quality Education Reacts to Senate Majority Budget Resolution
The Senate Majority budget proposal adds only $217 million in new school aid—only 56% of what the Assembly added. The Senate Majority actually offers more state funding to private schools than it does to public schools by authorizing a tax credit for private schools that is estimated to cost the state at least $250 million in the first year.
“It is unconscionable that the State Senate Majority is proposing to do more for private and charter schools than for our public schools,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director, Alliance for Quality Education. “The Senate adds $250 million in state funding for private schools, but only adds $217 million for public schools. The $250 million the Senate is giving in state financed tax credits to fund private schools should instead be invested in restoring arts, music, and high quality curriculum in our public schools. They said their priority was to cut the Gap Elimination Adjustment, but when it came time to give out the money, private schools won out.”
On privately-run charter schools the Senate Majority would make a number of changes to favor charter schools in New York City at the expense of public school students. These include:
· Increasing the amount of money that public schools are required to pay to charter schools;
· Requiring free rent for private charter schools in public school buildings;
· Overriding the decisions of Mayor de Blasio to reverse the co-location of three of Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools;
· Giving charter schools power to veto any changes in co-location arrangements, even though public schools are denied the same rights under the mayoral control legislation that the Senate Majority championed.
“The Senate Majority, Governor Cuomo and the wealthy campaign donors providing the political muscle to the charter school movement are all in synch when it comes to special treatment for charter schools,” Easton said. “While our public schools are hemorrhaging programs, the Senate Majority and the Governor have clearly signaled that privately run charter schools that serve only 3% of students top the list of priorities.”
About AQE
The Alliance for Quality Education is a coalition mobilizing communities across the state to keep New York true to its promise of ensuring a high quality public education to all students regardless of zip code, income or race. Combining its legislative and policy expertise with grassroots organizing, AQE advances proven-to-work strategies that lead to student success and echo a powerful public demand for a high quality education.
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The New York State Senate has written a budget bill that opens the public coffers to charter schools and guts mayoral control in New York City. If the Republican-controlled Senate has its way, the charters will get more money, will not pay rent, will get new slots for pre-K, and will be protected against any effort by Mayor de Blasio to reverse decisions made by the lame-duck Bloomberg administration.
In the past, Mayor Bloomberg gave the charter operators whatever they wanted. He was also a major funder of Republicans in the State Senate. The very sizable campaign contributions by hedge fund managers (Democrats for Education Reform) to New York politicians are paying off for the charter operators, which enroll 3% of children in New York State and 6% in New York City.
According to the report in the New York Daily News,
“The Senate’s budget proposal expected to be unveiled later in the day would bar Mayor de Blasio from rescinding co-location agreements with charters, boost per pupil funding for charter school students, and prohibit school districts from charging rent to charters that co-locate in an existing public school building, the Daily News has learned.
“The measures are part of a comprehensive seven-point charter school plan expected to be put forward in a one-house budget resolution by the Senate Republicans and five dissident Democrats who control the chamber together, sources briefed on the plan say.
“De Blasio recently rescinded co-location agreements with three charter schools operated by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. The Senate plan put together by Senate GOP Leader Dean Skelos and his members along with the Independent Democratic Conference led by Sen. Jeffrey Klein would reverse that, sources said.
“Under the proposal, the sources said, any charter school that was approved to co-locate in a public school building prior to Jan. 1, 2014 would be protected. The measure will state that any significant change in school building utilization relating to co-location shall not be authorized without the consent of the charter school.
“Charter schools in New York City receive nearly 30% less in public funding per pupil than traditional public schools. The Senate plan would boost the basic tuition amount the city would transfer per pupil to the charters.
“Charter schools for the first time would also be eligible to receive separate state building aid funding after de Blasio cut $210 million in city capital money earmarked for the charters that build in private locations.
“The plan would also pressure the city to provide public space for charters by creating an additional cost to the city if they don’t. Under the plan, sources said, the city would be required to pay an additional 25% on top of the per pupil money it gives out to charter schools so a charter can go into a private space.
“And in hopes of protecting charter schools from future problems with the city, the Senate would allow them to apply to the SUNY Charter Institute or the state board of Regents to oversee and supervise them, rather than the city.
“The Senate would also authorize charters to provide full-day prekindergarten programs, something Gov. Cuomo has said he would also push.”
For reasons unknown, Connecticut appears poised to endorse New York state’s odd lesson plans for Common Core.
This Connecticut blogger pulls apart the first grade lessons, previously discussed on this blog.
The blogger refers to a small portion of what first graders are supposed to learn (subjects that might well fit better in high school and/or college, that is, if one expects depth of understanding):
“A further examination of Domain 4 means reviewing its 81 student objectives. That number is not as intimidating as the language in the content area objectives. The first ten objectives state that “by the end of this unit, students will be able to….”:
“Locate the area known as Mesopotamia on a world map or globe and identify it as part of Asia;
Explain the importance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the use of canals to support farming and the development of the city of Babylon;
Describe the city of Babylon and the Hanging Gardens;
Identify cuneiform as the system of writing used in Mesopotamia;
Explain why a written language is important to the development of a civilization;
Explain the significance of the Code of Hammurabi;
Explain why rules and laws are important to the development of a civilization;
Explain the ways in which a leader is important to the development of a civilization;
Explain the significance of gods/goddesses, ziggurats, temples, and priests in Mesopotamia;
Describe key components of a civilization…”
Why do six-year-old children need to learn the word “perplexed”? There is actually a good reason. The content of the first grade lessons will surely make them feel perplexed. Better: why should they know the word “apoplectic”? You know why.
Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a panel to study the state’s botched implementation of the Common Core standards and tests.
In its report, the panel recommended that the state halt its relationship with inBloom, the data collection project created by the Gates Foundation and Carnegie Cotporation at a cost of $100 million. It would have collected confidential and personally identifiable data about every child and stored it on an electronic cloud created by Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation and managed by amazon.com, with no certainty that hacking would not happen.
The US Department of Education loosened regulations governing student privacy in 2011 in the FERPA law to make inBloom and other data mining projects possible.
Parents have loudly opposed such invasion of their children’s privacy.
The committee concluded that the issue distracted from the important task of implementing CCSS.
The New York Legislature will decide whether to reappoint four members of the New York Regents on Tuesday. All four have passively supported the botched implementation of the Common Core and CC testing. They should be replaced.
A message from award-winning Long Island principal Carol Burris:
Katie Lapham, a teacher in New York City, here recounts the disaster of Common Core testing in New York state.
She wonders why children who don’t speak English are supposed to pass a high-stakes exam, with only one exemption.
She wonders why she, their teacher, will get no information about student performance except a score–no information about what her students learned and what they did not learn, just a score for each of them.
She wonders why anyone thinks this regime is good for children or for education.
When Katie returned from the Network for Public Education meeting in Austin last week, she was shocked to learn about the state’s policy for testing newcomers to our country:
When I returned from Texas, I discovered that the New York State Education Department (NYSED) had released its School Administrator’s Manual for the 2014 Common Core Math and ELA tests for grades 3-8. It is a whopping 86-pages long, and its treatment of ELLs is particularly draconian. Here’s an excerpt.
page 9 – Testing English-language learners
That’s right niños, only ONE exemption is allowed from the ELA. After just 12 months in our school system, you will be subjected to the same horror show as the rest of the state’s public school students in grades 3-8. Don’t worry, the state has generously offered to give you extended time (time and a half) on the tests; instead of 90 minutes per day for six days (3 days for ELA, 3 days for math), 5th grade ELLs, for example, are entitled to 135 minutes each testing day. That’s a total of 13.5 hours! As for the Common Core math test, there’s no getting off the hook the first year you are here because state provides translation services! And after all that, in May we are going to assess your English-language proficiency level by giving you a lengthy, four-part test in speaking, listening, reading and writing. NYSED has been hard at work aligning the NYSESLAT (New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test) to the Common Core State Standards. It’s now more rigorous than ever before!
New York state has already become the poster state for botched implementation. It looks like it will get worse, certainly for the students and teachers.
The New York Regents have embraced the Common Core standards and testing with the fervor of zealots.
They brook no opposition, and they only pretend to listen to critics.
Only two Regents, Kathleen Cashin and Betty Rosa, both of whom are experienced educators, have consistently and publicly dissented from the Regents’ failed agenda.
The Regents are appointed by the New York Legislature, which in practice means the State Assembly, which is controlled by the Democratic Party.
Theoretically, the Regents each serve a five-year term, but in practice the members get reappointed if they wish to be reappointed.
The terms of four Regents are expiring this year, and the Assembly has the opportunity to appoint four new members, four people who have not been insulated from public opinion, four people who have some sense of what parents and the public are thinking, four people who recognize that public schools belong to the public, not to the Regents nor to Pearson nor the U.S. Department of Education.
The question: Will the Assembly have the wisdom to appoint new Regents or will it stick with the failed status quo?
Will the Assembly have the wisdom to add parents and citizens who are prepared to think anew about the needs of the children and public schools of New York State?
The implementation of the Common Core standards and testing was a disaster, as everyone acknowledges, including Governor Cuomo (who is also a fervent supporter of the Common Core) and the leaders of the Legislature, who threatened to take action if the Regents did not.
The Regents assembled a committee, which made cosmetic recommendations but did nothing to assuage the concerns of the public. It did nothing to reduce the high-stakes testing or to review the standards themselves. The committee recommended that the CC standards be reviewed by the original authors– the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, Achieve, and David Coleman’s Student Achievement Partners. Of course, the original writing group no longer exists, and there is no process in place to review the standards, not in D.C. nor anywhere else.
And that is the problem with the standards. They were handed down from Mount Olympus, as though the gods had written them in stone and they could not be changed by mere mortals. Not field-tested; no early childhood education experts; no one knowledgeable about the needs of children with disabilities. And the crowning insult: the “national standards” were copyrighted by the NGA and CCSSO. Have you ever heard of national standards that were copyrighted? I have not.
The standards will fail utterly if the Regents stick to their present course because the Regents cannot indefinitely ignore public opinion.
At every public meeting (except for one in Brooklyn that was packed by supporters of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst), thousands of parents expressed outrage about the standards and the testing.
What is needed now is clear:
First, the standards should be carefully reviewed by New York teachers who have been nominated by their superintendents as experts in teaching and learning, including teachers of the early grades and teachers of students with disabilities, as well as teachers of ELA and mathematics. They should be encouraged to revise wherever it is necessary.
Second, the standards should be decoupled from state testing. The state should offer standardized testing in fourth and eighth grades, as it did for many years, to gauge student progress.
Third, teacher evaluation should be tied to peer assistance and review, by peers and supervisors, with help for those teachers who need help.
But to make such significant changes, the Regents themselves must change. They cannot cling blindly to a failed status quo. By their actions and by their inaction, they are fomenting a parent rebellion.
And if the Legislature does not take heed and change the composition of the Regents, bringing in four new members dedicated to children and not to the current agenda, the people will remember in November.
Noted VAM expert Audrey Amrein-Beardsley explains why New York’s teacher evaluation system doesn’t work and why the release of results has been delayed:
She writes:
“One of the biggest drawbacks of such teacher evaluation systems is that they have literally no instrumental value; that is, no states across the country have yet figured out how to use these data for instrumental or change-based purposes, to inform the betterment of schools, teacher quality, and most importantly students’ learning and achievement, and no states yet have plans to make these data useful. These systems are 100% about accountability and a symbolic accountability more accurately that, again, has little to no instrumental value. No peer-reviewed studies, for example, have demonstrated that having these data actually improves, not to mention does much of anything for schools, since such data systems have been implemented. This is largely due to a lack of transparency in these systems, high levels of confusion when practitioners try to consume and use these data (many times because the data reported are far removed from the realities and content particulars they teach), and issues like this. Oftentimes, by the time teachers get their evaluation reports, students are well on their way in subsequent grades, and in this case almost onto two grade levels later.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 