The Fat Lady Has Sung -- WHAT CHARTER GROUPS WANT IN 2015

....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/1xIwy5b

Well, 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