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MARGIN NOTES
September 30, 2009
Bloomberg calls for lifting charter cap, building more schools
Mayor Bloomberg called for eliminating the state cap on charter schools today and said he would raise millions of dollars for school facilities if he remains in office for a third term.
Citing the recent study by Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby, the mayor declared the city’s charter schools an indisputable success and said he would open 100 more. “I strongly support charter schools for one simple reason: they work,” he said at a campaign event held at the city’s first charter school, Sisulu-Walker, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary today.
I’ll have more on what the mayor said, and what others think of it later in the day, but here are the major proposals:
- Eliminating the charter cap: This, like a third of the mayor’s charter school expansion proposals, would require approval from the mercurial state legislature. In 2005, the mayor tried and failed to get rid of the cap, but did manage to get it raised to 200 schools in 2007. Asked what’s different this time around, charter school advocates say the environment has changed. The state has nearly reached the allowable charter school limit and there’s pressure from the federal government and like Race to the Top to remove the cap.
- More money for school construction: Though the city’s recently adopted five-year capital plan sets aside $200 million for charter school construction, Bloomberg said today that he would raise another $100 million in private funds. The additional money would come attached to charter school applications, which will be given preference if they come with private funding in hand.
- Public housing space for charter schools: The mayor’s plan calls for using New York City Housing Authority facilities and land to house new charter schools. This could mean constructing mixed-use buildings on unused NYCHA land, which would hold both public housing and a charter school.
- Two new Children’s Zones: The mayor plans to open two Children’s Zones, built on the model Geoffrey Canada has pioneered in East Harlem, as well as expand the Harlem program onto NYCHA-owned land. Bloomberg said the new programs would open in central Brooklyn and the South Bronx.
- Public service announcements: Coming to a subway near you, a charter school awareness campaign that would include radio spots, TV ads, and billboard signs.
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September 30th, 2009 3:11 pm
It is shameful that the Mayor wants to devote so much money, time, effort and city property on creating new facilities for charter schools, while our traditional public schools are starving for space.
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September 30th, 2009 4:13 pm
yeah, really shameful that the mayor wants to improve our children’s education
how dare he! -
September 30th, 2009 4:45 pm
He wants to improve nothing other than the bank accounts of his rich friends. He’s had eight years to help public school children and it’s been all lies, smoke, and mirrors. Accountability? What a load.
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September 30th, 2009 5:03 pm
Mel,
Before we even get into the specifics of the Mayor’s proposals — five flavors of ***charter*** — let us not forget that this is the same Mayor whose Chancellor spent most of the last few years denying there was a pending school capacity problem that is now upon us, whose 2010-2014 capital plan is totally inadequate, and who mocked parents who dared protest the above on the steps of City Hall last May.THAT’s what’s shameful.
“How DARE he!” is RIGHT!
How dare he!
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September 30th, 2009 5:04 pm
Mel, Would you feed and clothe your neighbors’ children and be there for them but neglect your own children? Isn’t this what the mayor is doing to the public school children? I would like to hear that he gave away all his money to charter schools and leave his own daughters penniless especially since he cares about education!!!
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September 30th, 2009 5:16 pm
The city only plans to create 25,000 new seats in the five year capital plan, and the Bloomberg campaign says that creating enough seats to reduce class size would be too expensive.
Now he says he wants to create 100,000 seats for charter school students. How many of these will be new construction, and how much will that cost? And how many of those seats will be located in existing public school buildings? He really ought to tell us now.
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September 30th, 2009 5:26 pm
Re “…a campaign event held at the city’s first charter school…”
Isn’t that ILLEGAL under state law?
Did the Chancellor change — or waive — his regs for the boss?
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September 30th, 2009 5:30 pm
Can We Talk,
So are the kids in charter schools bused in from New Jersey and upstate? I’m confused.
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September 30th, 2009 6:05 pm
The why did the Mayor say, only yesterday, that Thompson’s plan to build new schools and eliminate overcrowding would bankrupt the city? Is he going to raise the money for new buildings through private funding? That didn’t work with the principal’s academy, why would it work for new school construction.
you can[t have your cake and critise too. Or maybe, just maybe, they are a little bit worried? -
September 30th, 2009 6:18 pm
[...] Gotham Schools reports that Mayor Bloomberg would like to lift the cap on charter schools. Bloomberg unsuccessfully lobbied to lift the cap in [...]
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September 30th, 2009 7:03 pm
Chris, Why would students be bused from NJ or upstate? The point I was making was the fact that time, energy and money are being spent for charter schools. The money that charter schools are receiving are all public funds (tax levy, state aids, etc.). Therefore,the money should go solely to the public schools to help children receive the same service and resources as the charter school children. Moreover, the public school children should not continue to be stigmatized as the “have nots” children of the public school system. The charter schools are not out performing the public schools - the data has been provided. The charter schools shun all special needs and disciplinary problem students. Yet, the public schools accept them, work with them, develop them, socialize them, and lovingly guide them. Remember, parents are grateful that their special needs child has a school to go to and receive the best education possible. When you show me a charter school that has the same percentage of special needs students as the public schools, I will be more than happy to say nothing. In the meantime, Bloomberg cannot continue to deprive the public school children of their education by cutting off their resources (public funds). By using this insidious method of taking from the poor to give to the so-called entitled charter schools, Bloomberg is shamefully setting up the public school children for failure.
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September 30th, 2009 8:07 pm
Thank goodness that the mayor is doing something try and empower parents in the communiteis where the schools are the worst by providoing them a choice. The zealots on this strand would rather see children forced to attend terrible schools that have been terrible for decades based on where a parent lives rather than give the parent the freedom to chose their school. Charters are about choice. Parent choice. teacher choice. student choice. school choice. Plain and simple, charters aren’t better or worse than traditional zoned schools inherently they are just an option for all parents and the mayor is trying to expand those options and replicate the best ones. Thank goodness he’s standing up to those who would rather see the schools be job programs for adults by reducing class sizes and hiring more adults rather than giving parents the freedom to decide what matters to them…class size or academic skills. the Hoxby study shows conclusively that even without reduced class size, charter students vastly outperform those in traditional schools.
This debate really makes me tired. Let parents choose, then if you want to build a small-class size school focused on the arts then go ahead and do so, don’t take away my right as a parent to choose just because you don’t want a choice for yourself.
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September 30th, 2009 9:18 pm
For the commentator (Michael M) who wondered about the Mayor appearing in a charter school for what they describe as a campaign event, the event held today was held at Canaan Baptist Church next door, not in the charter school. So, it’s a nonissue.
The event, by the way, was a celebration of the school’s 10th anniversary — not a Bloomberg event. The Mayor’s stop-by was a small part of the overall event, although he was very well received by the audience largely comprised of students and parents, who were glad he came to celebrate their achievements.
The pastor of the church, until recently, was the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, who was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s chief of staff during the civil-rights movement. He was a co-founder of the charter school.
Lastly, other commentators keeping making the really dumb comment that resources should go to public schools not charter schools, forgetting that charter schools ARE public schools. When will folks give up on this lame argument.
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September 30th, 2009 9:28 pm
Where was Bloomberg, and the other oligarchs who have recently become so concerned about poor and minority students, when the public schools in NYC were in crisis and laying off 15,00 teachers 30+ years ago, a catastrophe from which they never fully recovered? They were busy making their billions, which they are now using to purchase policy and fragment the public schools before fully privatizing them. They hypocritically use the rhetoric of civil rights to advance their own financial and political interests. Read the Mayor’s autobiography: not a word about public education.
The PR and marketing of charter schools uses warm-sounding buzzwords like “choice” and “empowerment” to sugar-coat what is a hostile takeover of a public good and public right. Where have these people been over the decades as parents and children in poor communities have been denied the “choice” of adequately funded neighborhood schools? They’ve certainly been nowhere near a classroom.
Please stop using this site an echo chamber for the talking points of the privateers.
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September 30th, 2009 9:45 pm
Michael Fiorillo,
Privateers, oligarchs. Come on.
The school that celebrated its 10th anniversary was founded by the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, who was a central figure in the nation’s civil-rights movement. In founding the school, he also had the help of the Rev. Floyd Flake, who has a sterling reputation for lifting up the neighborhood in which his Allen AME Church is located in Southeast Queens.
Walker also worked with Walter Sisulu, who along with Nelson Mandela was one of the principal architects and leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Are you really saying that Walker and Flake “hypocritically use the rhetoric of civil rights”? You paint with an overly broad brush.
No matter what you personally think about Bloomberg, the charter-school movement includes thousands of people from all walks of life, virtually all of whom are not in his net-worth category. As an aside, I don’t understand why Bloomberg’s self-made fortune bothers you so much (but that’s for another day).
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September 30th, 2009 10:17 pm
“The charter schools shun all special needs and disciplinary problem students. Yet, the public schools accept them, work with them, develop them, socialize them, and lovingly guide them. Remember, parents are grateful that their special needs child has a school to go to and receive the best education possible. When you show me a charter school that has the same percentage of special needs students as the public schools, I will be more than happy to say nothing.”
I run the special education department of a charter school. My school is 2% below district average and easily has twice the number of disability types represented. Every single student that gains admission to the school is accepted regardless of disability. We have not had a single Type III this year - not one. However, we have had 60% of our students placed in a LRE. We remediate intensively, provide a highly structured learning environment, and go to just about every length possible to see each and every single one of them succeed. Do we counsel out? No. But we do tell parents that they are as accountable as we are. No lateness, no missed homework, extra hours, extra Saturday, extra weeks.
I am held to all accountability systems mandated by NYC, yet I have none of the external supports of a traditional public school. We have no escape hatch - no modified criteria for promotion. 12 hour day? Yes! We have those, because that’s what it takes to implement instructional plans that work. It must be the money, you ask? No, no more materials than in any other school. No funds falling from the sky. No SmartBoards. No flat panel televisions. No scripted materials. Every unit and every lesson is written by faculty.
Will every kids succeed at the school? No. No school can promise a 100% success rate with such a huge continuum of disability types. But if a child does not succeed at the school, no parent could ever claim that we didn’t do everything possible.
If you want to see charter schools that have a significantly higher proportion of special education students, I suggest researching Opportunity Charter School with a massively higher percentage than district average. You offered to say nothing further if disproved of your own “fact,” but that would only allow these misguided misconceptions to grow further. The fact that I have even 2% less special education students in my school is kind of amazing given the skimming effect. Oh, wait. If skimming really was happening, then I’d have many less special educations students admitted via lottery. So how did these kids end up in my school?
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September 30th, 2009 10:52 pm
Anyone here ever worked in a charter school? I’m a new teacher and have spent the last 2 years in the charter system, when we say charter schools out perform traditional schools, the supporting data is usually math and reading scores. My experience at my charter was they drilled math and reading for a majority of the day, the curriculum was double periods of Math, writing, and reading. No social studies, science, art, music, etc in the younger grades. As an educator it wasn’t a fulfilling place to be, I can’t imagine Bloomberg sending his kids to a school like that where they learn only math and English all day. Anyone else have an experience with the charter system that’s any different?
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September 30th, 2009 11:04 pm
I could care less about Bloomberg’s fortune (well, since he uses it to purchase political office and distort democracy, I do care, but that’s a subject for another day); it’s his hypocrisy that I object to.
My initial question remains unanswered: from whence stems this relatively newfound passion by people who have never taught, did not send their own children to public school (Bloomberg, Klein, Gates, et al.), and are busy denying public school students the resources (smaller classes, “philanthropic” largesse, immense propaganda campaigns) by which charters and their promoters make their specious and pseudo-scientific claims to superiority?
While there clearly are well-meaning people who work in and believe in charter schools, they delude themselves and others by refusing to see the deeper structures and dynamics at work: namely, that what is essentially private venture capital, working through a corporate/philanthropic (though”malanthropic” might be a more accurate description) and academic complex, will through standard corporate management techniques and economies of scale implement a chain and franchise model of charters schools, to replace much of what were once democratically - if highly imperfectly - controlled public schools.
Do you really think that the Walton (!!!) Foundation sees a future for “mom-and-pop” charter schools? Those schools may, as temporary settings, be useful for photo opportunities with adorable minority children, but they have no long term future in the grand scheme of school privatization. KIPP, Green Dot, Uncommon Schools: it’s all about scaling up, and waiting for that juicy IPO down the road, with the consulting, publishing and vending windfalls raining down in the meantime.
And I stand by my claims of oligarchs and privateers, which can respectively be defined as 1) a member of a small governing faction (to which we should add plutocrats), and 2) a ship (or other entity) privately owned but authorized by a government to attack and capture enemy vessels.
I think the shoe fits perfectly. How does it fit on you?
As for Sisulu and Flake, that’s a red herring. They are not funding an immense campaign to fund charters at the expense of public schools, which was the focus of my posting, but in fact are both recipients of neoliberal corporate patronage. Flake oversees a huge political and patronage apparatus in Southeastern Queens, and as a congressman voted against the interests of his working class constituents and parishioners, for example, by voting for NAFTA in 1993.
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September 30th, 2009 11:58 pm
Tom C,
Re campaign locale — perhaps GS can fact-check your fact-check of my referencing a nominal fact or two.Re “Lastly, other commentators keeping making the really dumb comment that resources should go to public schools not charter schools, forgetting that charter schools ARE public schools. When will folks give up on this lame argument.”
Many of us do understand that charters are a subset of public, but don’t take the time to write with explicit precision.
As someone who does get that they are both public, I ask: When will the folks supporting charters concede creaming and class size arguments made by the non-supporters? And that’s aside from the space wars that have split communities against themselves based on who got what number in a lottery. And that’s aside from the fact that the Mayor and Chancellor have had eight years to FIX, not CLOSE, schools the charters are located — or worse, co-located — to compete with.
Huzzahs to those calling out the privateers and oligarchs. Don’t forget autocrats.
And huzzahs to yomister. We need to applaud excellence and personal investment in our kids, especially those kids with extra needs, regardless of who signs whose paycheck.
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October 1st, 2009 5:34 am
Charter schools may appear to be “public” in that they receive public tax monies, and are under some nominal, and little more, public regulation. Private schools must also contend with some public regulation, by the Board of Regents, if I am not mistaken.
The issue, however, is power and control. Charters are privately managed entities, with private boards that set policy, a far cry from real public schools.
When teachers at a charter chain in Chicago sought to unionize this year under public-employee labor law, management claimed that the schools were private. While the courts fortunately rejected this argument - based on education law drafted when the teachers union had more political will and juice than it currently does - it demonstrates the outlook of charter operators, who are more than happy to receive immense public subsidies, while creating a separate and unequal educational landscape.
This is precisely why charters are being used as the point of the spear to privatize the schools: they have such superior PR to vouchers, which were the original vehicle for the smash-and-grab policies we see at work.
As the charter-fueled hostile takeover of public education accelerates, watch charter operators and their apologists insist on ever-greater autonomy from public oversight.
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October 1st, 2009 8:52 am
Re: the “creaming” argument:
I’m a reading teacher at a charter midde school in Brooklyn. On the basis of my four years here (and two years at another charter school upstate) I’ve seen no “creaming”.
In fact, I see the opposite: every year, about 2/3 of our over 80 incoming 5th graders read far below grade level (at about the 2nd/3rd grade level – and there consistently a dozen or so who have to be taught decoding skills). Yes, there are students who arrive reading above grade level, but generally no more than 10 kids a year.
Our application process involves filling out both sides of one sheet with basic contact information, and the holding of a lottery. If this is “creaming”, we’re in worse shape than we thought. -
October 1st, 2009 9:04 am
“and there consistently a dozen or so who have to be taught decoding skills”
For some reason, they won’t let me teach writing…
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October 1st, 2009 9:30 am
Wow, where to start?
Charter schools are public schools. Funded with public dollars, overseen by a nonprofit board, and subject to intense public scrutiny and accountability. Subject to a five-year performance contract with publicly stated accountability benchmarks — judged by a public entity, either State University and/or Board of Regents.
As for creaming, Hoxby study refutes that point. Law requires first-come, first serve, unless a school is oversubscribed - very typical in NYC - in which case an open random lottery is required.
As for the example of whatever unionization issues occurred or not in Chicago, in NYS charter schools are subject to NYS Taylor Law and thus every teacher is allowed to form a union. If 50 percent-plus-one agree, the school is unionized. The fact that a number of charters are unionized in NYC proves that the statute is not anti-union.
As for the loose use of the term privatization and other “evil” market references, it makes no sense to use this rhetoric when talking about nonprofit charter schools. For example, one critic says: “KIPP, Green Dot, Uncommon Schools: it’s all about scaling up, and waiting for that juicy IPO down the road, with the consulting, publishing and vending windfalls raining down in the meantime.” Private firms can do an IPO, but a nonprofit organization cannot — could be why there is not a single case in the nation where this has happened. Don’t let your rhetoric get away from you.
The fact that someone donated money to a nonprofit charter school does not turn the school into a “private” entity, any more than a district school receiving such a donation would be so converted.
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October 1st, 2009 12:41 pm
the only people with a real problem w/ charter schools are unions, as they see their “influence” (aka racket) diminishing
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October 1st, 2009 1:05 pm
The “catastrophe from which public schools have never recovered” was not the financial crisis of the late 1970s. It was, in fact, the teacher strikes of 1969 and 1972. Following that, the public lost a huge amount of confidence in teachers and more generally, in the ability of the public schools to teach and safeguard their children. And that is what public schools have not fully recovered from.
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October 1st, 2009 2:47 pm
As Tom C. said: Wow, where to start?
At the risk of shouting into an echo chamber of partisans, and alienating new or occasional visitors to boot…
** While I agree with Michael F., it seems that the lure of the lifeboat is irresistible to parents who feel like the local alternative is sinking. Then again, celebrating a few lifeboats didn’t get the Captain of the Titanic very far. And he didn’t even run for a second term.
** Comparing charters to the schools in the neighborhoods whose kids most need the help – as opposed to citywide — is the flavor de jour. But that should not be the standard. Nor *was* it when charters were launched. Again: got moving target? I am not holding them to a higher standard; supporters are lowering – and obfuscating – the bar. How many of you had even heard of the “Scarsdale-Harlem gap” until this week?
** My understanding is the Hoxby study does NOT refute creaming – it simply says the lotteries are random (see previous table on GS of applicants vs. acceptances), and tracks the kids downstream of the lotteries. Different! You want to eliminate creaming? Step one: run the lottery on the ENTIRE catchment zone population. (Motivated parents, applications, ELL issues, etc.)
** Non-profit? Puleeze. How about as-yet-non-profitABLE, as opposed to not-FOR-profit? How about one charterglomerate’s CEO getting paid $371k — more than either the Chancellor ($250k) or Vice-President Biden ($220k)?
** The school system is in much better shape than in the late ‘70s or even the early ‘70s, as is the entire city. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise. According to Hizzoner’s own spin (let’s try to keep up on the squawking points); the schools are so good now we have to turn ‘em away at the gates. Truancy laws, the cost of private school in tough times, and the lack of adequate school construction during the just-prior boom times having nothing to do with that, of course.
** “Space wars” are being fought by parents – though perhaps WE should unionize.
P.S. Unlike Tom C, whose contributions I appreciate, I have no skin in the game to advocate, or knock, any particular position. Facts may indeed be stubborn things (once we agree on what truly are facts so that we may share them), but so are professional charter-industry-insiders’ opinions, paid or no.
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October 1st, 2009 4:04 pm
Michael M. –
I too appreciate your thoughtful contributions. I still think that “creaming” is a non-issue, though. (I think it’s analogous to Republican concerns about voter fraud.)
I suppose the assumption that charter schools select the best students is a seductive one – it would be in their interests to do so. But as a teacher with several years in charter school classrooms, I just don’t see any such selection happening. I see most students arriving performing far below grade level. -
October 1st, 2009 4:17 pm
… but with parents who took the initiative to fill out applications, etc.
Beg to differ, the lottery matters. It’s not that the charters are actively selecting per se, it’s that there is a non-random pool from which they then pull random numbers.
From your vantage, have you ever seen kids leaving the charter? If so, what were the circumstances? Where did they then go?
Also, are you in a co-located school, charter and non?
Cheers.
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October 1st, 2009 4:55 pm
Don’t fail to keep in mind that charter schools conduct interviews after the lotteries, whereby students for whom the school “might not be a good fit” are counseled out before they even enter. Many charters also compel parents to sign contracts that give the school leverage in removing children. Are public schools given similar latitude?
As I stated before, and which has yet to be refuted, charter schools are publicly-funded schools that are privately managed. In other states, many of them are for-profit, and the non-profit status of many in NY, as pointed out by Michael M, is effectively a misnomer when you have “educators” who never taught a day in their lives earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Pull back the PR curtain of the large charter chains - which will ultimately be the only one’s left standing - and you’ll find private equity firms (Bain Capital, Leeds Equity, et al.) laying the foundation for their future transformation into private, for-profit firms. Leeds Equity, which is behind Green Dot NY already owns private for-profit schools and temporary labor agencies. How instructive. Combine the two and you’ve got the Brave New World of education in the US and elsewhere.
It’s time that the Orwellian language of corporate ed deform (War is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Peace, Teachers Are The Problem In Education) is exposed for what it is: a smokescreen to transfer the governance and content of education away from the public and the people who impart it, to a corporate agenda of segregation, overwork, tedium, stress and surveillance. That’s the business model in education at work.
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October 1st, 2009 6:01 pm
Hey Michael,
I am a big fan of charter schools, but I agree with you that they are “publicly funded and privately managed”. I get somewhat annoyed both when anti-charter people call them private schools and when pro-charter people call them public schools. The slightly-longer phrase “publicly funded and privately managed” is accurate, important, and cuts through a lot of political nonsense. I have been meaning to write a post that makes this point and calls (begs?) for use of this more meaningful phrase.
The fact that charter schools are privately managed is, in my view, one of the main reasons that they will lead us to a better system. That’s not something I wish to debate in this thread, but I mention it to make clear why I can like your phrase, but disagree with some potential interpretations of that phrase.
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October 1st, 2009 6:57 pm
Ken,
Two points:
- In my mind, “private” versus “publicly funded but privately managed” is a distinction without a real difference.
- The political, economic and ideological underpinnings - in which business, political, philanthropic and academic interests are interwoven and engaged in a process that is rapidly transferring a public good into private hands - are exactly what should be debated here. What is happening to public education in the US, and indeed globally, is inseparable from other efforts privatize the public or common sphere.
Monsanto: publicly-funded, private, for-profit gene pools.
Correction Corporation of America: publicly- funded, private, for-profit prisons.
Blackwater: publicly funded, private, for-profit armies.
KIPP, Green Dot, etc.: publicly-funded, private … -
October 1st, 2009 7:18 pm
Michael,
I agree that those points should be debated. I also agree that many of the issues are similar in many ways across various sectors of our economy.
I think “private” versus “publicly funded but privately managed” is an important distinction to separate organizations with relatively small degrees of public funding from those with relatively large degrees of public funding. I think that those that are concerned with “private management” should write that “charter schools are privately managed” and, then, carry on with their anti-private-management arguments. Calling charter schools “private schools” is, in many cases, a propaganda technique. I would say the same thing about calling them “public schools”. If charter schools were simply “public schools” or “private schools”, we wouldn’t have to use the annoying phrase “charter schools”.
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October 1st, 2009 7:28 pm
Maybe I should just let this go, but I can’t help myself.
It simply is not true, even when my friend Ken says it, that charter schools are publicly funded “but privately managed.” That’s only true if you don’t care what words mean.
Charter schools are nonprofit institutions, like the YMCA, Lincoln Center, etc. Charter schools are not private corporations.
Unlike most nonprofits and unlike most district schools, charter schools face a much more intense level of public accountability. Five-year performance contracts. Specific performance benchmarks. Risk of nonrenewal. Subject to open meetings law and freedom of information law, unlike typical nonprofits.
Now, a very small number of charter schools have hired private management firms to run their schools, subject to contracts with the nonprofit boards of those schools. Some public school districts have done this as well. In those more limited number of cases, I would agree to call them privately managed. But for the lion’s share of public charter schools that do not contract with management companies, the description is simply inaccurate.
For the record, if they were privately managed, it wouldn’t bother me a bit. But, it just doesn’t happen to be true.
So, my objection is not an ideological one but rather a linguistic one. Let’s not mangle the English language just because you have an issue with charter schools.
You can hate charter schools still, but please respect the mother tongue.
Agreed?
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October 1st, 2009 7:53 pm
Can I love charter schools but hate the privateers — and the billionaire eduphilanthropreneur autocrats who think they know best?
Why frame it that charter-school skeptics are the ones slaughtering the language? “De-coding?” Sheesh.
The lack of respect for the mother tongue is NOT found in the charter debate, but in the double-speak emanating from Tweed / City Hall / The Reannointment Campaign. (It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart, no? See my prior comments and quips re “Cerf’s Up.”)
What does it mean to be an “A” school this year?
Answer: There were no anomalies, like negative score contributions.What does it mean to be an “A” school within a peer group, when there are “B” and even “C” schools whose kids have higher *performance* scores?
Answer: The ultimate “grading on a curve” to the point of non-comparativeness.What does it mean to be an “A” school when benchmarked against a peer group… but a G&T school people are trying to get into only gets a “B”?
Answer: It means School Progress Report grades are meaningLESS.What does it mean when those manipulating those grades then congratulate themselves, and their boss, on what a fine, fine, suit they’re wearing?
Answer: It means the same gang hyping charters (no fault of the charters here) have more interest in remaining in power than in educating kids. And at this point, I’m talking about the roughly ONE MILLION New York City school children NOT in charters. -
October 1st, 2009 8:19 pm
Sorry, Tom, not agreed: the Y, Lincoln Center, et al., although non-profits and recipients in varying degrees of public funds, are most certainly private organizations.
However, they differ significantly from charter schools in that they are not the recipients of massive amounts of taxpayer dollars redirected from public entities, nor are they the beneficiaries of media and philanthropic (Gates, Broad, Walton, Gap, etc.) propaganda campaigns.
However, I do agree that this thread has probably run its course.
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October 2nd, 2009 8:26 am
I agree with Tom that “publicly funded and privately managed” is an insufficient description. Perhaps better, but a bit long, is “publicly funded, privately operated (generally by non-profits), and subject to broad and deep government oversight”. Perhaps Tom would object to the phrase “privately operated” and I suppose this depends on the definition of “private” in this context.
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October 2nd, 2009 8:56 am
To respond to your earlier questions, Michael M –
I see your point about the random within the non-random pool, but as for the initiative – well, I can’t say it takes any more initiative to sign up for our charter school than to sign up for a traditional public school. All you have to do is fill out a sheet and say yes or no when the lottery is held (which, by the way, is open to the public).
As for students who leave our charter school, they generally do so for three reasons:
-parents withdraw their child when they learn he/she will have to repeat a grade for academic reasons
-the parents of newly arrived 5th graders don’t like the school (it’s quite a change from other public schools – longer days, more discipline, lots of homework etc.) and withdraw them early in the year
-students are expelled for the same reasons they would be expelled in a traditional public school (bringing a weapon, assault, etc.) These cases have been rare.
We share space with a traditional public school, which is beneath us in both senses. Academically, it is dismal: our new 5th graders who attended that school often lack basic reading, writing, and math skills. I wish you could see the difference a flight of stairs makes; it is dramatic. (Both schools, however, received A grades. I’m generally a supporter of Bloomberg/Klein when it comes to education, but the kindest thing I can say about the latest report cards is that they are risible.)
Mr. Fiorillo, I have to respond to your claims:
-“Don’t fail to keep in mind that charter schools conduct interviews after the lotteries, whereby students for whom the school “might not be a good fit” are counseled out before they even enter.” Our school doesn’t do this, nor have I heard of this from my friends and colleagues who work in other charter schools.
-“Many charters also compel parents to sign contracts that give the school leverage in removing children.” We have parents sign such contracts. They are about as legally binding as the contracts parents sign with their children regarding an allowance in exchange for chores. Our contracts are less weighty, however – parents can, at least, withhold allowance, while ours offer no such leverage.
The idea that charter schools can just kick out kids they don’t want is about as true as the argument that they select the cream of the crop. -
October 2nd, 2009 9:42 am
first, Peter may be accurate as to his description of his own charter school, but the preponderance of charter schools do not educate the same proportion of our highest need students –sped or ELL students — as in the general population, and it is far easier for principals of charter schools to eject or counsel out troublesome students than it is from a zoned elementary or middle school. Moreover, the attrition rates at some charter schools are very high, to the extent that we have access to this data, which is not easy to get. There are indeed many charter schools that hold interviews with parents and kids after the lottery but before admitting them, including KIPP. Finally, the idea that charter schools are subject to “broad and deep government oversight” is laughable.
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October 2nd, 2009 10:02 am
Hey Leonie,
In NYS (I can’t comment on other states), there is quite a bit of oversight. I would be curious to hear your sense of the amount of oversight for NYC charter schools and what information that is based on. I am basing my opinion on numerous conversations with charter school authorizers, review of the broad and deep reports made available on their websites, and conversations with a large number of charter school operators. I am sure the oversight is far from perfect, but it seems to me to be generally strong. If anything, I sense that it is too intrusive, so I am surprised that you would find it “laughable”.
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October 2nd, 2009 10:35 am
Peter,
First, thanks for the detailed reply. Most appreciated. Select responses, and truly I don’t mean to quibble:** It takes significantly MORE effort to sign up for a charter, and possible lottery. With a TPS (Traditional Public School), you can just walk in on Day One.
** There has been previous testimony here on GS that at least some lotteries are NOT open to the public. Glad to hear at your school they are.
** Parents withdrawing for academic reasons is a confession to creaming. Sorry. It takes the low scoring child out of the school’s average score. Even if such kid stays but repeats a grade, it takes that low scorer out of grade N+1 and leaves the kid in grade N, with a higher likelihood of a higher grade. It might indeed be the best move for the kid and for high standards, but it DOES tweak the aggregate scores. What if that happens a second or third year in a row?
** “…beneath us in both senses.” Yeeouch.
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October 2nd, 2009 12:12 pm
Yeeouch indeed - my poor choice of words. It’s only now I’m realizing there are more than two senses of the phrase! The TPS is downstairs from us. I thought it would be clever to make a metaphor of it to describe their academic performance as well.
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October 2nd, 2009 3:59 pm
“Poor choice of words” or revealing some unexamined assumptions?
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October 5th, 2009 6:39 am
Michael M., what would happen to the “creaming” argument you’re putting forth if charters and district schools had the same academic standards? What if PS x took a child who had been held over at Peter’s charter school and placed him or her in the held-over grade rather than promoted the child? Seems to me that any creaming IN THIS CASE going on has to do with low expectations on the district - or even other charter schools that would accept the child in a higher grade despite the academic records coming from the charter - rather than the school consciously removing a low-performing student. At our school, we’ve had the same scenario; in one case, a child skated by with a 3 on both the ELA and math state exams - but clearly was not prepared for the next grade. He had learned in his prior experience work avoidance and test-taking, tricks but not actual content and conceptual understanding that we require at our school to move forward.
I say ‘in this case,’ because I know the charter detractors out there have a myriad of such ‘creaming’ scenarios, some fictitious, some probably with a kernel of truth or more.
We need an honest and open public debate about this creaming to settle the question, and no better form than GS.
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October 5th, 2009 10:41 am
KS,
Agreed re GS as a good forUm.As to the hold-back example, if that happened more at TPSs than charters, you’d have a point. My point was that to the degree it does NOT happen in both TPS and Charter, that skews the aggregate results. Simple.
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January 7th, 2010 11:17 pm
SCENARIO OF A LIFE OF A CHILD IN CHARTER SCHOOL IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING!
GRANDMA WORKS IN A UNION, THAT ADVOCATES FOR TEACHERS, CHILD IS SEVEN YEARS OLD, ASKS GRANDMA, DO YOU WORK FOR ________, OH NO GRANDMA I CAN’T SAY WHERE YOU WORK THEY WOULD THROW ME OUT OF SCHOOL….A CHILD THAT IS SEVEN YEARS OLD INVOLVED IN THE DIRTY WORLD OF POLITICS, THATS SO SAD. WHERE IS THE REAL GOAL OF PROTECTING AND NURTURING OUR CHILDREN ? THAT HAVE TO BE LOTTOED IN TO GET INTO WHAT SHOULD BE A SYSTEM FOR ALL. A GAMBLE ON EDUCATION, SOCIAL DARWINISM EXISTS.
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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