Charter Schools Threaten All Public Schools

Gotham Schools reported that Teach for America is sending the bulk of its recruits to charter schools next year in New York to avoid the hiring freeze.

Teach For America is now sending more of its corps members to city charter schools, which are exempt from the hiring freeze.

Elizabeth Green reports at Gotham:

There’s another round of federal stimulus dollars that local school districts can hope for, but it may be out of reach for New York schools. That’s because the state has a law Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says could jeopardize applications for the funds: a cap on the number of charter schools educators are allowed to create.

Duncan told Congress last week that, in awarding a new pot of stimulus funds meant to encourage innovation, he will give preference to states without charter school caps. He said he would also give preference to states with caps that agree to lift them.

There goes the NY State Cap. And then it's Katy bar the door as the big charter school conglomerates charge in and take over swaths of NY public schools. Do you think white areas like Bayside are exempt? See one recent event in Marine Park, Brooklyn.

When will NYC teachers get the message that this is part of the plan all along? To place a charter school in every public school to draw away the kids most able to make the school look good, while hiring non-union teachers. Over a period of years, they will take more and more space,while the public school and the teachers in it wither away.

Angel Gonzalez wrote to the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) listserve

A charter school in a public school is like a hungry pac-man monster that will not cease until it devours the whole building. This is still a round-about way of the school-closings of the Mayor & Klein. This corporate agenda will turn our public schools into privately run franchises (& for profit over the long haul) will only be stopped if we fight back in a unified citywide fashion.

If UFT educators lose the no-layoff clause in the new round of negotiations (our contract expires in Oct 09), it is possible that teachers would be terminated when schools or parts of public schools are "closed" with these charter intrusions. Teachers are thus victimized in cites like Chicago and DC when schools are "closed". I wouldn't put it past Bloomberg and Klein to do the same to us in NYC since they have been waging a consistent campaign to blame teachers for their failures to improve schools.

Charter schools are privatization and are not the answer.

To further fight this issue, GEM will be marching in Co-op city this Friday, May 29th @ 2:30pm to oppose the charter school being housed in PS 160.

More:
Bronx parents in Coop city fight charter. Rally this Friday.
http://www.bxnews.net/http%3A__www.bxnews.net/Co-op_City.html

Videos and pics of the Marine Park event posted at GerritsenBeach.net

Bill Thompson, Lew Fidler, Anthony Weiner at Public Hearing for Hebrew Language Academy Charter School

Norm in The Wave on Marine Park Protest