PEP Again? Today at Fashion Industries HS, Tweed Gives Charters the Store

 EVAcuate our schools now!

Shit, Tis that season again and later this afternoon I have to drag my ass out of Rockaway where I'm enjoying the pleasures of mold spraying to head over the PEP meeting where every Tom, Dick and Charter will get whatever they want from Tweedies and the PEP. Eva is getting prime real estate school buildings in Grammacy Park and Hell's Kitchen (where I was at a Weds matinee of The Mystery of Edwin Brood yesterday).

Some MOREs are going to be there wearing their red shirts to support whatever effort will be made to fight the Eva paid hordes. 

We know the UFT is not really capable of fighting back on the charter co-loco issue, fighting to keep its own charters open in co-located public schools – Union-Run Charter School In Fight for Survival.

When I read this tweet: 

 jimschachter ‏@jimschachter

Are the problems of the UFT's East NY Charter School proof unions shouldn't run schools? http://www.schoolbook.org/2012/12/19/union-run-charter-school-in-fight-for-survival … @SchoolBook @WNYC

My response was:

Norm Scott ‏@NormScott1

@jimschachter @SchoolBook @WNYC Unions should fight to eliminate charters not run them

But, alas, the UFT/AFT/Randi crew have cast in their lot with charters by running one in a public school building, which pretty much takes that dog out of the big fight, leaving them to provide minor assistance to what turns out to be a losing battle without any big guns to stand up to the charters.

By the way, did you see the latest lying claim from the charters that co-loco schools have more space?

NYC Public School Parents: 

Yes, Virginia, charter school co-locations do indeed cause more overcrowding

 

Well, below are some leaflets MORE has produced for the PEP and  when we speak some

Talking points on charter schools

*They are not public. They are often run by corporations as for-profits.
*They are selective, filtering out low income, special education and ELL students.
Despite the screening, research shows that 80 % of charter schools students perform the same or worse than students in public schools.
Talking points on co-locating schools:

*895 of the system's over 1,700 schools share space with other schools in 328 buildings.
*Co-located schools have competition over access to libraries, gyms and cafeterias. Students face eating lunch as early as 9:45 or as late as 2:00.
*Co-located schools have less access to support services such as social workers or guidance counselors. They have eliminated space for tutoring or for professional development, further hindering their ability to serve special need students.
*Co-locations have been a large part of the PEP agenda over the last year: the DOE made around 100 co-location proposals in 2011 to 2012. --Dep. Chanc. Marc Steinberg.
*Co-locations are a strategy that is now expanding nationally –from Florida, to Louisiana to Texas.

Talking points on how charter schools connect to the co-location strategy:

*Co-locations are the avenue for expanding the growth of charter schools in a tight real estate market.
*The 102 co-located charter schools create the greatest amount of tension around co-locations.
Examples of effects on at schools:
*With co-locations, students in the public schools face glaring inequities when compared to students in co-located charters schools, said the NAACP:
*Students have been barred from using nearby bathrooms, and told to use bathrooms on other floors, causing them to have accidents.
*District school-charter school divisions in a building create separate but unequal cultures:
*Classrooms with peeling paint and aged equipment; and no working Wi-Fi Internet on the other side: new computers, Smart Boards and working air conditions.

*At Alfred E. Smith High School, the Bronx, the Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industries program, part of the Victory Schools charter school network has been scandal ridden: its founder and former chairman faced federal embezzlement charges. In just the 2009 to 2010 school year, the principal and five of fifteen teachers left, along with one-third of its students.
What does MORE advocate instead?

*MORE stands for equitable school funding and more resources to the schools that need them the most.
*MORE says that instead of competition, we should focus on reforms that promise
one free, fair, high-quality and integrated public education system.