charter school co-locations in crown heights/prospect heights??
i'm wondering whether anyone on this board has elementary age kids and knows anything about the charter school network that is apparently trying to open in D13 and D17. this link:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/35/9/dtg_newsuccesscharter_2012_03_02_bk.html
suggests that they are trying to open up 2 charters in PH and CH. i am not interested in this school in the least, but as an area resident and prospective K parent in D13, i am concerned about our local schools. i know this charter chain tries to co-locate with district schools and am curious whether folks who are already "in the system" have heard anything more about this.
Comments
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I have no real info here. But a group of young, white females approached me at the Franklin Ave subway stop to ask if I'd sign a petition to get 2 new charters in the neighborhood. My response was "Oh, he'll no" and walked away. As soon as I was on the train, I regretted not engaging in a conversation with them. But I spared my husband the headache of hearing me argue with some strangers on a street corner, I guess. Ugh.
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lol! your reaction may have been better than an argument, anyway. i hear they hire people who don't know anything about these issues anyway. just curious -- when was this?
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This was just a major deal at PS 9. In the case of PS 9, It's a clusterfuck of politics if you ask me and a slap in the face of parents who have worked tirelessly to Improve the public school system. My only experience with charter schools have been from other parents and friends of my son. The large majority have not been happy with them.
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This was maybe 2 weeks ago.
My school where I teach is struggling to find enough space in our tiny building that we share with 2 other schools (all public). A space opened in a school building 2 blocks away that would have made it so all of the schools had enough space for their populations. But we didn't get it. A new charter school did. It didn't matter what arguments were made, what was said ... if the government wants a charter school in that space, they're almost positively going to get it. It's disgusting. So now we don't have a library, a gym, or enough classrooms. Our out-of-classroom professionals (speech teachers, ESL teachers, etc) work out of old single-stall bathrooms that had the toilets removed. It's ridiculous. But that charter school has tons of space, don't you worry.
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I almost feel like they want public schools to fail.
That mess with PS 9 was crazy. What makes the situation even more bizarre is that current research on charters is mixed, but in general most charters perform WORSE than their public school counterparts. They talk about giving parents a choice, but they don't want to consider a pre-K-8 proposal, which has proven to be an effective school model given academic performs tends not to decline between 5th and 8th grade (not so with the current middle school model).
My advice to people in the neighborhood is to start mobilizing now, get your parent organizations together and come up with your own well researched plan if you want to keep charters out. Get teachers on board and your local elected officials. It makes absolutely zero sense that we pay taxes and get such little say in how the schools in our communities function.
What's going on with education is sorry these days. I don't have children, but if I did I would certainly be at a loss regarding where to school them. Private schools are too expensive, I don't like the education models of most charter schools, and SOME public school teachers and administrators need to be fired.
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PS 316 went through this last year. They were successful for a number of reasons. It's no coincidence that schools in Districts with less parent involvement have have more co-located charter schools. This takes resources away from the zone (elementary only) and community and opens up the neighborhood's resources to a District, Borough or city-wide lottery.
It's really sad to see prospective parents want to get involved with their zoned school only to give up (because they realize that it can't be improved much) and look elsewhere when they realize that their zoned school. shares a building with a charter. -
Today's NY Post states that most charters have a waiting list, and seems to imply while some parents want to save the public school system, lots really want to escape it.
http://m.nypost.com/p/news/local/charters_hot_ticket_in_burg_and_PnV0U7SDYOCRUNOmn0COiM
P.S. I read the Post only when it is already on the table where I eat lunch.
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The public school system could be expected to work a bit better if it was organized more like a corporate meritocracy rather than an industrial textile mill.
For starters, get rid of unions and tenure. Introduce 360 reviews and across the entire hierarchy, not just for teachers. Implement and tarck individualized professional development goals, rather than simply providing rewards based on continuing education credits.
(And yes, obviously, teaching to the tests is an idiotic practice imposed top-down that needs to be remediated. But the problems are much deeper and more endemic based on my admittedly detached view of my wife's public school teaching career.)
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you can't trust the NY Post generally, and specifically w/r/t charter school stuff. rupert murdoch funds a lot of the efforts to privatize public education, and i take that conflict of interest to the heart.
so, these "waiting lists," they aren't audited and the schools of course don't ever substantiate their claims with proof. and it also doesn't really have anything to do with "wanting to escape" the public school system, because you can (in theory) apply to as many elementary schools as you want.
the charter chains use a single application for all of their outlets, and specifically invite you to check a box for all the schools, no matter where you live. so my guess is that they count a single kid multiple times for multiple schools and thus create their "waiting lists." and that has nothing to do with ultimate enrollment. the UWS outlet of this charter chain couldn't even fill its kindergarten after touting a supposedly long "waiting list."
another point - before you can apply to a zoned school, the staff requires you to prove your residency and that the kid exists with three different forms of documentation. and the most popular zoned publics will strenuously discourage you from applying if you're not zoned. none of this is true for the charters. if zoned publics had applications online that simply required a checkbox, and the charter "waitlists" were significantly higher, then i might be convinced that the number is relevant. but for now it's just a cheap way of purporting that they have more comparative support than they can actually prove.
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eastbloc - i don't disagree that changes could be made to improve the system. but charters haven't been shown to "work a bit better," and that's the issue here. some parents are happier with charters, but this seems to have as much to do with the fact that they generally have more money and therefore a nicer environment, and the self-satisfaction that is encouraged by the fact that they are doing something "different" for their children, even if that different thing is not proven to be better. and it's because the charter movement can't substantiate its claims to be better that they have now moved on to the rhetoric of "choice." it's a moving target, but none of it justifies undermining successful local schools.
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vaportrail - i'm wondering if the charters are making a grab for ps 316. the article mentions 2 schools in PH/CH area. this doesn't make much sense to me as a general matter, but even more so because PH (d13) really just has the PS9 building, which won't have capacity, and a middle school which already is full. ps22 and ps316 are also in the area, close enough to PH, but ps22 already has new schools slotted for its building. ps 316 shows up on the underutilized report, but one would hope they'd give the school more than a year in between proposals to co-locate to gather steam...
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My wife is on the PTA at 316, as well as numerous other committees/boards/other involvement. Charter schools have consistently tried to make inroads towards 316 (a FANTASTIC public school, by the waY), and have yet to succeed. Here's hoping that continues.
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I suspect the charter schools are being aggressive at securing space now, because they believe that the next mayor will be less pro-charter.
Bloomberg has been the Mayor charter schools dream about.
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whynot, i suspect you are correct. it would certainly be hard to be MORE pro-charter than Bloomberg. But DFER is throwing so much money around these days that it's difficult to know what to expect (see Hakeem Jeffries). i suppose it depends on the core constituency and fundraising abilities of the candidate, and perhaps more specifically whether said candidate has federal ambitions.
ntfool, many thanks to your wife for her good work. and good luck fighting the next charter battle should it come to you. ps 316 building just seems to have a lot of capacity (according to the DOE), and now that the charter chains have decided to abandon the mission of educating at-risk students in preference of poaching middle class students in brownstone brooklyn, it seems sadly inevitable that they will be headed our way again and again.
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PS22 is closing and charters are moving in. I had friends who taught at 22 and saw it coming for years.
That said, I think that while Bloomburg is a supporter, so is Erne Dunkin. He thinks that he is giving districts "choice" through the Race to the Top which he thinks is SO MUCH BETTER compared to No Child Left Behind...yet all it does is make districts "choose" what he likes so you get the money. And he likes him some charter schools.
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In case Mr Duncan is not as famous in readers' households as Bloomberg:
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stacey- thanks for that! But Explore-Exceed is a different school than the one in the link I posted. I had heard that ps22 would close and be replaced by 2 new schools. That PS 22 is already fully "allocated" by the DOE to other new schools is one reason I was wondering how the other charter chain (SCN) could find room for not just one but two more schools of 600 kids each in the PH/CH area (and one more somewhere else in D17). I guess we will find out.
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The city and state have directly exacerbated the school space/location issue through several steps they have taken.
1) They have refused to provide charter schools with any facilities funding, instead opting to co-locate. This creates a immediate and direct battle between charters and regular public schools for limited space and resources. Contrast that with the approach in Washington DC where every school (regular or charter) receives the same amount of $s for facilities costs. For regular schools its simply a line item in the budget, and charters receive the funding as part of their per pupil costs. As a result, charter schools have chosen to develop their own stand alone facilities in neighborhoods and in cases where those schools have failed, there are existing spaces for new charters or overcrowded public schools to expand into.
2) The city and state have allowed developers to build significant amounts of new housing without building out school spaces to accommodate new families. If developers were required to build smaller school spaces (say large enough to accommodate 400 children) as part of their incentives/tax breaks those spaces could be open for either public school expansion or charter school development.
This isn't a battle that should be occurring, but it is happening because the politicians aren't engaged in thoughtful problem solving, but are simply trying to avoid advocating spending ANY money for additional school space. The bottom line is if every charter school in the city were to go away tomorrow, the NYC DOE would still need to have classroom spaces to accommodate those kids which currently do not exist. School Construction Authority should be out negotiating with the catholic church for purchase/rental of empty catholic school facilities, but rather than doing that, their focusing everyone's attention on this us vs. them battle which only obscures the real issue - there aren't enough school facilities to accommodate the growing number of kids in NYC.
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Related reading on the challenges facing charter schools in need of facility and capital funding:
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/001/117/FinanceGap.pdf -
homeowner, i don't disagree with what some of what you're saying, but in my view the "real issue" not simply real estate. just for starters, where's the need for two new large disciplinarian-style elementary schools near the border of PH/CH?
the charter movement is explictly a move toward privitazing the bulk of public education, so the "us v. them" mindset is not incidental but actually central to the approach of the so-called reformers. they claim it's all about competition, which means someone must lose. right now it is regular citizens who are losing out to politically-connected billionaires (like the Waltons and the Gates Foundation, which funded the study whynot linked to) and their (billionaire) allies in the government.
my problems with this are many, but most significantly: 1) it's not an even playing field, so it's not a fair competition; 2) their claims to be "winning" are generally unverified and based largely on #1. recent studies are showing that not only do charters generally fail to outperform traditional schools, but also that where they do outperform it is because they tend to have a population that is better off than the populations at local zoned schools. the way this is playing out in NYC is that the local schools - without the extra funding streams, fancy law firms, $1m advertising budget, slick PR campaigns, or DOE support - are being undermined to the direct benefit of the charters.
as for the "funding gap," it's pretty obvious that a business, "non-profit" or otherwise, would want free rent from the government if they could get it. but plenty of nonprofits pay rent, they're not entitled to free space, and right now, i don't think the public is getting enough in return for what the charter school expansion is costing and will cost in the future.
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The NYT ran a short piece on charter schools this weekend. I didnt find it especially thought provoking.
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/03/19/why-some-parents-resent-the-success-charter-schools/
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The Education Committee of Community Board 8 will meet, tonight, at
CNR
727 Classon Avenue (btw. Prospect & Park Places)
7pm - 9pmThe agenda for the meeting has time dedicated to open comments. All who are passionate about the quality of education in our community should attend.
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When a charter school is able to get space in an existing public school, it clearly has advantages over the public school: It is able to exclude students, and punish and reward teachers easier than its public school competition.
Such advantages give those of us who think about the soci-political-cultural-racial consequences lots to think about, and type about.
Meanwhile, I think such concerns not the primary motivator of most prospective charter students and parents. Understandably, they may choose the school that appears to "actually want them", or that has the best facilities.
On these fronts, the charter schools excel.
-They advertise for students and parents, whereas the public schools don't and/or can't.
-They find donor money to make their schools attractive, whereas the public schools don't and/or can't.
For example, it does not take much imagination to believe that the soon to be built Brownsville Ascend Charter School will be far more attractive than the existing local school.
Will it provide the kids with a better education? Who knows. But I have a hard time blaming the parents for being susceptible to the pitch....
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But the advertising from charters only points to their corporate backing, not grassroots embrace of their model. Parents should not be fooled. The charter school advertising is wasteful. For example my child is a 1st grader at PS 9 but we are the target of continuous unsolicited mailings for charter schools that admit students only in kindergarten or 5th grade. In a time of scant resources going to NYC public schoolchildren it is a shame to see money wasted on corporate priorities like ad blitzes.
At PS 9 you won't see wasteful corporate ad campaigns, but rather the work of tireless parents and school administrators who attract donors and run grassroots events like movie nights, auctions, box top collections, and on and on, to raise money to improve the school. That is the difference.
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Jetsy, I agree with you on every point.
...but we both can think of many examples of people consuming something due to advertising that they wouldn't otherwise. After all, that is why businesses advertise.
As written about elsewhere, the charter schools have long structured their admissions and academics so that they will attract parents who believe that hard work and involvement will result in bright futures. They are careful to avoid stating that those in the traditional public system lack these qualities. ....instead, they attract those who may have reached such conclusions on their own.
I agree, the logic of the parents, and the outcomes of the schools are questionable. That's the beauty of advertising, you dont have to have a better product; you merely have to lead enough people into believing it is better, or that the you are somehow "different" in a way that people suspect might be positive....
Guess which floor of the public school building is going to always have fresher paint: Yup, the floor that has the charter school.
Like it or not, lots of people assign meaning to things that might be meaningless, like paint.
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I would not disagree that people are susceptible to slick advertising! And while I'd agree that charters have long promoted the idea of hard work, the encouragement of parental involvement is not uniform among charters. In fact, for years many of the charters didn't have PTAs because management didn't want "rival" sources of power in the school. Yes, you need to promise to have your kid there on time, and that they will do their homework, but to me that falls into the category of "discipline" rather than "involvement."
Further to that point, some of the internet commentary about the recent NYTimes article on PTA tension in gentrifying schools made it plain that a lot of folks (middle class or otherwise) aren't interested in being involved in the school, or in fundraising - yes, they want their kids to be educated well, but they don't want to or can't help with that work to the extent that the budget for it isn't already there. And I think that those parents are attracted to the idea that someone else (a board full of hedge funders) is going to be getting those resources for them, and they don't particularly care what their kids (or society) might be losing in that process.
My personal belief is that some day in the not too distant future, hedge fund money will run out, and then you will start to see the true cost and the true comparisons between privatized public schools and publicly managed schools. That's why it's important that people who do see the downsides of aggressive charter proliferation, especially in the absence of clearly superior educational outcomes and attention to the potential long-term effects on public education of privatization, continue to push back particularly where there is not community support for charters.
That said, I think local schools will still be forced to do better marketing. To reach people early who haven't yet made conclusions about public school and who may be just as inclined to have their kids stay local, and to turn down the allure of fresh paint, if they felt some personal connection or personal benefit in it. That might mean that the PTA spends more time talking to "outsiders" than to selling each other cupcakes, but if that's what it takes, I would guess it's worth it. (Note that I'm not referring to the PS9 PTO, which clearly is doing awesome work and probably makes amazing cupcakes too!)
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I've always wanted to have a really good, honest conversation with a Principal (Executive Director) of a charter school.
One of the questions I would ask them is "how many of the parents come to your charter school searching for the solution to a problem that is unrelated to their last public school. (ie kid with behavior problems, chaos at home, kid isn't bright, etc.)?"
The follow up questions would be: What do they do after a year when they realize your school can't fix their kid? Do they blame staff and finally storm out in a huff to look for yet another miracle cure?
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Whynot, I've seen some charters up close for the last couple of years. I don't think they have any more problem kids with clueless parents than regular public schools. I think that what school a parent sends a child to is a personal choice and one which a parent should have a right to.
What I've seen in NYC, is while the system claims to have given more choices to kids, they've actually put parents in the position of having to stake out a moral position and go all in to get the best education for their kids. They've also taken away the opportunity for bright kids who don't have a caring adult on their side to have a real shot at getting a decent education. Those kids end up at the worst schools (be they regular public or charters) with the worst teachers and no one really seems to give a damn about it.
There are far more kids who are on their third school in three years because they have become homeless or their parents had to move as a result of a divorce or death in the family than those who have been moved because their parents are looking for a miracle cure to a broken kid. Solve the bigger social issues and the education issues become more manageable. We should have learned that lesson post the Depression, but clearly its something we've forgotten that will need to be relearned. Unfortunately, a ton of kids are going to be sacrificed in the meantime.
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Yes those "3 schools in 3 yrs" kids are often the ones who eventually end up in District 75, drop out, or get pushed out.
I think a big attraction of charters is the belief that those who are not headed toward a Regents Diploma are somehow absent.
Regardless of whether this belief has any merit, ...I totally agree, parents should have the right to put their kid in a school that they believe is best for them.
Lots of people believe things I do not, and (within the confines of the law) such things are their business, not mine. After all, a parent should get to decide what is best for their kid ....not me or anyone else.
I am not a parent, but have a lot of experience with the public school system, especially in low income areas of NYC. As a result, I will state that in many cases, I would not hesitate to choose a charter school if offered one.
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