Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Thursday, November 19, 2009

CHARTER SCHOOL WARS
HEAT UP THE LOWER EASTSIDE!

The Fight to stop BloomKlein's Charter School bumrush is heating up! Here are two video reports from the Battle Against Girls Pep Charter School in District 1.

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Here's a Ednotes Online report from that powerfully raucous meeting...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com
Thursday, November 19, 2009

Wild Night at CEC1 Meeting on Girls Prep Charter: Updated

Last night saw an outpouring of public school parents from many schools on the Lower East Side (district 1) opposing the DoE/Girls Prep charter to expand to include a middle school. But that is what charters do. They keep expanding until there is little remnant of the public school they occupy. If you want to compare it to a cancer, feel free to do so.

The Gotham School report on the meeting captures little of what really went on. I left this comment:

Were we at the same meeting? I think this report doesn't represent what really went on last night. It was one of the few times where a massive opposition to the way charters are placed has occurred, akin to the Marine Park protest against the Hebrew Charter last May and the PS 15 protest in Red Hook against the PAVE expansion in Sept. But that meeting was somewhat balanced between the groups. The CEC 1 meeting was overwhelmingly opposed by an extremely large number of people, while Girls Prep had little comparative representation. (They probably don't have the same resources Eva Moskowitz has to hire buses.)

The fervor of the crowd reached epic proportions of anger and condemnation of the DEO and its policies toward shared space. There were few attacks on Girls Prep reps though they were outnumbered at least 10 to 1. Almost every public school in the area was represented, with a few principals getting up and making a statement. Many teachers and parents spoke about the DEO methods of judging whether a school has space. A method that doesn't account for the realities of how schools really function. The theme of the evening was the divisive tactics used by the DOE to pit schools against each other. But that is the mantra of the ed deformers. Throw them all into the pit and see who emerges, but all along the way make sure to tip in favor of the charters. Strong statements were made by local politicians too.

Is there any question that Girls Prep, which as was pointed out yesterday moved out of PS 15 claiming they only would go to 5th grade, but is now reversing and asking to go to 8th grade. And one day will ask for more space to go to 12th grade I would bet.

The only question is which school gets caught with the hot potato. Bet on the one that had the least presence yesterday. PS 20 and PS 184 may have won a reprieve with their massive presences yesterday.

Note: I find it interesting that there is one quote from each side with the Girls Prep founder disparaging quote equating an art room with a civil rights issue being given such prominence when there were a hundred things said by opponents of all the plans that were more relevant.

Fair and balanced?

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The Coalition for
Public Education

Coalición por la
Educación
Pública

Who We Are
What We
Want

The Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública is an independent, non-sectarian, and non-governmental organization with short, middle and long-term educational and social goals. We believe that education is a human right and we want to ensure that New York City public schools are places of learning in which all stakeholders (parents, students, educators, non-pedagogical staff, administrators and the community) are engaged in a democratic process to provide a free and quality education to all its students, from Pre-school to College.

Our coalition is based on antiracist/antisexist democratic grassroots organizing concepts and not based on the idea that any one individual, politician, union leader, or political messiah will save us.

Our coalition will participate in election campaigns but will focus on mass action as a primary vehicle for social change.

Therefore, we will organize the distribution of leaflets, mass rallies, forums, civil disobedience, petitions, referendums, web-based actions, economic boycotts, and other grassroots tactics. We also understand that we are not alone in struggle and that we must unite with other groups and individuals who support democracy, self-determination and the empowerment of our communities.

What We Want:

I. A Peoples' Board of Education

II. Local control of our Public Schools not Mayoral Dictatorship!

III. Better Public Schools not Charter Schools!

IV. Power to Parents, Students and Educators!

V. Implementation of a mandatory Antiracist Curriculum!

VI. Recruiting educators from our neighborhoods to achieve racial parity!

VII.Money for Education Not War!

VIII. OUR Schools = Neighborhood School Control!

NYC EDSTATS You Can Use

New York City Schools by the Numbers

By John Tarleton
www.indypendent.org

$12.5 billion: Annual New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget (2002)

$21 billion: Annual New York City DOE budget (2009)

1,719: Number officials employed by the DOE central administration in June 2002

2,442: Number of officials employed by the central administration as of November 2008

2: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2004.

22: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2007.

5: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2003.

23: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2008.

944: Number of contracts approved by DOE in 2008, at a total cost of $1.9 billion.

20: Percentage of contracts that exceeded estimated cost by at least 25 percent.

$67.5 million: Annual budget of Project Arts, a decade-old program that was the sole source of dedicated funding for arts education. It was eliminated in 2007.

86: Percentage of principals who said in a 2008 poll that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes in their schools.

100,000: Number of seats DOE plans to provide for charter school students by 2012.

25,000: Number of seats DOE plans to build under 2010 to 2014 capital plan.

66,895: Number of K-3 school-children in classes of 25 or more during the 2008-09 school year.

15,440: Average number of seats per year built during the last six years of the Rudolph Giuliani administration.

10,895: Average number of seats per year built during the first six years of the Bloomberg administration.

27.2: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were Black.

14.1: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were Black.

53.3: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were white.

65.5: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were white.

76: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Latino students in 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) in 2003.

75: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic students in 8th grade ELA in 2008.

77: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2003.

81: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2008.

54: Percentage of New York City public school parents who disapproved of Mayor Bloomberg’s handling of education, according to a March 2009 Quinnipiac poll.

Sources: New York City Council, New York City Comptroller’s Office, New York Daily News, New York Post, Eduwonkette, Quinnipiac Institute, Black Educator, Class Size Matters, New York City Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein.