Lisa Donlan on Charter Co-Locos, Rent and More

"The Republican Democratic agenda in Washington doesn't even scratch the surface of the inequities facing more than a million children in our public schools," de Blasio DID NOT say in a statement after Cantor's remarks. In his statement, de Blasio DID NOT call the national Republicans' Democrat's stance on education a "dangerous philosophy that turns its back on public education, and it has failed many times before." ... WHAT DeB Left out

Of course NY State law requires that all charters pay rent. Bloomberg made an exception for his buddies... Rosalie Friend

Let's be clear -- parent choice overwhelming rejects charters school co-locations in public school buildings but in the world of ed deform only a certain minority of parents backed by billionaires get "choice."

Lisa Donlan (parent activist from the Lower East Side -CEC1) responded to my post De Blasio to Eric Cantor: Go Screw Yourself where DeB took a major shot at Republican ed policy, leaving out his compadres in the Democratic Party - esp given that at the very moment Cuomo was proposing the very Republican program deB is opposing. I posted it late last night and sometime in the middle of the night I woke up thinking: every single thing deB said could be applied to most Democrats. But we are giving Bill a big pass on this given that he IS a Democract as is Mark-Viverito, so let's leave room for so-called progressives.

Back to Lisa, who so often dashes off responses on listserves that are almost perfect stand alone blog posts. If she wasn't so busy I would work on her to co-blog here at ednotesonline as she brings a much-needed parent/community activist point of view. My commentary is embedded in [ ].

How many school districts give away space (esp of the magnitude and RE value of NYC) to privately managed charter schools? Klein invented the practice and led the way, actually using "free rent" as an enticement to encourage charter expansion in NYC as recounted here:

http://www.saintannsny.org/dev/images/alumniInTheFieldSaintAnnsSchool.pdf

In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg won control of the city’s school system and asked to be judged based on his reform of it – something which most NYC politicians dismissed as political suicide. His first act was to appoint as Chancellor Joel Klein, a public-school kid from Queens whose stellar career included heading the Justice Department’s attack on the  Microsoft monopoly. 

To introduce choice and accountability into the system, Bloomberg and Klein  encouraged the creation of 45 charter schools within the city. A charter school is a public school [NOT IN MY BOOK] – there is no tuition, and most of the funding comes from the state. But it is run by a board of private citizens and operates under a charter that can be revoked for  poor performance. 

Intrigued by this, I met in the fall of 2002 with Chancellor Klein to ask whether he was serious about letting private citizens run public schools. “Serious?” he asked at our 

first meeting. “We need public charter schools to show the other public schools how  accountability works. Would it be easier for you to start if I gave you free space in a public school building?”

Funny how Bloomberg's election and popularity were used to justify so many bad policies and practice yet when the shoe is on the other foot the same cheerleaders take the opposite stance.

Lisa

Yes, Lisa. They all wanted mayoral control - Students First and all the ed deform crew pushing it up the kazoo. So when a mayor exercises choice they don't like they go wild. I am not supporting deB's continuation of mayoral control here because even with a mayor you might like we don't want all the decisions in one hand -- can you imagine the pressures this guy is under from every special interest -- good, bad or ugly --

I don't want that kind of system where people with the most say or influence or money get their way. Imagine a system where the Student Firsts of this world had to lobby 32 different school entities?

Ahhh, the good old days where we saw the special interets (including our pals at the UFT) having to race to every part of the city.