And a comment came in on the previous post making another important connection to the location of the charter and how it was connected to the massive Arverne by the Sea which I believe owned the trailers where the school was located.
Just as shady, is the issue of locating the school close to Arverne By the Sea as a selling perk for Smith's real estate buddy. Wonder how many buyers that lured?!?!?!Leonie Haimson, who takes a good shot at Michael Duffy (and Anna Philips for quoting him but leaving out how much money his company made off Peninsula Prep) who was a Tweed Troll for years and used his position to get a job paying him a lot of money (let's make a ban on this as an addition to ed law) to nycednews listserve:
I really have no idea what the underlying motivation of DOE might be here; but according to their own (unreliable) accountability system, a school like Peninsula Prep w/ three "Cs" is vulnerable to closing -- and I believe other regular public schools in that category have been closed.In Oct. I made a list and and discussed the various charters vulnerable to closing on the basis of their grades on the progress reports:Note the five charters in light yellow; these are authorized by the NYC Chancellor, and thus can be closed by DOE. Who knows why they picked on Peninsula but did not close the others?Peninsula Prep paid large management fees to Victory -- 23% of per pupil funding acc. to GS -- and has been involved in lots of scandals, as Norm notes -- though none of this is mentioned in the DOE report that advised against renewing its charter.
The DOE's decisionmaking remains totally obscure to me, but remember also that
My question is this: why did Anna Phillips of the NYT quote Michael Duffy, former head of the DOE charter office, who now works at Victory, as an independent observer on the implications of the school's closing, w/out mentioning the financial connection between the Victory & Peninsula Prep? Did they dissolve their relationship? In any case, this should have been mentioned.
Or did I miss something? I have read through the article twice now and don't see the connection mentioned.
Based on what I've read so far, your and Leonie's analysis sounds right, but don't forget that part of the endgame for charters is for the "little guys" to be closed and replaced by the chains: KIPP, Uncommon Schools, HSA, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe DOE's school closings and reorganizations are only superficially irrational. Like a dishonest stockbroker who constantly churns his clients' accounts in order to get commissions, the ed deformer's actions are partially based on enriching themselves through constant turmoil and throughput - the speed and volume of change - in the system. Accelerated throughput provides ever-more opportunities for politically juiced consultants, EMO's, coaches, networks and other parasites to leech off the system.
Victory is a big EMO - were for profit but new 2010 charter law forced them to play that non-profit game. Interesting that the original CEO was Peg Harrington who ran NYC HS or at least the Queens op but there was some scandal I believe -- and of course she was forced out by the BloomKlein takeover any way but came back with a flourish.
ReplyDeleteYes, Norm, we sent a representative to a PPrep parent association meeting in 2010 to warn them about the mismanagement, corruption and low academics at their school. We asked them to demand answers from their school about why their children were in trailers, where's the money etc.
ReplyDeleteThey were not interested because as usual they believed school leaders and board members.
It's nothing new for us. We went to East NY Prep and RGA to warn those parents too, they refused to believe us.
There are other parents at charters we're warning now, and they don't believe us.
Lastly, we're pleased Opportunity Charter was renewed. Working with those parents and CEC3 (Noah & Christine) we fought back against the "evil" empire that wanted their space. We launched a website, petition campaign to Regents members, electeds and DOE, media campaign, held a rally with a march around the school and threatened legal. We raised hell for OCS
The online petition was successful with over 600 signatures and heartfelt pleas for the school. http://www.change.org/petitions/put-children-first-before-politics-renew-opportunity-charter-school
I'm sorry for PPrep families and hope other charter parents take note. Stop drinking the Kool-aid when you know your school's mismanaged and not providing a quality education for your children.
PPrep will close at the end of the year. Nothing anyone does will change that.
PPrep parents should join with other Rockaway parents and demand DOE fix the district schools.
Mona
Mona Davids
917.340.8987
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PPA got out from the Victory contract a few yrs back and is now self-managed and has made great progress since then.
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