Chris Cerf and the charter school parent vote

MARGIN NOTES

September 16, 2009

Chris Cerf and the charter school parent vote

by Elizabeth Green, at 11:54 am

You can say a lot of things about Chris Cerf, the top Klein deputy who’s now joining the Bloomberg campaign. He’s passionate and fearlessly blunt about his view for how to improve schools. He can also be jolly and pragmatic, managing despite his tough talk on teachers unions to craft a solid working relationship with Randi Weingarten. But for someone who falls squarely on one side of a bitterly divided education world, this line just doesn’t make sense:

Mr. Cerf, a widely admired figure in the education world,

Which education world, New York Times?

The first thing we can learn from this piece of news is that Bloomberg definitely means to continue trying to shape the education world into the one Cerf supports. But whether Cerf will really be capable of doing what the Bloomberg campaign seems to expect him to do — deliver the charter school parent vote — is a wide open question.

Organizing public school parents is hard for anyone, and Cerf has struggled just as much as everyone else who ever tried. Indeed, some of his efforts epitomize the awkward desire of the white, Ivy League-educated “reformer” to reach out to the poor, minority communities their efforts seek to help.

Cerf was a mastermind behind Klein’s first big political push, the Education Equality Project, whose approach to grassroots mobilization included working closely with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who agreed after receiving a large donation to his nonprofit. Despite the partnership, turnout to a trumpeted EEP rally in D.C. was disappointing, and EEP has not thrown any followup rallies since.

Allies of Cerf’s former employer, the for-profit education turnaround company Edison Schools, also turned to Sharpton in 2003, seeking his support for their effort to take control of five struggling New York City schools. But the effort didn’t work, and the schools were never privatized.

Cerf was the no. 2 adviser to Joel Klein at Tweed Courthouse.

Still, there are some reasons for the Bloomberg campaign to think Cerf could help them. He is seen as the mastermind behind a parent outreach push to renew mayoral control, which in turn is seen as a success. It was Cerf who hired Peter Hatch, the director of the group Learn NY, which managed to persuade a long list of community groups to sign onto its platform, getting parents to show up at rallies and take a bus to Albany.

Of course, it was Hatch, not Cerf, who led the group, and city contracts with many groups on the Learn NY list no doubt helped. Also, it’s far from clear that Learn NY really delivered a stirring in the streets. At rallies I attended, Learn NY parents always appeared slightly bored.

Charter school parents in particular are what the campaign seems to want Cerf to organize, and that might be an easier audience. The pro-mayoral control effort, for instance, was boosted by charter school parents, who often seemed much more energetic in their sign-holding than Learn NY parents. But whether Bloomberg can count on charter school parents to turn out for his campaign with as much energy is an open question.

“I think that the mayor has really taken the charter school community for granted,” Joe Williams, the executive director of the lobbying group Democrats for Education Reform, just told me on the phone. Williams, whose group fights on the state and federal level for policies friendly to charter schools, said that the mayor cut charter school funding from his capital plan, declined to help charter supporters fight a state cut in funding to the schools, and has not supported charter school leaders in their gruesome fights over school space.

Parents, he said, are paying attention. “They’ve watched as their school leaders have gotten the shit kicked out of them, trying to get space for their public schools in public buildings,” Williams said. “It’s the kind of thing, if the mayor was leading on it, the mayor would be able to take all the hits. But he’s let the charter school leaders dangle out there, taking all the hits.”

Cerf, talking to me from his new desk at Bloomberg’s campaign headquarters, wouldn’t get into specifics about his new role, except to say that he had taken the job because he thinks keeping the mayor in office is important for public education. “I really do believe that what has happened in New York is incredibly important and powerful and has been more effective than any urban reform ever that I can think of,” he said.

“It should be an interesting 50 days,” he said of his new job. “That’s when the election is. Actually, 48 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes, and 22 seconds. There’s a little time clock here.”

Caroline

You left the crucial word “failed” out of the adjectives preceding Edison Schools. What a joke that Cerf can still dupe people into hiring him in the education business!
Watching Closely

I was not aware that Democrats for Education Reform was a charter advocacy group. Mr. Williams seems especially impassioned about defending the poor charter school leaders under attack. Anyone have an idea which particular leader(s) seems to provoke such a strong response. It’s very sweet and valiant of him, don’t you think?
http://www.classsizematters.org Leonie haimson

According to Joe Williams, the mayor “has not supported charter school leaders in their gruesome fights over school space….They’ve watched as their school leaders have gotten the shit kicked out of them, trying to get space for their public schools in public buildings.”

What? the vast majority of charter schools are housed in DOE buildings; I can remember only one charter school that was refused that privilege (the Hebrew charter school) after the community got something like 7,000 signatures on petitions opposing this; and every year the no. of charter school students in DOE grows geometrically.

They are taking up more and more room in our overcrowded facilities and the DOE has now said they will build charter schools as well as regular schools with the $3.8 billion in school construction funds in the capital plan, even though it will cost the city twice as much per charter seat (since the state does not reimburse for charter school construction. What universe does Joe Williams and the other charter school advocates live in? Do they expect that the DOE will just turn over the whole infrastructure of our schools to them entirely?

In addition, considering the millions of dollars that Learn NY got from Gates, Broad etc. I think they did a lousy job. They couldn’t turn out any traditional public school parents at any of the hearings or get them to go to Albany to support mayoral control; and at one Bloomberg event I attended, the handful of Learn NY “parents” they got to show up at rallies over the weekend refused to talk to reporters. It was clearly rent a crowd.
Michael M.

Cerf’s up!
“Astroturfing”* ahead.

* Faux grass-rootsiness. A specialty, btw, of at least one other Bloomberg staffer, formerly of the McCain 2008 campaign.
http://www.davidcbloomfield.com David C. Bloomfield

Another interesting thing about the Times story is its description of Cerf as “the city’s No. 2 education administrator.” Generally, that description would be reserved for the Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, currently Santiago Taveras.
http://www.cecd2.net/www/cecd2/site/hosting/Ross%20Charter%20Letter.pdf Michael M.

Wait a second.

You mean if I let the Mayor’s critics “kick the sh!t out of me”* — translation: write that I’m stealing space when indeed I’ve been caught red-handed doing exactly that (as covered by GS and others re HSAII) — I can truly steal space for kids in my overcrowded district?

And all I have to do is obfuscate the common understanding in context of a word like “public?”

Where do I sign up!?!

* So much for my encouraging the kids to read this blog. ; – )

Note that non-charter public school parents held their ground at least once before:
In May 2008, in District 2 re grades 6-8 of the Ross Academy charter school, which DOE had intended to place at 55 East 25th Street, in a leased building then used by School for the Physical City. CEC2 took this stand based first on the prior crowding of schools in the vicinity, and second, based on the high number of NON-District 2 kids who would be served; in fairness, not specifically on the basis that it was a charter.
(Click my name for link to the CEC2 letter.)
Lena Rhymes

How exactly did HSA steal space? There were negotiations between PS 123 and HSA that took place over the summer that laid out exactly who was getting what. And the agreement was that HSA took possession of the agreed upon space by July 1. The agreement was signed by both parties. Nothing was stolen by anyone.
Michael M.

Lena,
You’re clearly up to speed on details.

However, there were numerous stories in the press on GS and on EdNotes at the time, on which I (and others) base assertions of space grabbing.

Tales of teachers blocking furniture movers, and BP Stringer attending a rally, come to mind.

July 7 – Rally after PS 123 Teachers block HSA movers.
July 9 – DOE formally rules in favor of HSA taking PS 123 space.
I also recall HSA’s defense then was that a deal had been cut with Tweed — not PS 123 itself. A deal on ratified until July 9?

You say July 1, deal in hand. Who am I to disagree; I’ll defer to the teachers and administrators of PS 123 itself, and contemporaneous media coverage.

Personally, I have never seen such a signed deal here on GS. Please provide to GS so they can post it.

I’m full of hyperbole, but strive to keep my facts straight.
Lena Rhymes

Clearly I am not at liberty to post the contract, and I am sure you already know that.

A deal was established between HSA and PS 123 in JUNE. Every ounce of space was discussed, including which hallways and stairwells HSA would be permitted to be used by HSA. The space was to be turned over to HSA on July 1.

There were teachers at PS 123 that did not agree with the process and unfortunately took it upon themselves to halt the process by blocking doorways which then required police involvement which was why Tweed had to get involved at all.

Let’s just say, this entire situation has not be covered very accurately in the media and has been misrepresented and at times propagandized by one side of the table. And it’s probably the not the side you would expect. I am also not associated with the side you would probably expect.

One party has been very willing to work and negotiate. Another has not. This summer has been hard on the staff at PS 123, but sadly it has not been due to treatment by HSA but misrepresentation and fallacies being spread by our own administration.
Michael M.

Lena,
I really hadn’t thought through as much as you’re suggesting I did and got wrong, let alone that the “deal” is not for public viewing.

No non-charter should be at liberty to give away space to any charter. I don’t see much of Tweed in your narrative, except to play ref.

This would all be a non-issue if a charter wasn’t splitting a building with a non-charter. Numerous posts on problems inherent with that bunk-bed arrangement; one with fresh paint and AC’s, one not, etc.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ norm

The “negotiatins” with a principal of a public school who is clearly under the gun of Tweed, which favors charters is like saying a prisoner of war can engage in negotiations. That the teachers (without any real support from the UFT by the way) are to be commended. See the story and video of the first day demo at PS 123, where Moskowitz intentionally put her kids in a situation by lining them up outside the building, that would get press coverage.

Here is the link to the commentary and video:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/separate-and-unequal-first-day-of.html

On Cerf’s role in organizing charter school parents, there was group there at the PEP using the usual expressions like “Thank you Joel Klein for giving us choice when we have failing public schools in our beighborhood,” without holding Joel Klein, who is in charge of those failing schools, accountable. They must have left that out of the script. They also made sure to attack the UFT teachers who are protesting having to teach in closets while charter schools lie about their enrollment as a way to get more space (which the DOE always gives them).

Tonight’s CEC 15 meeting at the Patrick Daly School in Red Hook over the PAVE charter school attempt to extend their stay from the original 2 years to 5 years will reveal some of the outrages of the things these charters do to steal space from public schools and force their prime enrichment programs into basements and closets.

And by the way, for the charter school advocates, you can remove that item about the protests at PS 123 and PS 15 and others to come as being supported by the UFT. As an organization that occupies space in two public schools themselves, they have little ground to stand on. Teachers involved in these activities are doing it on their own initiative, with independent activist groups like GEM and the CPE supporting them.
Lena Rhymes

Another misrepresentation. The HSA kids are always outside the building that early. The parents being lining them up very early for breakfast. Come by any day of the week and you’ll see them waiting.

In fact, from what I saw, HSA actually opened the doors EARLY to get the kids out of the line of fire. Usually the kids begin to enter for breakfast around 7:20, but the principal at HSA opened the doors around 7:00 even though the cafeteria staff wasn’t ready to serve, just to get the kids out of the protest.

Do you have evidence about HSA lying about space? Because I’ve been up there, and not only do they NOT have empty classrooms (as claimed in the video), but they turned what were last year broom closets into offices and space for special ed providers.

The class sizes aren’t even small up there. They have 30+ Kindergarteners in a classroom.

Keep in mind, HSA didn’t even want to stay at 123. They’re having as many space issues upstairs as we are downstairs. They had arranged to move to a new building before our lovely UFT sued to keep that school open.

Our ire is going to the WRONG PEOPLE. It is not because of HSA that we have bad lighting and dirty classrooms. Our ire should be at both the UFT and the DOE. If HSA weren’t in our building it would be in as terrible of shape as it is now. If not worse. (You do realize that they offered to air condition our common spaces like the gym and auditorium but our instigatory administration turned them down. Administration is making a martyr of us simply to prove a point.)
Michael M.

Running with the POW analogy, in the ongoing debate over charter schools, and specifically those sharing buildings with non-charters, can we all agree to stop using the kids as human shields?

Do we need a Geneva Convention simply to ensure that our kids can get to class or breakfast without running human gauntlets?

The children have every right to line up and be lined up in front of their school. NO ONE ought to have the right to harass them, or shoot them… with cameras.

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MARGIN NOTES

September 16, 2009

Chris Cerf and the charter school parent vote

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