Upper Manhattan Parents Protest Space Giveaway to Success While Public School Kids Are Over Capacity

We call upon Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina to pull out of the deal to site the Success Academy charter school at the Mother Cabrini educational complex located in District 6.  We urge them to consult with the District 6 parent community and collaboratively determine how to use the Mother Cabrini space for current District 6 students.....

Cuomo and NY State legislature order de Blasio to find space for Eva but not for overcrowded public schools. A press conf was held Weds night.

By the way - the UFT was silent over the charter deal - why are they hiding?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 Contact:           Tory Frye 

                                                                                                            Johanna Garcia

May 21, 2014

 District Six Public School Parents Advocate for Using the

Mother Cabrini Space for Current District Six Student Needs  

Press Conference

When: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 @6:30 PM

Where: Isabella Geriatric Center (515 Audubon Avenue at 191^st Street)

New York City – District 6 public school parents call attention to the inequity and injustice of the city paying the rent of a Success Academy charter school, to be located in the Mother Cabrini educational complex located in District 6, while current District 6 students are educated in trailers, substandard school facilities and overcrowded classrooms, and while numerous District 6 schools are over overcapacity and/or face imminent co-locations that will compromise students’ educations.  The Success Academy charter school in question was never approved for District 6; rather it was originally approved for District 1 and then moved to District 2.  There was no community engagement of any kind with the District 6 parent and neighborhood communities regarding locating a charter school in our district.  District 6 parents are distraught that their children’s needs and their schools’ needs, to improve, expand and flourish, continue to be ignored and hampered, while charter schools are fully supported in expanding and at great expense to the taxpayer.

Gale Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President, writes, “The siting of a Success Academy charter school at the former Mother Cabrini High School is taking place with zero transparency and no public input. For years, families in the community, CEC members from District 6, and education advocates have put in the necessary hours of dialogue to lay the groundwork for Mother Cabrini to successfully transition from a Catholic school to new and much needed public school in the district. Success Academy was never a partner in this effort and to be the recipient of this space is nothing short of a hostile takeover. This sort of opaque decision-making only breeds resentment and creates divisions. New York must do better.”

Evelyn Roman, public school parent and Parent Association President at District Six’s Mott Hall School says, “The Mott Hall School is the highest performing Title I School in District 6.   Despite this, it has been left to languish in a “temporary” building for 27 years.  This building has no cafeteria, using a makeshift one instead, no gym, no library, limited outdoor space (that is currently in violation of building codes), and tiny classrooms.  The current Mott Hall space was never intended for use as a school. Mott Hall parents have been advocating for new and adequate space for over a dozen years to no avail.  It is painful that well-equipped spaces, such as the Mother Cabrini space, have been offered to charter schools, funded by special interests, while our Mott Hall children are once again ignored and the hundreds of students who each year seek to attend Mott Hall are turned away due to lack of space.”

Miriam Aristy-Farer public school parent and President of District 6 Community Education Council (CEC6) notes, “As a District 6 parent and CEC6 president, it was troubling to learn about Success Academy coming to District 6 and Mother Cabrini via the local news, illustrating that there was no public engagement process of any kind. As a parent at a co-located District 6 school, given how quickly this decision was made after the state budget passed, I found myself depressed and asking if we New York City public school parents are actually now worse off than before.  This is very different from the future we envisioned after the Bloomberg era."

Johanna Garcia, a parent whose children attend PS/IS 187 and the Vice-President of the PTA, says, “Speaking on behalf of the PS/IS 187 community, the neighborhood school sitting just a block away from Mother Cabrini, we feel especially betrayed and disappointed in the utter lack of community input in the decision-making process.  In the past seven years, budget cuts to our school alone have exceeded $1.5 million, resulting in the loss of more than twelve teachers and three aides. Our school is bursting at the seams and grossly over capacity. So much so that two years ago, our popular universal pre-kindergarten program was squeezed out due to overcrowding.  The District 6 community deserves and, frankly, was expecting better from the new Administration.”

Yuderka Valdez, IS 52 parent and school leader says: "Earlier this year over 2,000 JHS 52 parents and District 6 community members signed a petition against the co-location of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high school in the M052 building, when it was first proposed by the Bloomberg administration, because we knew that such a co-location would irreparably damage our children’s school and education.  Now we learn that city will spend tens of millions of dollars to house a charter school in a space that would be perfect for the incoming CTE high school, sparing our school and our students."

Finally, Kari Steeves, District 6 public school parent states, “The parents of Muscota New School, one of 3 progressive elementary schools in District 6, see many needs in our district that will go unaddressed and unfunded, because public money will be directed toward charter space, not public school space. Most urgently for our children, we have identified the need for a progressive middle school in the district to allow students to continue their education within the progressive model. We have expressed this need to our elected parent representatives on the CEC and the District Superintendent.  Rather than supporting this need and others identified by our fellow D6 parents, the city will now pay rent for and renovate space for a Success Academy charter school at the beautiful Mother Cabrini campus, even though there has been no movement within the D6 community to bring a Success Academy charter into the district. Parents at Muscota call on the state to repeal the amendment to the 2014 budget that guarantees publicly funded space to charter schools, which makes clear that the state neither trusts nor cares what local parents want for their children.”

We District Six parents, elected parent leaders, public education advocates, and the elected representatives who support us urge our state representatives to introduce legislation to undo this disastrous policy, which forces the city to house or pay rent for charter schools. We call upon Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina to pull out of the deal to site the Success Academy charter school at the Mother Cabrini educational complex located in District 6.  We urge them to consult with the District 6 parent community and collaboratively determine how to use the Mother Cabrini space for current District 6 students. We note that the District 6 Community Education Council recently passed a resolution in opposition to the state budget provisions, urging our state elected leaders to rescind them and calling on the Mayor to work with the community to address the urgent needs of District 6 students, in particular the use of the Mother Cabrini space. All are welcome to join us on Wednesday May 21, 2014, at 6:30 PM at the Isabella Geriatric Center (515 Audubon Avenue) to hear from District 6 public school families affected and support our District 6 public school parents, students, schools, families and communities.

                                 ###################################

Victoria (Tory) Frye
vicnyc@me.com

A PEP Lovefest; I Compare Eva Moskowitz to Global Warming

Last night I attended my first PEP meeting under the new administration and it was quite a lovefest directed at Carmen Farina, even from critics. Even my usually sour presentation was tempered. The meeting was sparsely attended and there were critics there, but even they thanked Farina for at the very least, the stand to defend the autistic and other special ed kids at the Mickey Mantle school from Eva's outrageous demands they be kicked out for her 194 "scholars." That the De Blasio administration couldn't make this point clearer - even with their own ads, is sad. At the very least the UFT should have done some ads, but then they would be subject to attacks over their own co-located charter that was resisted by parents and teachers they displaced.

Throughout the evening Carmen brought such charm and humor to the table for the first time in 13 years people felt good about the administration even when they disagreed on all the other co-locos Farina allowed. People from Mickey Mantle school made some wonderful speeches that should be put in an ad attacking the shit out of Eva.

I have a batch of videos, including one from Francesco Portelos. However, the event was for the first time livestreamed and will be available for viewing in a day or 2. I will try to save you the trouble of parsing through it by highlighting.

Naturally, I'll start with my speech where I compare Eva to global warming. When I ask what might have happened if Carmen closed the schools like Eva did, she said, laughing, "I did close them. For a snow day."I stayed within my 2 minutes - though they were very liberal in allowing more time - and had a lot more to say. Like if the millions spend on Eva ads were used to buy them a building. Or their phony stats. Maybe I'll do a follow-up in April. My belief is even though we are a spec, getting the info on the web serves as some minor counter to the Moskowitz machine. And one of my Wave columns this week also deals with the issue.




Busy day today with the DA and the District 14 forum. I'll add more videos to this post as I get to them and then repost this with the updates.

Will de Blasio Dump Moskowitz' Ill-Gotten Gains as Eva Throws Tantrum?

The last minute push by Bloomberg to get as many Eva Moskowitz charters into as many neighborhoods as possible reminded me of the American rush to leave Saigon in the waning days of the Vietnam war. Two October PEP meetings were set up to beat the clock and Moskowitz walked away with the biggest bundle. Law suits were filed over one of the final outrages of the Bloomberg administration. Public Advocate Tish James has put hers on hold until the outcome. And apparently Evil has got word that it is not looking good for her. So she is throwing one of her tantrums.

At this moment I don't even care about the other charters. In some ways it would be smart politically for de Blasio to allow many of them to go through and just chop Moskowitz for her avarice and naked political ambition to use kids and parents for her own ends.

Her peeps have given 800K to buy Cuomo, the UFT's buddy - and she is trying to pull any power play she can, including pulling the kids out of school.

Here are reports from Ravitch with links to the Geoff Decker piece on Charter beat.

Eva Moskowitz Plans to Fight Mayor de Blasio in Albany by dianeravitch

Eva Moskowitz, the combative CEO of the Success Academy charter school chain (previously called Harlem Success Academy), anticipates that new Mayor Bill de Blasio may charge rent for her use of public space or may deny some of the co-locations offered in the waning days of the Bloomberg administration. Moskowitz enjoyed preferential treatment when Michael Bloomberg was mayor and had immediate access to Chancellor Joel Klein. Those days are over, as de Blasio has pledged to review all future co-locations and to consult with local communities.

Moskowitz issued a statement promising to take her battle for more schools and more funding to Albany, where she has friends in Legislature and in Governor Cuomo. According to a report by Geoffrey Decker in Chalkbeat, charter advocates--some of whom are on the board of Eva's chain--have contributed more than $800,000 to Cuomo. Eva will bring busloads of students to Albany with her to impress the Legislature, something that no public school would be permitted to do. In addition, a charter advocacy group called Families for Excellent Schools will mount a multi-million dollar TV campaign to block de Blasio's efforts to rein in the charter movement.

Where Are Rhee, Kopp, Klein, Moskowitz, E4E, DFER When it Comes to Defending Food Stamps Program (SNAP)?

.....you might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. ... Paul Krugman, NY Times

You mean SNAP might actually be more effective in fighting poverty than charter schools or TFA teachers? Yes it is.

economists Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach have studied the impact of the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was gradually rolled out across the country. They found that children who received early assistance grew up, on average, to be healthier and more productive adults than those who didn’t — and they were also, it turns out, less likely to turn to the safety net for help.

 So all these people claim to be fighting the civil rights issue of our times by building political machines to fight teacher unions, tenure, urge teachers be evaluated by test scores, pour loads of money into defending the common core.

... almost two-thirds of SNAP beneficiaries are children, the elderly or the disabled, and most of the rest are adults with children.... 

You might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. 

Where is the outrage from those intrepid ed deformers on this issue? Not one dime to fight a real struggle against the Republican assault on hungry children. What better example of their true agenda than to see Eva Moskowitz close schools for half a day to march against De Blasio's plan to make them pay the damn rent? (City charter school advocates plan to reprise a 2012 political rally. GothamSchools, Daily News, Post)

Conservatives seem, in particular, to believe that freedom’s just another word for not enough to eat. Hence the war on food stamps, which House Republicans have just voted to cut sharply even while voting to increase farm subsidies.

Hey Paul. It ain't just conservatives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0&pagewanted=print

Astoria Queens District 30: SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE SHOULD REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of annual student suspensions for the schools for which data is publicly available is well over three times higher than the rate of annual student suspensions in all of District 30,  
WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of teacher turnover for the schools for which such data is publicly available is well over twice the rate of teacher turnover in District 30, and such teacher turnover robs students of a stable instruction population and systematically prevents the creation of a stable school community ---- CEC, District 30

Resistance to Eva grows and even if battles are lost, the ability of Success to wage long term war will be affected. Resos like this, while not binding (unless mayoral control is tweaked enough), they count as public anti-Eva comments and eventually wend their way into public consciousness while they also force the Eva publicity machine to put out fires in many locations.

But we are aware of DOE and external forces coming attempts to control the powerless CECs (except for their ability to gain some press) and in fact to start placing charter school adherents onto these boards - as has happened with the ed deform slug Brian Davis in Dist. 6.

At the May 16, 2013 Calendar Meeting, CDEC30 unanimously approved the following resolution:

 

RESOLUTION #96

CALLING ON THE SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE TO REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY’S PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT 30

AND CALLING UPON NEW YORK CITY TO REJECT ANY REQUEST BY

SUCCESS ACADEMY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL SPACE IN DISTRICT 30

WHEREAS, District 30 is proud to be host to many excellent and successful public schools, including several well-considered charter schools; and

WHEREAS, on March 21, 2013, Community District Education Council 30 passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on all school closures, phase outs, and charter school co-locations; and

WHEREAS Community District Education Council 30 continues to be opposed to co-locations of charter schools in district schools without the approval of the district; and

WHEREAS, along with adjoining District 24, District 30 is one of the most overcrowded districts in New York City, such that at the request of City Council member Julissa Ferreras the DOE convened a task force to collaborate with the community to establish long-term solutions to address overcrowding, which task force held its first meeting on April 25; and

WHEREAS, District 30 is currently operating with an average building utilization rate of 104 percent; and

WHEREAS, New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott has conceded that “Overcrowding is an issue we take seriously,” and

WHEREAS, the overwhelming majority of charter school seats in District 30 are in private buildings which serve to provide additional seats for students in this overcrowded district; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has stated in its application to the SUNY Charter Institute that it only intends to open a school in District 30 if it can co-locate in a district school, with no acknowledgement that District 30 is already overcrowded and lacking in space for the schools already in the District; and

WHEREAS, serious concerns have been raised concerning student and teacher safety at schools co-located with Success Academy schools as a result of Success Academy’s performance of construction work without DOE approval; and

WHEREAS, District 30 has 13 elementary schools rated an “A” in their most recent New York City Department of Education Progress Report, which is over half of the elementary schools in District 30, and eight schools for which Progress Reports have shown improvement over the past two years; and

WHEREAS, District 30 offers numerous options for parental choice including, but not limited to, no less than five dual language programs, with a sixth opening next year, three district-wide gifted and talented programs, a citywide gifted and talented program, a sought-after NEST program,  several magnet schools, and five other charters schools each with its own theme; and

WHEREAS, District 30, along with District 24, has one of the fastest growing populations of immigrant students in the city, with dozens of languages being the native tongues of students and their parents including but not limited to Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, Punjabi, Greek, Tivetan, Nepali, Albanian, Philipino/Tagalog, Portuguese, Hindi, Polish, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, French, Romanian, Haitian Creole, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Gujarati, Indonesian/Bahasa, Pashto, Italian, Burmese, Farsi, German, Bosnian, Tamil, Armenian, Slovak, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Yonba, Belorussian, Telugu, Macedonian, Hebrew, Swedish, Tigre, Dutch, Georgian, Malayalam, Dzonghka, Bihari, Malay, Slovenian, Guarani, Hausa, Lithuanian, Marathi, Uzbek, Visayak, Bambara, Cham, Fulani, Ibo, Malagasy, Mongolian, Niger-Congo, Sindhi, Turkman, Twi, Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Baluchi, Estonian, Khoisan, Loma, Maltese, Mandinka, Nahuatl, Native American Languages, Norweigan, Romansch, Shluh, Sundanese, Swahili, Tamazight, and Yoruba; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has not made its petitions, enrollment materials, parent contracts, or other documents available in any languages other than English and Spanish; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of annual student suspensions for the schools for which data is publicly available is well over three times higher than the rate of annual student suspensions in all of District 30, despite the fact that such figures reflect only suspensions of students in grades K-6, whereas District 30’s suspension rate includes students in grades K-12; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of teacher turnover for the schools for which such data is publicly available is well over twice the rate of teacher turnover in District 30, and such teacher turnover robs students of a stable instruction population and systematically prevents the creation of a stable school community; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has not shown that there has been any significant number of applicants from District 30 to any of its schools.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Community District Education Council 30 hereby calls upon the SUNY Charter Institute and the New York State Board of Regents to REJECT Success Academy’s preliminary proposal, and any subsequent proposal made by Success Academy to open a school in District 30; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Community District Education Council 30 hereby calls upon the New York City Department of Education, the Panel on Education Policy, and the Chancellor of the New York City Schools to REJECT any request by Success Academy to be co-located in any public school building in District 30.

VOTED AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED: May 16, 2013

                       

Regards,

Gail Cohen

Administrative Assistant

Community District Education Council 30

28-11 Queens Plaza North, Room 520

Long Island City, NY 11101

718-391-8380

718-391-8500 (fax)

Visit CDEC30 on Facebook! Just copy and paste the link below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Long-Island-City-NY/CDEC30/228546964309

 

WAGPOPS Has Partner in LAPOPS in Cross Country Battle Against Citizens of the World Charter

Eric Grannis (Eva's husband) should be strapped to a public school he is invading and have his liver eaten by buzzards (his heart has been gone a long time). The amazing Brooke Dunn has done it again and keeps doing it. See a previous item in Citizens of the World charter from Brooke at Norms Notes: Brooklyn Charter School Targets Rich, White Parent... as the Ed Deform so-called "civil rights issue of our times" support racist segregation policies while the major media is complicent  - or just too busy trying to find out where parent activists are sending their kids to school.

Many of you know that WAGPOPS! (Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents: Our Public Schools!) has been fighting Los Angeles based Citizens of the World Charter Schools for the past year and a half.  The good news is that we have a sister organization, LAPOPS! (Los Angeles Parents: Our Public Schools!) in Los Angeles.  We've also developed partnerships with parents who attend Citizens of the World Charter Schools (CWC) in Hollywood (CWCH) and Silverlake (CWCSL).

We've amassed some unbelievable information (with documentation) regarding the schools themselves and the impact on NY for their expansion.

The LA schools are being asked to pay (retroactively as well) 1% of their per pupil funds for licensing, or the right to use the name "Citizens of the World," but here's the rub:  CWC NY schools will be forced to pay 3% of their per pupil funds for the same right to use the name "Citizens of the World," and that % will climb higher in future years - up to 8%!!!  This is NOT standard practice in NY Charters and is just for licensing.   Management and services are separate fees and percentages.

The licensing fee was only mentioned in a single sentence in the proposal to SUNY, and was not included in their submitted budgets, although it was mentioned in the SUNY recommendations to approve the charter.  I'm not sure if SUNY or the Regents are aware of this.  It's a pretty significant figure with millions of dollars funneled out of NY into CWC National. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  

CWC has been under-servicing ELLs in their LA schools, and have legal action pending against them from at least 3 families who's children with special needs almost died from negligence, one was found lying in a pool of her own vomit when she picked her child up form school (be sure to scroll to the end where the parents made the Board amend the minutes to include their testimony).  The negligent teacher from CWC SL was promoted to principal of the soon to be opened CWC Mar Vista!  You can't make this stuff up!

http://www.cwchollywood.org/docs/2-27-13%20CWCLA%20Board%20Meeting%20Minutes-updated%204-23.pdf . 

“When I arrived at the school approx 20 minutes later I discovered my daughter lying face down on the office floor, passed out and covered in her own vomit. The two individuals in the office at the time had no idea this had happened as they were occupied with photocopying behind the front desk.”

“The harsh reality of the situation is that if I was not in the front office my son would have died in the classroom.”

“I have been verbally requesting an IEP since the start of school and until February 7, I was ignored. Since this initial meeting on February 7 nothing has been resolved. In fact, my son has not been at school since he is not safe here.” 

The parents in their LA schools (CWC Hollywood, CWC Silverlake, and the soon to open CWC Mar Vista) were forced to consolidate to a "sole member" LA Board with the "sole member" being "CWC National."  This new National Board was made up of all the individuals from the scandal ridden Wonder of Reading (http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/NBC4-Extra---Book-Wars-Episode-Two.html ), notably Kriste Dragon, the former head of Wonder of Reading who folded the organization and funneled $2M into Citizens of the World, placing herself on the Board.  Dragon pulls the strings on all the Boards, and commands a salary of $240K while she lives in Atlanta.  Meanwhile, at the CWC NY "Meet the Principals" events, CWC staff is telling parents that they have a governance structure that is different from the LA schools, even though CWC NY will also be a "sole member" Board with CWC National as the sole member.

The CWC LA schools are financially unstable.  They're using money fundraised from CWC Hollywood to support the sustenance and opening of other schools against parents wishes, and have repeatedly been told by their outside management network that they are running out of funds.  

Finally, on top of 40-50 students leaving CWC SL in the middle of the year next year, CWC SL will be losing all but one teacher.  I've never heard of a teacher turnover rate like that, even at Success Academy!

We got some recent press coverage for CWC spending their resources targeting mostly white, affluent famillies: 

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130423/crown-heights/brooklyn-charter-school-targets-rich-white-parents-enrollment-plan-shows?cluster_id=177953&index=1&group_hood_id=73165

and

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2013/04/citizens-of-what-world-recruiting.html

Any recommendations for next steps are much appreciated.

Best,

Brooke

Eva Steals DOE Lights Charges Co-Loco Blog

The weekend before school opened this September, the charter school laid out $400,000 for a haz-mat team to install all new lights in their classrooms. The lights installed in Success were all taken from storage where they were stored, scheduled to be installed in other schools over the coming months. 

The 400G number seems high, even for Eva. But since tax money is paying part of the freight, why not? Eva will soon be bigger than the defense budget.

Inside Colocation

The public school where I've been teaching for the last 8 years has been targeted for a "colocation" with a corporate-model charter school. Most people, including me, don't know what a colocation looks like, though we've heard bleak stories. I've started this blog to document it as best I can.

6th Dec 2012 | 1 note

The lights in the back are the old fluorescents that most DOE schools were equipped with for years. As each strip dies out, it gets replaced with the new lights you see in the front. It’s typical to see classrooms with a combination of old and new lights. The weekend before school opened this September, the charter school laid out $400,000 for a haz-mat team to install all new lights in their classrooms. The lights installed in Success were all taken from storage where they were stored, scheduled to be installed in other schools over the coming months. 

Norm in The Wave: The Big Lie(s)

The Big Lie(s) and Where Bob Turner Stands
by Norm Scott
Dec. 9, 2011

Well over a decade ago they were branded as radical education reformers looking to change the way education is delivered. They were embraced by both those on the right who had been attacking public schools as a monopoly and liberals on the left who had become frustrated at the lack of progress. As an experienced educator I know from day one that they were tossing around a load of crap - no real reforms but a political ideology based on making changes that would in the long run reduce the costs of education, mainly from the largest source - the labor factor - ergo, teacher salaries. I could never manage to even use the term "reformer" and indeed started using quotes around the word until I came up with the term "education deformer" because that is what they were doing - deforming education.

The mantra of the Education Deformer
Did you know that the reason almost a quarter of the children in this nation are poor is because we have a lousy educational system? And why do we have a lousy educational system? Because we have lousy schools. And why to we have lousy schools? Because we have lousy teachers. Research shows we are told - though the actual research is rarely sited - that the biggest in school factor is not high class sizes or the principal or the number of children struggling with academics or family problems or the lack of resources provided by the people running the system – but the teacher. And didn't you know that the reason we have so many lousy teachers is because the teacher unions prevent the removal of so-called lousy teachers. But, oh, we really do love most of our teachers but if only we could remove those few bad apples. And in order to do that we have to eliminate the unions - or at the very least take away their collective bargaining rights and maybe even their ability to recruit new members (wink, wink: so we can weaken the ability of the only organize any opposition to turning the billions of dollars of public school funding over to private hands).

And we need school choice (charters) since only competition and free enterprise can work. Hey, maybe we can do the same with the police and fire departments - set up competing agencies in some higher crime and higher fire neighborhoods - so that when there is a fire people can decide whether to call 911 or 912.

Of course the only way we can accomplish any of the above is by turning over entire school systems into the hands of one person – usually the mayor – and thus removing any vestige of democratic governing or control over the billions of dollars that go into the education budget. Even better if he happens to be a billionaire who can buy the press, politicians (see Christine Quinn, et al.), and many local community organizations that might put up opposition.

And there's another big lie. That the above is a Republican attack on the public education when in fact just about every Democratic politician, led by the Commander-in-Chief and his Education Secretary attack dog, Arne Duncan who was appointed after 7 years of failure leading the Chicago school system down the road to failure following the very same ed deform policies. Did Obama, who has out-Bushed Bush on ed deform, live in Chicago, which led the way with ed deform starting in 1994, with blinders on? My answer is NOT. In fact, Obama has proven himself to be corporate all the way in so many ways that the charges he is a socialist is absurd.

So where does our local Congressman Bob Turner stand on ed deform? As I pointed out in my Nov. 25 column, Turner is a free enterprise guy. You know the type. If Eva Moskowitz' Success Charter spends $1.5 million in advertising – $1300 per child they manage to recruit and then complain that the public money they get and the free space in pubic schools is not enough – while the local public school may not even have a working copy machine – that is the free enterprise system. When the day comes that the most capable students are lured out of the local public school, leaving an underfinanced hulk with struggling students and the poorest parents, thus leading to that school being closed and parents having only a Moskowitz-run school to go to – unless they are special ed or from non-English speaking families which Eva doesn't take into her schools – there is the free enterprise system at work for you with a privately controlled monopoly replacing the supposed monopoly that had been under public control.

And speaking of Turner, he wrote a piece in The Nov. 18 edition of The Wave extolling his support for veterans. Paul Krugman wrote a column in the Times on November 13 about a proposal from Mitt Romney (whom Turner will support if he is the Republican nominee) to privatize the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) by offering vouchers.

Krugman writes:

American health care is remarkably diverse. In terms of how care is paid for and delivered, many of us effectively live in Canada, some live in Switzerland, some live in Britain, and some live in the unregulated market of conservative dreams. One result of this diversity is that we have plenty of home-grown evidence about what works and what doesn’t. Naturally, then, politicians — Republicans in particular — are determined to scrap what works and promote what doesn’t. And that brings me to Mitt Romney’s latest really bad idea, unveiled on Veterans Day: to partially privatize the Veterans Health Administration (V.H.A.). What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform. Many people still have an image of veterans’ health care based on the terrible state of the system two decades ago. Under the Clinton administration, however, the V.H.A. was overhauled, and achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control. Multiple surveys have found the V.H.A. providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers. Furthermore, the V.H.A. has led the way in cost-saving innovation, especially the use of electronic medical records.

I say this all the time about politicians and union leaders: watch what they do, not what they say.
Norm blogs at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/