On Morality and Charters: Do Former DOE Officials Michael Duffy and Sonia Park Violate Ethics in Running NYC Based Charters?

I say they should not be allowed to have used their positioning as public employees to profit. If they want to open charters let them go to another city.

ANOTHER CHARTER MOVES FROM D2 to D1?

Great Oaks Charter MS, run by Michael Duffy (former head of DoE's charter school office), wants to move to D1 [in permanent (?) space}, following the lead of Innovate Manhattan Charter School that moved form D2 to D1 a few years back,  and as SACS/Eva  just tried to do recently.

Michael Duffy looks to join his colleague Sonia Park (also a former head of the DoE's charter office and now the Executive Director of two Manhattan Charter Schools,- one DoE authorized, the other replicated by SUNY CSI) running a middle school charter in D1.

MCS is up for a renewal and has proposed expand ing to middle school grades.

This charter feeding frenzy is fueled by the media and the Governor, both heavily subsidized by the hedge fund-run charter lobby.

NEWS FLASH:

 D1 just received word of yet another charter middle school proposal: City Arts Charter.

The arts charter proposal  for a new middle school was heavily critiqued at a CEC meeting last year as uninformed and not needed.

 The request for a charter was rejected by the authorizers, but the charter is back, with a new proposal for a MS in D1.

Increasing middle school seats, of which there is currently an overcapacity according to the DoE student assignment planners, will have disastrous impact in our all-choice district.

The small DoE-created MSs that currently serve very high proportions of high needs students  (ELLS and students with IEPs, the students these charter schools do not take in proportion to our community schools) will lose student enrollment,  thus increasing the proportions of high needs student and decreasing the resources available to them.

Running separate and unequal parallel education systems in an uncontrolled market place does not work for students, families and communities.

That charter schools are not held to the laws passed 5 years ago mandating that they serve proportionate numbers of high needs students is a travesty.  The charter authorizers have refused to regulate themselves and the schools they spawn, dragging out the implementation of the law over 10-15 years.

Meanwhile our students with disabilities and our English language learners are largely concentrated in high needs schools, while the charters  cream and then preen over their superior  test scores.