FORUM @ PACE U-- Charter Schools: The Solution to the Crisis in Public Education?

Charter Schools: The Solution to the Crisis in Public Education?

As charter schools profilerate in NYC and across the country, pushing out traditional public schools and neighborhood schools, join an important discussion to try to make sense of the charter school movement and its impact on communities, parents, students and teachers.

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• Do Charter Schools actually represent a genuine movement to re-establish community control, parent choice and equitable education for ALL students? Or are they part of a larger movement sweeping the country and turning the public sector of education over to hands of privately run organizations?

  
  

  Do charter schools provide adequate channels for the democratic input of staff and parents? What happens when charter schools deny educators union rights, pensions and benefits?

  
  

  At this forum, we invite teachers, parents, students and community members to consider the role that charter schools play in the larger national agenda to privatize education in the United States. We will discuss the validity of their popular claim to support civil rights by providing parents of “failing” schools other options. Please join us.

  
  

  Charter schools are opening while public schools are closing or being placed in smaller spaces that hinder the expansion of public schools. Charter schools also have stricter admission policies. With all these “at-risk” or “failing schools” closing, where are their students going to go? Who will accept them?

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Join a discussion on these important topics and more!

Read excellent articles by:
LA teacher Sarah Knopp. "Charter Schools and the Attack on Public Education": http://www.isreview.org/issues/62/feat-charterschools.shtml.

and NYC teacher Brian Jones
Using "civil rights" to sell charter schools
http://www.slepton.com/slepton/viewcontent.pl?id=2562


May 4 5:30 p.m.
Pace University Student Union 1 Pace Plaza (look for signs)
2/3 to Park Place, A/C to Broadway/Nassau, 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall

Sponsored by:
The Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) to Defend Public Education is a newly formed coalition of NYC groups (Independent Community of Educators – ASC-ICE/UFT, New York Collective of Radical Educators - NYCoRE, TAGNYC, Teachers for a Just Contract - TJC/UFT, Teachers Unite) and independent individuals.

We seek to educate, mobilize and organize educators, parents, students and our communities against the corporate and government policies which serve to underfund, undermine and privatize our public school system. GEM advocates, both within and outside the UFT, around issues dealing with the equality & quality of public educational services as well as the rights of school workers.

Co-Sponsored by (list in formation):
Project Pericles at Pace University, Center for Immigrant Families (CIF), Independent Community of Educators (ICE), Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC), New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE), the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Teachers Unite

contact: asc.ice.uft@gmail.com, 718-601-4901

Get involved in the next planning meeting:

Wednesday, May 6 - 4:30 p.m.
CUNY Grad Center – Rm 5414
34th Street and 5th Ave. Bring I.D.