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resistance

January 31, 2013

Call for ban on co-locations has charter school backers nervous

by Philissa Cramer, at 6:08 pm

The city’s charter school sector is pushing back against a groundswell of support for a moratorium on the space-sharing arrangement that has allowed the schools to proliferate.

Their resistance is not unified in tone. Some charter school advocates are requesting that proponents of a moratorium reconsider and others are taking their fight to the street.

The Bloomberg administration has relied heavily on co-location, the practice of allowing one school to open in another school’s building, to open new schools. Its critics say the arrangement breeds unnecessary tension and takes resources away from existing schools.

Now, three of the Democratic candidates for mayor — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, and former comptroller Bill Thompson — have all said they think Bloomberg should not be allowed to close or co-locate any schools in its last year. A bill proposed in the State Senate would bar school closures even into the next mayor’s term, and Assembly members are lining up to sponsor their own version of the bill.

Blocking co-locations and the school closures that often make space for them would be a serious blow to the city’s charter sector, which has flourished because the Bloomberg administration has offered more than 100 charter schools free space in district buildings. It would be difficult for new schools to open at the same pace if they had to find and pay for private space.

The threat has united independent charter schools and schools in management organizations, which are sometimes at odds, in the sector’s defense. On Wednesday, two dozen school leaders and advocates distributed a statement asking the mayoral candidates “to set aside the call for a moratorium on co-locations and show the kind of thoughtful leadership New York City needs.”

Several of the signatories handed out flyers to people attending the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators’ event featuring mayoral candidates on Wednesday evening, where the candidates later reiterated their support for a moratorium.

“I believe anyone who wants to lead the city is going to be a thoughtful person,” said Rafiq Kalam Id-Dinn, head of Brooklyn’s Teaching Firms of America Professional Preparatory Charter School. He said that if candidates surveyed city charter schools’ strengths, they should think, “Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t push pause.”

Some charter school operators are taking a more aggressive stance. Unlike representatives of the other major charter school networks in the city, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz did not sign on to the sector’s letter. Instead, parents from her schools protested outside the three mayoral candidates’ offices this morning.

Outside Liu’s office, more than 100 parents from Success waved signs accusing the candidates of being pawns of UFT President Michael Mulgrew. The union has long opposed closures and co-locations, at times suing to stop the city from going through with them.

“We’re out here because we want co-location,” said Ali Aybakal, who has a child at Harlem Success Academy 4 in Harlem and three at New Heights Academy.

“Liu, Thompson, and De Blasio declared basically to destroy charter schools,” said Kelly Alday, an outspoken parent from Bronx Success Academy who is often a ringleader at the network’s protests. “They’re basically turning their backs on us.”

Moskowitz, who aims to open six new schools in public space this fall, has long represented the more radical wing of the charter movement, bringing busloads of parents to defend her network’s schools at public hearings and meetings where criticism is likely.  A former City Council education committee chair, she has also sought — and received — more space from the city than any other charter school operator, at times forcefully proposing space-sharing plans directly to the chancellor.

Now, she is taking an extra share of criticism about the practice of co-location.

“Another thing that has to change starting in January is that Eva Moskowitz cannot continue to have the run of the place,” de Blasio said during the mayoral debate, where Moskowitz was the only school leader named, to loud applause. “She was giving the orders and chancellors were bowing down and agreeing. That’s not acceptable.”

In a statement responding to this morning’s protests, Melinda Martinez, a parent at Cobble Hill School for International Studies, said, “The Bloomberg-era policy of ‘what Eva wants, Eva gets’ is at stake now, and only the mayoral election can stop her from continuing to hurt our students, because not everyone can be bought off.” Success Academy Cobble Hill moved into the school’s building this year.

Perhaps anticipating this year’s political rancor, many independent charter schools opted out of a rally to support the sector last year. “There was a sense that there is a political element to this, and people thought that demonstrations that looked like Eva’s demonstrations did more to divide than bridge,” Harvey Newman, who heads the Center for Educational Innovation’s charter support network, told GothamSchools at the time.

Charter school parents – who number over 100,000 and counting — could potentially be a significant voting bloc in the mayoral election. At an event to mark National School Choice Week this morning at Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem, a parent asked Chancellor Dennis Walcott what families can do to support the sector. Walcott suggested holding a forum for mayoral candidates and giving them each a report card based on how much they favor charter schools.

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  • Waititoutmulgrew

    VOTE FOR BILL THOMPSON, JOHN LIU OR DIBLASIO OK THEN NO MORE CHARTERS

  • KAlday

    Wise Owl – seriously?  The children DO get suspended, they DO get detention, the DO have to attend school on saturdays WITH their parent.  There are letters home, phone calls home, meetings, parents come and sit in the classroom for the day to ensure that their child behaves – we are held accountable as parents to help in maintaining good behavior.  We have in house therapists to speak to the kids if something is going on, we have support staff there to help with issues, we have a real community to help with our children.  Charter schools aren’t perfect, no one is perfect.  But some are better options for some families.  Why are you having such a hard time understanding that?  We have licensed teachers, our kids do work with computers, but aren’t taught by a computer.  I don’t know what charter school your friend was working for but it was not the SA network.  And that’s because anyone who knows anything about the schools knows that even the students aren’t out of the school by 3 lol.  

  • KAlday

    Night Rider – I do not know of any recent court case that has shown charters to be ‘private entities’ – so please cite that source so that I can make sure my facts are straight.  They do have to follow all of the civil rights of our students, so I’m not really sure where you are getting this info.  As for how misbehaving students are being treated (according to you) as far as I know none of this is not going on at SA.  And if I (or any other parent in this school), ever heard of this happening you would be damn sure it would never happen again and that staff person would be gone by end of the day.  At SA our children do get time outs where they must sit with a timer in another classroom, they are sent to the office to speak to the principal or another member of our leadership team.  Our kids get a behavior color every day, which is given to the parent daily (green for good, yellow for needs improvement and red for not a good day).  If a child is on red, their parent must pick them up upstairs in the classroom and must speak with the teacher and child about what the behavioral issue was that day and what they can do to improve the next day.  Our children write apology letters, for example, another child punched my son last year.  Not only did the child go to the principal’s office, not only did the parent have to come in and have a meeting about his behavior, not only was he on red for the day, he wrote an apology letter to my son while waiting for his mother to pick him up.  These boys are now very good friends, and his behavior has improved immensely.  Our children are alway awarded for their good behavior, whether it’s a sticker at the end of the day, a pizza party in the classroom, or a break at the end of the day for popcorn and a ‘dance party. So I don’t know which charter you think is using this type of punishment, but I don’t think this would be allowed anywhere charter, public or in juvenile detention.

  • FH

    What’s up with the minorities and charters? Do these go hand and hand? Very ODD!!

  • flerp

    Funny, I thought I saw someone who looked like you down at 80 Centre on Wednesday morning.  I guess I’m not as blind as I thought.

    A couple procedural questions:

    1.  Wasn’t this argued back in the fall of 2012?  I could have sworn it was.

    2.  Was there any discussion of whether the plaintiffs have properly exhausted their administrative remedies?

    Some substantive questions:

    1.  How many charter schools are co-located?  The most recent figure I’ve seen comes from the IBO, which estimated that there were about 75 co-located charters in 2009-2010.  Do you have a source with a more recent estimate?

    2.  If we assume, for argument’s sake, that you won this lawsuit and the court ordered that the DOE must collect rent in the amount of $100 million from co-located charter schools, and the DOE did in fact collect that rent — how much of an impact would that have on class sizes for non-charter public school students?  If we assumed an annual cost of $100,000 (wages and benefits, and not including pension contributions, which I think is pretty conservative) per teacher, that would be an extra 1,000 teachers.  But if these schools are as overstuffed as the complaint alleges, I would think a lot of that money would have to go toward finding additional space instead of teachers.  Have you worked through any of these scenarios?

    3.  If we assume, for argument’s sake, that you won this lawsuit and as a result, every single co-located charter was forced to close — what impact would that have on class sizes?  There would be no rent check of $100 million, and according to your complaint there would be about 35,000 students that would have to be absorbed back into public school classrooms.  There would be some savings in terms of administrator jobs, but eliminating 75 principal positions would only save around $10 million or $15 million (using a generous estimate of $200,000 in wages plus benefits per principal).

  • Ginadavis

    Norm, lets hear it…Who is your choice for our new mayor??  One thing I do know, its not christine quinn.  I’m thinking you are going to go with Bill Thompson.  Thompson the former Bd of Ed. President would be a great mayor for nyc…Remember how he almost beat bloomberg??  Bloomberg spent 100 million in campaigning and Thompson spent 1/10th of that and lost to bloombird by only a few hundred votes…

  • Suzyq

    In NYC, there are approx. 3 million registered voters.  IN the last mayoral election, only approx. 1 million people voted.  Bloombird won the election winning 500,000 plus votes to Thompson’s 400,000 plus votes.  AND, bloombird spent 100 million thompson 1/10th of that amount

  • Thompsonformayor

    So you mean to tell me that bloomberg was voted in mayor by 500,000 new yorkers in a city of almost 10 million people!!!!! omg

  • KT

    That is so completely false. I am a Success Academy parent who is not strong armed into ANYTHING but will attend such events to fight for what is right – parents’ choice of great schools. We come out and support our schools because our kids are getting a great education!

  • http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

     Gina — are you his relative? Bill Thompson? The worst. He was Bloomberg’s fave last time — did you see how Bloomberg supported Thompson’s wife’s museum? Anyone would have gotten close to Bloomberg and a real candidate who campaigned might have won. Thompson is an awful candidate and I’m betting Bloomberg wants him to be the candidate even more than Quinn so Lhota can win. I like Liu because he seems to make the best stand. I want someone who will end mayoral control and most of these guys are for it.

  • wise owl

     First of all why don’t you move your charters into TWEED and/or CITY HALL. Guaranteed you would be welcome there by the almighty himself. You and everyone else does all these “things” to cooperate with the charter schools. How come these same parents did not give a damn when there kid was in public school.? How come there was no”agreement”  Are these the same kids who: cursed out their teachers, got suspended, did not show up, got into fights every day, did not do classwork, did not do homework, did not do any work, or little work, shake someone down in the bathroom, have sex in the staircase, bring a weapon to school, use drugs/smoke cigarettes the list could go on. You get the picture honey. I want to know if any of the above “categories”  fits your child and/or someone else’s. It’s easy to say that you want your child in a better school if your child is doing one some, or all of the above. How do you think I feel about a new evaluation that is going to judge me on these things? I’m supposed to get kids to pass classes/regents with all this going on?  Really? I posted and would like an answer from you how do you control their behavior in charter schools? YOU DID NOT ANSWER THAT QUESTION IN YOUR POST !Why?

  • wise owl

     You said that the witch Eva taught at many universities? That’s not”combat duty”. When did she teach in a NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOL? What was her license? How long did she teach for? What school did she teach in? Did she receive S or U on her observations/ratings. Was she tenured? Did she have a Masters. Yeah let’s get some “data” on her. Parents should have to sit in the classrooms of the kids who disrupt the class or get their welfare check cut off!!! Let them deal with it!!

  • wise owl

    I’m told that Eva taught? Please, she taught in a university. That’s not “combat duty”. You got people living in a fantasy on here. I think that the charter schools were offered to them as a last resort before their kids were locked up!!!!! If you don’t like what I said you can damn well lump it.

  • wise owl

    Good bye EVA and take your broomstick with ya!!!!

  • guest

     Are you all also in favor of stopping ALL co-locations? After all, many non-charter public schools are co-located together, with many of the same issues you lay at the feet of charters…

  • guest

     I know at least a few charters that would be happy to get their FULL per pupil allowance, which would pay for the rent of a private facility. Until that money is released, it is deeply unfair to say that they are “not paying their fair share.”

  • I noticed that…

    As per wiki, Eva taught in a university.  But prior to that she taught civic in a Prep for Prep school, which is a private school.  Here’s some info on the school and its origin.  Did Eva teach to inner city students?  No!  She would not have a clue on how to deal with the challenges that public school teachers encounter on a daily basis.  Teachers are grateful when parents are involved in their child’s education and they ensure that the child continues his/her learning at home. 

    But, the reality is in a public school we must accept every students with various degrees of issues (emotionally, physically, economically), different levels of learning some with 3 – 5 years behind academically, and socio-status of their home life (shelter, homeless, foster home, etc.).  At times, there are those students with a no-show parent for them to receive emotional support and those parents let teachers know that they are unable to get involved in their child’s education.  So public school teachers do their utmost best to provide the stability that the child is lacking at home in school.  So, if Eva can detail what challenges she encountered when she taught at Prep for Prep, please tell her to share them with the public.  She created to those charter schools to shun those students who need it the most, the emotionally deprived, academically challenged (IEP for ED), and sheltered-bound students.  Eva can’t handle those types of children, but the NYC public school teachers can. 

    “Founded by South Bronx school teacher Gary Simons
    with the support of Columbia University’s Teachers College, Prep for Prep opened
    its doors in 1978 with 25 students and three teachers. Eleven independent
    schools committed places in their seventh-grade classes that first year, and 22
    Prep students matriculated at those schools in September 1979. Today, the Prep
    Community includes over 4,000 students and
    alumni.”

  • wise owl

     Thank you. Like I said Eva has not done “combat duty”. I would love to throw her in a classroom with the kids of MY choice!

  • wise owl

    And the other guy who claims to have taught:Walcott? Another “playtime” job teaching kindergarten. Wow! that’s “combat duty” too. I ask the following about him too: How long did he “teach”? What was his license? Did he receive S/U on observations/ratings? Where is/was the school that he taught in? What were his “stats” for kindergarten” Did he have to worry about regents tests pass rates of subjects etc. You call this teaching? I call it a joke!

  • I noticed that…

    Exactly!

  • flerp

    I’m re-posting these questions for Leonie Haimson here.  I also posted them over at her blog.  If anyone else knows the answers, I’d love to hear them, because I’ve been asking them for a long, long time.  

    1.  How many charter schools are co-located?  The most recent figure I’ve seen comes from the IBO, which estimated that there were about 75 co-located charters in 2009-2010.  Do you have a source with a more recent estimate?

    2.  If we assume, for argument’s sake, that you won your lawsuit and the court ordered that the DOE must collect rent in the amount of $100 million from co-located charter schools, and the DOE did in fact collect that rent — how much of an impact would that have on class sizes for non-charter public school students?  If we assumed an annual cost of $100,000 (wages and benefits, and not including pension contributions, which I think is pretty conservative) per teacher, that would be an extra 1,000 teachers.  But if these schools are as overstuffed as the complaint alleges, I would think a lot of that money would have to go toward finding additional space instead of teachers.  Have you worked through any of these scenarios?

    3.  If we assume, for argument’s sake, that you won your lawsuit and as a result, every single co-located charter was forced to close — what impact would that have on class sizes?  There would be no rent check of $100 million, and according to your complaint there would be about 35,000 students that would have to be absorbed back into public school classrooms.  There would be some savings in terms of administrator jobs, but eliminating 75 principal positions would only save around $10 million or $15 million (using a generous estimate of $200,000 in wages plus benefits per principal).

  • wise owl

    This means Obamarama .Good luck to all who voted for him!

  • http://twitter.com/leoniehaimson leonie haimson

    According to the charter attorney there are now 101 co-located charters with 55,000 students. The rest of your questions are highly theoretical; many charters would likely be able to pay rent or find their own space especially the large and rapidly expanding CMOs that are expert fundraisers; Success Academies, for example had a surplus of $23 million last year.

  • Flerp

    Can you answer the theoretical questions? Use whatever assumptions you like about how many charters could pay the rent or find their own space. And you’ve often argued at charters are a net drag on public school resources. It would seem to follow that eliminating them entirely would result in a net increase of public resources per student. Why not try to demonstrate that point? Right now, it is completely unclear what effect charter schools have on resources allocation and class sizes.

  • bee

     ”Corporate Accountability is an oxymoron,” love it!

  • Newmayorplease

    Voting for christine quinn will be like having the past 12 years all; over again

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