On Thursday, December 20, the mayor’s Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which acts as a rubber stamp for Bloomberg’s policies, will meet to make decisions about charter school co-locations. The PEP will be deciding on whether to impose co-locations on 17 public schools. Affected districts include: Bronx: District 8, Brooklyn: Districts 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 23, 32, Manhattan: District 2, Queens: Districts 24 and 75.
MORE urges you to join us as we oppose this attempt to further erode and privatize public education. We stand against the proliferation of charter schools crowding out district schools for teachers, rooms and other resources. MORE stands for equitable funding and more resources to the schools that need them the most.
Charter schools are not truly public. They are often run by corporations as for-profits. Charters choose students by lottery and counsel out students they believe won’t perform. They server far fewer ELLs and children with special needs. Despite this, 80% of charter students perform the same or worse than students in public schools.
MORE believes that access to a high quality public education is a basic human and civil right; it is not something that should be won in a lottery. Instead of creating winners and losers, as the business model of competition and choice ultimately does, we should focus on the real reforms that will finally achieve the promise of one free, fair, high-quality and integrated public education system.
If you agree, join us to protest these new co-locations!
Panel for Educational Policy
Thursday, December 20, 2012, 6:00 pm
The High School of Fashion Industries
225 West 24th Street, New York, NY
23rd Street station, 1 train or 23rd Street station, C, E lines.
Co-locations are a Big mistake. Take my school – we have three, count ‘em 3, schools in our building aside from our public school. They have taken over classrooms and resources – we eat lunch at 10:30 – they lunch at 12. We have a closet as a teachers/staff /cafeteria staff/lounge since they took our room for a yoga studio. Fire drills – they are on the 4th and 3rd floor – they are out first – we cannot buck the line out the door. Once outside – their kids are playing music on ipods and milling about on the street as the charter teachers shoot the breeze – we are trying to keep our kids in line, quiet and in order. You think my kids don’t see what is going on…what needs to happen here before a change is made?
Excellent points on the many injustices of rampant colocations and effective privatization of our public school buildings.
The only way to stop this is with a transformed union that is able to mobilize teachers and parents to effectively take on the DOE’s policies with more than just lawsuits. And that requires rebuilding a rank and file movement within our union.
Thank you for spreading the word about MORE!
I’m encouraged by your platform and what I’ve heard from Brian on Democracy Now. and Julie on UP with Chris Hayes.
Many other NYC teachers like myself, are hoping that you will be the party that will really go to war against the ed reformers and corporate political hacks.
Teach to the contract, marches in the streets, “civil disobedience” etc.
If so, count me in!
The co-locations are part of the DOE’s policy to cause schools to compete thinking that the competition will make all of the schools better. Most Charter Schools do not pick their own students initially so that many will start with ELLs and students with IEPs. Over time they have ways to cause those students to be removed and have much greater leeway in putting a student back into a public school than public schools have in moving the student to another public school.
The competition strategy has not worked. Principals and staff in co-located schools fight over space and have no single central supervisor responsible for both schools when there is a dispute.
The real underlying purpose of Charters is to create a large non-union work force. Most charters have free rein over hiring and firing staff where the issues of seniority, tenure and job protection currently being dismantled in the public sector are totally non-relevant.
Our Union refused to see the proliferation of charters as an anti-union issue and in fact joined in taking part in this trend by opening up its own charter. It’s no accident it is failing and may soon close.
When our Union leadership consistently sees themselves as needing a seat at the big boys table they stop being a union and develop into a subsidiary of the DOE. We need to stop this world view and transform our Union into a force that protects public education.