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Topics in the News:
charter schools
For a movement that prides itself on quantifying results, most studies of charter schools are shabbily done, according to a review in the Jan. 13 issue of Science.
“The mayor seems to be lost in his own fantasy world of education, the one where reality doesn’t apply,” declared UFT President Michael Mulgrew in response to the mayor’s State of the City speech on Jan. 12, in which, among other proposals, he threatened to fire half the staffs in 33 schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant support.
A lot of residents in Cobble Hill do not like the idea of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy being shoved down our throats. Moskowitz can learn a thing or two from the operators of Brooklyn Prospect. When faced with community opposition to their temporary location on Hicks Street, they found an alternative.
When charter school impresario Eva Moskowitz comes knocking at your school’s door, the Department of Education lays out the welcome mat. That’s what parents and educators in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood discovered when the city’s Panel for Educational Policy on Dec. 14 gave the green light to the co-location of Moskowitz’s newest Success Academy in a local school building already housing three schools.
By a unanimous vote, educators at the Merrick Academy Charter School ratified their first contract on Nov. 3, capping a three-year struggle for recognition and a contract. The new contract includes salary increases as well as tuition reimbursement for Merrick educators who have worked for one full year at the school.
Reaching a key milestone, educators at the Bronx Academy of Promise, a charter school located in the Morrisania neighborhood, ratified their first union contract on Oct. 12. The contract, which went into effect immediately, covers the 28 teachers and five teachers’ assistants at the kindergarten-through-grade-4 school.
In another victory for the UFT’s effort to organize New York City charter schools, educators at Fahari Academy Charter School in Brooklyn announced on Oct. 4 that they have organized a union at the school and intend to join the UFT.
After an Oct. 14 evening panel featuring UFT President Michael Mulgrew, celebrated educator Deborah Meier, Green Dot founder Steve Barr and parent advocate Mona Davids, the more than 100 charter school educators in attendance returned to UFT headquarters on Oct. 15 for a full day of workshops and panels on “building a progressive charter school movement.”
More than 100 charter school teachers from around the city came together at UFT headquarters on Oct. 14 for an evening panel discussion that kicked off the UFT’s two-day fall charter conference and professional development event. Entitled “Fulfilling the Promise: Building a Progressive Charter School Movement,” it featured prominent speakers from within and without the charter movement.
The Walton Family Foundation plans to spend $15 million to significantly expand the number of charter schools in California. The Bentonville, Ark.-based foundation, which is overseen by the family of Walmart founder Sam Walton, said it is investing in the California Charter Schools Association, which represents more than 900 charter schools serving 365,000 children.
In what the UFT charges was retaliation for union activity, 13 teachers at Opportunity Charter School who had signed union authorization cards in May were summarily fired just days before graduation in June. Colleagues, parents, students and union representatives rallied with several of the dismissed educators outside the school on August 4, calling for their reinstatement.
Despite an outpouring of protest from district school parents, teachers and students, the city’s Panel for Educational Policy on June 27 voted to move forward with all 18 of the charter school co-locations before it.
UFT members greeted charter school demonstrators in front of 52 Broadway on June 27 with offers of breakfast treats and conversation as the charter advocates called on the union to drop its lawsuit against 18 co-locations.
A community dental clinic in a South Bronx school must shut down. An award-winning robotics program in a Harlem school has to give up its room. Another elementary school in Harlem is losing its showcase art room. These are among the sacrifices that district schools are being forced to make to free up room for charter schools to move into or expand in their buildings, according to a team of UFT and NAACP representatives that recently visited the schools.
Dozens of parents, teachers and students held a press conference on June 13 outside the Department of Education’s headquarters to announce that a new organization of public school parents, the New York City Parents Union, will file a lawsuit against the city related to the suit already filed jointly by the UFT, the NAACP and other plaintiffs to stop the city from closing 21 schools and co-locating or expanding charter schools in another 18.
A state judge on June 21 extended a temporary order barring 21 school closings from proceeding and halting co-location plans in 18 other schools until he decides the case.
The UFT resolves to continue to work with fellow plaintiffs, parents, community residents, civic organizations, education advocates, clergy and others to oppose the DOE co-location policy pending a court ruling on the lawsuit.
Defending the NAACP and the UFT against a coordinated attack on their recent lawsuit challenging school closings and co-locations, NAACP President Hazel Dukes convened parents, press and politicians in front of the offices of the Harlem Success Charter Network on June 3 to set the record straight.
As educators, one of our defining beliefs is the principle that we do not use the students entrusted in our care as a vehicle for promoting and accomplishing our political agendas.
The number of Detroit public schools shrunk by half in just six years. Now the emergency manager of the Detroit school system is implementing a predecessor’s plan to turn 45 city schools — one-third of the remaining total — into charters by the next school year while closing another 20 schools.
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