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political science

October 28, 2011

Congressional hopeful Jeffries firms up charter school support

by Geoff Decker, at 9:38 am

Dania Reid, of the Charter Parent Action Network, speaks at a town hall event with elected officials.

If charter school advocates had any concern that Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries wasn’t on their side, he lay their worries to rest last night.

Jeffries, a U.S. House of Representatives hopeful who has not always supported charter schools in his district, pledged his full-fledged support to charter school parents and backers at a town hall event hosted by the New York City Charter Center.

“The aspirations of parents such as yourself, who just want to find a vehicle to provide young children with the opportunity to get the best possible education … is one that I will always support, notwithstanding the consequences from those who may want to defend the status quo,” Jeffries said.

The event reflected a move among supporters of the city’s policy of closing struggling schools and replacing them with new options, including charter schools, to preempt the heated fights over co-location that engulfed the city last year. Nineteen new charter schools are slated to open in the city next year, and the city is hoping to house many of them in public school buildings.

Thursday’s event took place in Bedford-Stuyvesant’s New Beginnings Charter School, a second-year school located in a private facility owned by the Archdiocese of New York. It was the first such event organized by the center’s parent advocacy group, the Charter Parent Action Network. According to David Golovner, a vice president for the center, the network is working with parents in dozens of charter schools this year to help mobilize support in areas where charter schools are more densely located and where more are likely to open in the future.

“It comes down to the simple fact that these are public schools and screaming at somebody about a school isn’t the way to solve any problem,” Golovner said.

Golovner was joined by Cara Volpe, the center’s newly hired director to oversee relations between charter and district schools.

Jeffries was the lone elected official to attend the town hall, although staffers representing Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Councilman Al Vann and U.S. Rep. Ed Towns also participated. Recy Dunn, executive director of the charter school office at the Department of Education, also attended and spoke briefly.

Jeffries’ support of education reform issues has become more pronounced in recent months as he prepares a run at Towns’ seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Last year, Jeffries was an outspoken critic of the city Department of Education as the lead plaintiff on a lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg’s appointment of Cathie Black to serve as chancellor. And as the DOE prepared to close a struggling middle school in Prospect Heights and replace it with a charter school, Jeffries attended a parent rally and pledged to fight the co-location with legal action.

But this summer, seeking to boost the profile of his newly announced campaign, Jeffries penned an op-ed explaining his opposition to a lawsuit against charter school co-locations. The move landed him on the “Hot List” maintained by Democrat for Education Reform and the group’s political action committee and its allies have since raised thousands of dollars for his campaign.

After the event, Jeffries repeated his support for charter school co-locations, saying they were important “given the reality that space is limited and real estate is so expensive.”

But he also criticized the DOE for not handling school space planning well in past years and said he hoped to see an improvement under new leadership.

“We’re hopeful that moving forward, under the leadership of Dennis Walcott, the approach that he takes will be more collaborative and less designed to create the types of conflicts that we’ve seen around co-locations in the past years,” Jeffries said.

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  • Sold out the 99% for $ from 1%

    Jeffries’ support of education reform issues has become more pronounced in recent months as he prepares a run at Towns’ seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Last year, Jeffries was an outspoken critic of the city Department of Education as the lead plaintiff on a lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg’s appointment of Cathie Black to serve as chancellor. And as the DOE prepared to close a struggling middle school in Prospect Heights and replace it with a charter school, Jeffries attended a parent rally and pledged to fight the co-location with legal action.

    But this summer, seeking to boost the profile of his newly announced campaign, Jeffries penned an op-ed explaining his opposition to a lawsuit against charter school co-locations. The move landed him on the “Hot List” maintained by Democrat for Education Reform and the group’s political action committee and its allies have since raised thousands of dollars for his campaign.

    Hakeem Jeffries. A man who chose to sell out his own convictions to the highest bidder. How sad.

  • Koozy14

    If Jeffries really believes that:
     “The aspirations of parents such as yourself, who just want to find a vehicle to provide young children with the opportunity to get the best possible education … is one that I will always support, notwithstanding the consequences from those who may want to defend the status quo.”
    Then whyu does’nt he support vouchers for public education, why is it just charter schools he sees as an option?

  • BSNBCS

    The event was a collaboration between BSNBCS, CPAN and the local community to continue the dialogue around parent voice within the local community.  Invitees included local elected officials, FDNY Vulcan Society, NYPD Community Affairs, local school leaders, and other community stakeholders.  The event aimed at providing parents a platform centered on voice & choice, as well as provide them direct access to elected officials in hopes addressing educational needs as well as related issues that support student achievement. These issues included discussions around the increased need for wrap around services, a safer community for students and economic relief for families, which provides increased support for families, which in turn provides a robust climate for academic excellence.  Families are interested in getting the best resources for their children. If these events focus our elected officials on our families, assist them on moving on that agenda with positive outcomes, and deliver that message to the decision makers, then it’s worth giving them the opportunity to deliver & be supported in return.

  • Anonymous

    If space is so limited why support charter co-locations?  Clearly these create even more overcrowding and squeeze out needy public school students.

  • Lisa Donlan

    Pols like Jeffries are what make OWS necessary.
     
    I recommend reading Henry Giroux’s piece in Truthout:

    http://www.truth-out.org/occupy-wall-streets-battle-against-american-style-authoritarianism/1319570241‘….The Occupy Wall Street protests are rejecting a notion of society which embraces a definition of agency in which people are viewed only as commodities, bound together in a Darwinian nightmare by the logic of greed, unchecked individualism and a disdain for democratic values (as linguistic theorist and writer George Lakoff recently pointed out in Truthout). The old idea of democracy, in which the few govern the many through the power of capital and ritualized elections, is being replaced with a new understanding of democracy and politics in which power and resources are shared and economic justice and democratic values work in the interest of the common well-being and social responsibility.
    The Occupy Wall Street protesters reject the propaganda they have been relentlessly fed by a market-driven culture: the notion that markets should take priority over governments, that market values are the best means for ordering society and satisfying human needs, that material interests are more important than social needs and that self-interest is the driving force of freedom and the organizing principle of society. Professor Fred Jameson once said, and I am paraphrasing here, that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. That no longer seems true. The cracks in the capitalist edifice of greed and unchecked power have finally split open, and while there is no guarantee that new modes of social transformation will take place, there is a vibrant collective energy on the horizon that at least makes such a possibility imaginable once again.

  • Koozy14

    Yes, but again, in order to address the community’s educational needs, and has he said, not support the status quo, does he support public school vouchers as a parental option, or does he just support charter schools as a parental option?

  • District 13 parent

    Wow. I’m in his district and was thinking of voting for him. I guess not!

  • Ellen

    After the event, Jeffries repeated his support for charter school
    co-locations, saying they were important “given the reality that space
    is limited and real estate is so expensive.”
    If it’s so expensive then let them do what the rest of us do, RENT, and save for your home.   or PAY a fair rent in a public school.
    How money buys the votes!   

  • 447

    He’ll probably do less damage in Washington then Albany.  Besides, just because he says he supports something, doesn’t mean he does.  He said he supported mass transit, then he sided with the suburbs on congestion pricing.  His district lost two buses as a result.

  • asevans

    I had greatly admired Assemblyman Jeffries for his outspoken advocacy for the public school children of New York and sense of democracy.  Unfortunately, the corporate interests noticed too and have successfully endeavored to buy him off.  How sad.  Especially since he could have gotten elected without their financial support.  Has he forgotten he still needs the vote of the people?  I hope he finds his soul.

  • BSNBCS

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