....those leaders are beginning to craft their legislative priorities, which will include eliminating the state’s cap on charter schools, increasing funding for established charters, and establishing more accountability measures for district schools and teachers. .. Capital Education, http://bit.ly/1xIwy5bWell, here you have it. I think the fat lady has sung. Accountability for DISTRICT SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS BUT NOT FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS. I spoke to an elementary school teacher yesterday who said the teachers in her school don't see the charters as a threat - yet - because it is an area they have not invaded - yet. It is in places like Central Brooklyn where public schools have been emptying as the more upwardly mobile parents, who used to have the safety valve of the top tracked classes which have been eliminated under BloomKlein through heterogeneous mixing and now get a retracked system through charters.
Pretty soon every area of the city will have charters creeping up their asses and teachers will find colleagues disappearing as their schools get cut and co-located. And for those senior teachers who think they are safe - the attack on tenure and the use of VAM will finish off the higher salaried people. Oh, da doom and gloom for the New Year.
But it’s still too soon to assume they’ll have the cooperation they need from the Legislature to get their agenda items passed...the unions’ allies in the Assembly could deliver on what the charter groups are seeking in exchange for action on some of their own education priorities.Do you think the current attack on Shelly Silver is unrelated to this point? Not that I consider him a great defender of our rights but possibly somewhat of an obstacle to the charter lobby plans.
The de Blasio camp will not even put up much of a fight, seeing their pre-k initiative as higher priority and also realizing they won't win the charter battle. The UFT/NYSUT is basically toothless at this point.
Here is a summary of a very good piece at Capital, which you should read in full at http://bit.ly/1xIwy5b
WHAT CHARTER GROUPS WANT IN 2015—Jessica Bakeman and Eliza Shapiro for Capital magazine: New York’s charter school advocates have poured millions of dollars into electing a State Senate hospitable to their agenda items for the upcoming legislative session. Now, those leaders are beginning to craft their legislative priorities, which will include eliminating the state’s cap on charter schools, increasing funding for established charters, and establishing more accountability measures for district schools and teachers. After a hugely successful session in 2014—at the political expense of teachers’ unions and their highest-profile champion, Bill de Blasio—pro-charter groups say they expect the Senate and Governor Andrew Cuomo once again to come through for them.
In the last session, back before Cuomo’s humbling re-election campaign spoiled his aura of invincibility, the governor put the full force of his power at the disposal of the charter cause, rebuking the teachers and de Blasio and, along with the Senate, delivering sweeping charter protections that now require New York City to accommodate or pay for new schools approved by the state. It wasn’t a close fight: substantively and politically, the fight ended in a knockout. Before Election Day, Cuomo promised to fight the public school “monopoly” in New York.
Perhaps more important than Cuomo’s priorities is his willingness to take on the state’s powerful teachers’ unions. … Leading pro-charter and anti-status quo groups have plenty of resources, even after their considerable (and highly effective) spending in the last election. But it’s still too soon to assume they’ll have the cooperation they need from the Legislature to get their agenda items passed. http://bit.ly/1xIwy5b
8 comments:
I notice there are never any posts on this sit simply because the author seems to write with fear in his blood
Call it fear or whatever. I prefer to call it doom. When you don't have a union to fight for you then what are you left with? Attempts to organize masses of teachers will not happen until they are half way over the cliff.
Yes I agree teachers will mobilize when they are threatened with termination
Mr Mulgrew
WHERE ARE YOOOOUUUUUUU
We are 3/4 of the way down the cliff in Newark and running for the exits is the only viable strategy.
Sad, but true. The new generation of teachers are as oblivious of their rights as they are of the Armageddon that is awaiting their careers. They are sheep being led to oblivion by the UFT. However, the union should ponder the reality that once the sheep are gone, there's no need for a shepard (especially if it's a wolf). Great blog.
I agree with Bronx ATR - teachers will not even mobilize when threatened with termination -- instead of going over the cliff with their eyes closed they will be able to watch their fall all the way down. As long as we have a union that has one foot - if not both - on the other side or tries to straddle the middle, teachers have little mechanism to fight back. It is incredibly hard to build organizations to fight them from the bottom up. Here is where I disagree with Bronx ATR - the enemies who are smart know full well the UFT leadership serves a function for them - there will always be some remnant of a public school system with some kind of union and the shephard is needed to keep them from going wild - ie like say a work slowdown ala the police? Imagine a union that tells all its teachers to throw down the useless paper work and refuse to do it. Ahhh, dream on.
There are plenty of posts on this site----just not posts on everything Norm writes. We read but don't always comment. Norm's not Chicken Little---the sky really is falling---unfortunately too many people have their head up their asses and don't see it. Roseanne McCosh
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