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February 25, 2010
Charter schools take PEP meeting as chance to launch PR blitz
Charter school parents packed into last night's Panel for Educational Policy meeting to call for more city building space for charter schools.
Last night’s Panel for Educational Policy meeting was the second in as many months to be packed to the gills with parents and teachers passionately pleading their case.
But this time it was charter school parents, not teachers and parents at closing district schools, who drove to the meeting in busloads.
“What we are pleading for this evening is space,” Trevor Alfred, a parent at Explore Empower Charter School, told the panel. “We deserve it.”
At first blush, the level of passion, and sometimes anger, directed towards the panel could seem odd. Although 16 school space proposals were up for a vote, the board had never voted down a city proposal, and none of the charter school proposals on the agenda yesterday was defeated.
But charter school advocates, stung by what they felt was a bruise at last month’s PEP meeting on school closures, which was dominated by charter school opponents, decided to take the opportunity to launch a new public relations offensive.
“I think this is the defining moment for the charter school movement, as an advocacy movement, to wake up,” said Jeremiah Kittredge, who leads Democracy Prep Charter Schools’ political organizing.
Other charter schools in attendance included the Harlem Success, KIPP, Explore, Girls Prep and Achievement First networks, some of whom had never rallied parents to a public meeting before.
Girls Prep supporters raised their banners each time one of their parents or teachers spoke before the panel.
“As demand for charters has increased, so has the opposition,” said David Levin, founder of the KIPP network of charter schools. “People realize that now, and are making their voices heard.”
Meanwhile, many of the most outspoken opponents of charter siting plans at individual school hearings were notably absent. And union officials, who last month called for the city to stop giving city building space to charters until district schools reach their class size targets, sat out the meeting altogether.
“It’s a sham; why come?” said Lisa Donlan, the president of a Lower East Side parent council and one of a few vocal critics who did speak.
(The board did fail to pass one proposal last night: a contentious plan to site an all-boys district school, Eagle Academy, at I.S. 59 fell one vote short of the seven votes needed for passage because of the absence of one mayoral appointee to the PEP, Jim Whelan, and the abstention of another, Linda Lausell Bryant.)
Charter school supporters point to opposition from elected officials as evidence that they are under siege. By launching a public relations offensive, they argue, they can persuade lawmakers that they’re on the wrong side of the issue.
As if proving their point, today a top target of charter school supporters, Harlem’s State Senator Bill Perkins, announced plans to hold hearings questioning charter schools starting in March. Although Perkins helped start the city’s first charter, he has since become an outspoken opponent of their growth.
Chancellor Joel Klein is championing this new wave of activism. He told reporters last night that he called charter school principals, at the request of the head of a charter network, to encourage them to bring parents to the meeting. And in a Daily News op-ed yesterday, Klein forecast a strong charter school presence.
Skeptics of Klein pointed out an irony: he’s trumpeting a system that works because parents want to flee the district schools that he manages.
As the proposals came to a vote close to midnight, one of the few charter critics on the board, Manhattan Borough President appointee Patrick Sullivan, voted “no” on the plan to let Girls Prep expand, saying that he questioned the school’s success.
The measure passed anyway, but afterward, a tearful Miriam Lewis Raccah, the head of Girls Prep, made clear that Sullivan’s criticisms had reinforced her view that charters need to put up a strong show against their critics.
“I feel a little bit of relief,” she said, “but it’s also a little bit infuriating.”
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February 25th, 2010 9:53 pm
“decided to take the opportunity to launch a new public relations offensive.”
I beg to differ! The Chancellor asked them to come and support his plan. BTW, while so many were criticizing the UFT for job protection I wonder why no one noticed that a great many charter school teachers were present and advocating to keep their schools open. Isn’t that job protection too? Why it is not a problem for charter school teachers to advocate for the schools that provide them with salaries? Isn’t this a little odd?
Did anyone else notice that the charter school “advocates” were handing out orange sheets of paper with a final coda printed on it for the parent speakers.
And why in heavens name is it right for the Chancellor to allow charter school “advocates” to criticize staff in the schools he directs? The Secretary of the Panel asked for civility and purposeful comments and urged speakers to maintain decorum yet the Chancellor sat there and watched/listened to “advocates” criticize and castigate at will.
How can he, as the leader of the system, not bear the brunt of that criticism? It’s happening under his watch and it’s been eight years now. he didnt’ become the leader of the public school system yesterday, last week, last month or last year….it’s eight years! -
February 25th, 2010 10:27 pm
The PEP Panel is fixed. Pleas from students, parents, and teachers fall on deaf ears and Blackberry’s. I totally prefer the protests in front of the mayor’s townhouse. If the UFT would get involved, it would truly be awesome. Don’t know why they don’t. The more, the merrier, next time.
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February 26th, 2010 9:16 am
“a new public relations offensive,” indeed!
Or, as one of Eva Moskowitz’s email love notes to Joel Klein stated (3/25/09): “Whatever legal arguments, this is a power and public relations struggle..”
They always are so much more honest among themselves than they are with the public, aren’t they?
Charter schools: real estate first.
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February 26th, 2010 12:15 pm
To correct the record regarding my vote on the Girls Prep expansion, I did not question the success of Girls Prep or any of the charter schools that came out to the meeting. In fact I said these schools were clearly both successful and had deep support from their parents. What I did say was that there were other equally successful schools in District 1 that deserved the opportunity to expand, be replicated or simply not curtailed. These schools have deep support and waiting lists. A number of District 1 proposals for new programs have been indefinitely put on hold for lack of space. I did not see any case for why Girls Prep should be favored for the use of that space especially in light of the overwhelming community response against the expansion.
I did, however, criticize Ms. Raccah for asking that the D75 program in the BOE facility she shares be removed from the building, neighborhood and even district. While I would expect all schools to advocate for themselves, it was not appropriate for her to dictate where public school programs should be placed or that District 1 could be served with fewer seats for children requiring special education services. We all understand we have an acute shortage of school capacity in Manhattan driven by the poor planning of the Bloomberg administration but we cannot allow our most vulnerable students to be the victims in the fight over resources.
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February 26th, 2010 2:02 pm
Break out the tin-foil hats.
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February 26th, 2010 4:02 pm
Raccah was asked by the DOE to state which of THEIR scenarios she would ask people to support and did so. DOE had said that D75 both approved and agreed with the DOE’s proposal. Raccah and R. Shuster (D75 principal) are the two who later worked out the solution (which does not require D75 program to move) that was approved on Wednesday night.
And while there are schools in D1 do very well. Those who do the best are, like the Lower Lab School, not equally open to poor kids of color.
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February 26th, 2010 4:15 pm
MF, power and politics are not the same thing as real estate.
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February 26th, 2010 4:56 pm
Kitchen Sink,
“power and politics are not the same as real estate.
Very true, but the first two will go a long way towards getting the third, no?
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February 28th, 2010 8:08 pm
Monique- why do you say that :
“And while there are schools in D1 do very well. Those who do the best are, like the Lower Lab School, not equally open to poor kids of color.
Given our District One all choice policy and committment to diversity I really want to know what you mean by this statement. I can think of no way to explain how anyone could claim that how the best district schools are not open to poor children of color!
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February 28th, 2010 8:16 pm
Monique
In these very pages, in an article by Maura Walz on 9/30/09, Raccah said she was not interetsed in expanding at PS 188.
Funny - she said the same thing to the 188 school community two weeks later.
And while the “solution” which doubles GPCS size and number of sections/classrooms does not require the D75 autism program to move, it does require it to disappear over time.
10 kids will graduate out this year. There will be no 4th grade next year, there will be no 5thgrade the year after that, until the program is shrunk down to 5 sections, the bare minimum a program can be.
One wonders just how willing a D75 principal is to shrink a program to next to nothing and how much is just forced upon them by the powers that be. I can tell yoiu the parents are not fine with the “solution” and what it will mean for the kids and programs of P94.
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February 28th, 2010 8:25 pm
Monique
Whatever can you mean by stating that poor kids of color do not have equal access to the best D one schools?
Given our long standing district wide policy of choice, granting every parent the option to apply to any school in the district, and our long standing commitment to diversity in the schools (made nearly impossible under the centralized DoE and their one size fits all admissions) your statement makes no sense.
Please be specific and explicit- what do you mean by that?
If there is any kernel of truth I would like to begin addressing it immediately- that can not stand in my community!
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March 1st, 2010 2:17 pm
Monique,
Admissions to all Gifted and Talented programs, including Lower Lab, are centralized by the DOE and based solely on standardized tests. As a member of the PEP, I opposed this move to standardized testing and favor more holistic measures.
Regarding District 1, that is a district with a long standing policy of choice. All parents can apply to all schools within the district.
Patrick
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March 29th, 2010 6:02 pm
The problem is not charter schools or space. The problem is the anti-democracy stance of Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein & Co. They have no problem disempowering everyone except the flavor of the day, charter schools. The renewal meeting for GP charter was not advertised. It was run by one young man. NO record was made of the meeting and therefore even showing up was a Kafkaesque exercise in futility. Mr. Klein & Co. believe that they are all knowing and regularly disenfranchised parents and educators. The office of portfolio regular reports are to be kind so twisted as to be patently untrue. The final meeting in District One was well attended by parents, but to here the report, you would thing no one had any problem with the expansion. Fortunately there is a video of the proceedings that exists to support the truth. Klein & Co. believe they are above the law and can bully their initiatives through. I am personally proud that parents are standing up for democracy because that is what we are really fighting for here.
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