UPDATE at July 14, 5 PM: The Judge ruled that the Temporary Restraining Order would continue so that Success Academy is barred from renovating the spaces in Waterside and Sheepshead Bay until he rules on the application for preliminary injunctions in both lawsuits, which he intends to do as soon as possible.... The DOE immediately argued that these cases should be dismissed, based on their view that the issue should have gone to the Commissioner first instead of to Court, and if not, they should be granted another 45 days to research and argue the other claims made in the lawsuit.
The Judge seemed surprised, but seemed to ignore that request, and immediately dove into the more substantive questions: namely, whether the Educational Impact Statements should have mentioned the potential impact of these proposals on class size, and more specifically, whether DOE should have analyzed how the loss of rooms at the existing schools might prevent them from lowering class size, especially considering the new class size law passed last spring by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor this fall.
The city's defense seemed to be primarily based on two narrow issues: that the state law that requires EIS's does not explicitly mention class size, and again, that any legal challenge should have been filed with the Commissioner first, as matters such as class size are so complex that they require education expertise. ....Leonie Haimson: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2023/07/hearings-today-on-lawsuits-o-block.html
There was no UFT presence in court other then a lawyer from Stroock, the UFT law firm. The other lawyer, Laura Barbieri from Advocates for Justice, has worked with Leonie for years. So clearly the UFT is involved but they are trying to stay low-key. No attempt to engage the members in showing resistance, like having people outside. UFT leaders fight a tepid battle against charters, other than a very few. Very, very, very few. Compare to the big crowd of mostly retirees rallying across the street from the courthouse on July 6 to greet the emerging Marianne Pizzitola and the team of lawyers the day before they won a temporary restraining order on the Medicare issue. The lawyers made the poing that showing up influences the court. Mulgrew is no Marianne.
Retirees rally, July 6
An astute observer stated to me recently about UFT lack of response to attacks from the right on their charter policy -
Makes little sense since the NYP & WSJ will blast them anyway, so why not try to get more objective press there?My response is - what actually makes sense about the UFT/Unity semi-brain trust nowadays? They try to slide instead of proudly owning an anti-charter policy. In essence, they leave the field open to right wing propaganda. But I imagine a response from them would be to show how they don't really oppose charters instead of SCREW 'EM.
Monday, July 17, 2023
I posted the press release Leonie sent out Friday morning: Block co-location of 2 Success Academy charter schools - July 14 - 2 lawsuits, challenging DOE co-location and re-location proposals - With our Favorite Judge
A teacher at the Sheepshead Bay HS Campus, which is deeply affected by the co-loco issue, asked me who was behind the court case opposing charter co-locos and, of course, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters had a strong hand in it. Not much sign of UFT involvement - except for the clue that one of the lawyers was from Stroock, the law firm used by the UFT (and where Randi came from).
As a school building under threat from an Eva invasion, why weren't the teachers in the affected schools mobilized or even notified? Because the UFT tries to fight charter from under the covers for fear of being accused of being anti-charter by the right wing and even the liberal media. Duhhhhh! They'd attack the UFT even if they did nothing. I have links to the Rupert Murdoch press attacks below.
The UFT and charter schools has an ugly history, going back to the Al Shanker creation of the very idea of charters. I myself saw the charter option as attractive in the late 90s as a teacher empowerment tool to get out from under DOE bureaucracy and dictatorship supervisors - I even urged Randi to provide UFT support for members who wanted to start a charter school - naturally they would be a UFT school - and if she listened to me the landscape might not look the same. Teachers would choose the supervisors - a revolutionary concept but one that has been used in Europe and elsewhere.
What happens when teachers run the school
I've always maintained that a teaching staff should chose the principal, not the DOE.
But Randi had a different idea - have the UFT itself open charters - which they did and they did not do very well --- the UFT is just another bureaucracy, after all. My plan would have teachers, not the union or a corporate entity, running schools. Randi put me on a committee to plan a charter school with CCNY but that fell through. Then I realized -- the UFT leadership is as afraid of empowering teachers as the DOE and the corporate world is. Once I was clued in that teacher power was a dream, I turned against charters.
Now, the UFT does oppose charters in some ways but weakly. They support charters if they meet certain conditions.
Support for charters is a fundamental contradiction to support for public schools.
The UFT does not focus an attack on the idea of charters as a drain on public funds and the creation of a dual system that ultimately harms all students. Or call for the conversion of charters back to public schools.
The UFT does openly fight lifting the cap on NYC charters, so some credit there. Note this headline from Jan. 2023: He took a position on NY State charter authorizing bodies.
NY teachers union wants changes to charter schools:https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2023/01/30/united-federation-of-teachers-wants-changes-to-ny-charter-schools
Yeah, I want changes. I want the ed scam of the century - think Bit-Coins - gone.
