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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Democracy Prep Streamrolls PS 197: Hats Off to Antoine Bogard for Leading the Resistance- Where was the UFT?

The more I think about the shameful performance of Leo Casey at the Left forum, defining public education in a way to include charter schools, the more it becomes clear what they are leaving school after school like PS 197 out there to hang on their own. Leo claims the union has a strategy. They must have studied the actions of France in WWII. 

Marjorie Stamberg reports:
A few of us went tonight to support Antoine Bogard, chapter leader at PS 197 in Harlem whose school has already been forced to co-locate with Democracy Prep, and now they want to grab even more space. The hearing was flooded with Democracy Prep people, all of whom were given yellow t-shirts, caps, pizza ordered in for them, their yuppie frat boy organizers handing out written scripts to the parents, lining up the students who have no idea how they are being used in the privatization wars!


Where were the UFT district and central office people tonight? They should have been out there to support PS 197 students and teachers.


Hats off to Antoine for standing up for public education in that environment! He made the powerful points as to the dramatic rise in class size from kindergarten on now that their school is being squeezed out by the charter.


--Marjorie
Previous Ed Notes reports on Democracy Prep and PS 197:
Stop Democracy Prep Charter Takeover of PS 197M ...
The Racial School Divide in Harlem: A Public Schoo...
Does internal union democracy help organizing ... 
What Ed Deformers Get Wrong About Going to College 
Treat Public Schools Like Ross Global Charter
Ross Launches Missile and Goes Ballistic
Jan 13, 2011
Wait till the Harlem charter schools not part of the favored Democracy Prep, Harlem Success or KIPP start to get squeezed out of the picture. We may have to push our new allies off the resistance boat with a stick.
 
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1 comment:

  1. Michael FiorilloThursday, March 31, 2011 at 11:56:00 AM EDT

    You are exdactly right, Norm. I have been writing for years that small, mom-and-pop, community-based charters are being used as Trojan Horses to pave the way for the big chains with political and venture capital juice: HSA, KIPP, Uncommon Schools, etc.

    After they've served the purpose, they'll be decreed to be "failing" also, to be replaced by the so-called non-profit big guys. As Eva Moskowitz and Wendy Kopp have proven, there's a lot of money to be made in education, even when you call yourself a non-profit.

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