By Andrea Rogers

One issue is the finding that one-third of NYC charter teachers, and one-fifth of leaders, do not return each year.   While the focus on this point has been mostly negative, it could be that this indicator reflects some positive trends in NYC charter schools.  School leaders often make hard choices about when to let teachers go and then do it quickly, and many teachers realize that working in a charter school isn’t a good fit for a variety of reasons.  It certainly is a good sign if charter school boards are accurately determining that leaders aren’t performing and sever the relationship accordingly.  None of these tough choices should be viewed through a singularly negative lens.  Charters only have five years to prove they deserve to exist.  There isn’t much time to wait around and see how someone will develop.    

Of course staff stability can help to build cohesive teams with good communication skills and trust, and egregious turnover can reflect larger structural problems at a school.   But it only seems fair to acknowledge that charter schools are designed to be different from their district counterparts.  We shouldn’t jump to suggest data reflecting those differences means that something is unquestionably wrong. 

Written by NYCSA President, Bill Phillips

Yesterday, the Regents voted against renewing Pinnacle Charter School in Buffalo.  Articles about the pending closure, the Regents’ vote, plus an excellent editorial from the Buffalo News are here, here, here, and here.  There are a lot of moving parts to this story, including the school’s stated intention to sue the Board of Regents.  I’ll pass on discussing the lawsuit, and focus on the decision and the larger policy implications.

The Pinnacle Decision

I thought the Regents made the correct decision.  Commissioner King summed it up best when he said the following questions guide a renewal decision, and for Pinnacle the department’s answer to all three was “no”:

  1.    Has the school demonstrated the ability to operate in an educationally sound manner?
  2.    Is approving the renewal likely to improve student learning and achievement?
  3.    Would approving renewal have a significant educational benefit to the students?

After repeatedly reading the closure recommendation and school response, and listening to the Regents’ discussion, I can get to “maybe” on the second question, but that’s about it.  The school basically acknowledged as much during its interview with the Buffalo News Editorial Board. 



Are the Regents Changing their Authorizing Approach?

By Jill E. Shahen

Another article hit the paper recently about charter schools sharing space with traditional schools. I find myself utterly confused over this heated debate. So let’s start with some basic facts.

During the 2010 session SED worked closely with our elected officials to pass legislation that would qualify New York for Race to the Top (RTTT) funds. The legislation lifted the charter cap to 460, because growing a high-quality charter school movement is an important goal of the Obama administration.

My question to the legislators who approved the cap lift but don’t want charter schools in public facilities is this: where did you think the charter students would actually sit? The message from some of our legislators is: “Yes, we will vote for more charter schools. No, you can’t have a facility.” Please raise your hand if this makes sense to you.

Love them or hate them, New York created the opportunity to open more public charter schools. Did the legislators think at all about where city schools would be located? Is it fair to ask where they assumed the charter schools would go in an expensive real estate market with very few buildings designed to accommodate schools?

I work with founding teams designing a new school. The most difficult questions to answer are always facility related: “What about a facility? We know there is district space but what are the chances we’ll get access? Should we look at private space? We don’t get facility funding so how do we pay for private space?”

I know the tall-tales we all hear about how we are taking all the districts’ money, we aren’t held accountable, and there is really no oversight for charter schools. If you believe those things then you probably wouldn’t want us in your building either. Not to mention, I’d actually agree with you if those statements were true. But they aren’t.

Maybe I’m trying too hard to simplify it, or maybe it’s really not complicated at all. We should just get back to the heart of the matter – who benefits from allowing charter schools access to district space? Come on you know the answer! Focus on the children. They need a place to sit.

After nearly 500 posts in little more than three years, I am today signing off from The Chalkboard as its regular contributor as I have departed the New York Charter Schools Association where I have been policy director since 2005.

It has been a professional delight and personal growth opportunity to have been writing this blog since early 2009 as part of my role at the Association. I thank NYCSA and particularly its president, Bill Phillips, for hosting this platform, affording me topical and editorial independence and, at times, tolerating my perspective on some issues (along with periodic shortcomings in grammar, etc!).

My purpose, and NYCSA's, has been primarily to provide substantive and informative analysis to the education community, opinion makers and policymakers. I also sought to offer perspective to issues and provoke thought, as well as add a sprinkle of humor and lightheartedness from time to time. I know have fallen short in each of these areas, including writing a few clunkers; still, the objective was to inform and contribute to the debate, push back when necessary (it's often necessary in this policy arena), and elicit a laugh now and then.

I appreciate the time you have spent reading this blog and to those of you who responded via emails and on Facebook. I always welcomed feedback, including disagreements, further perspective, and corrections.

The Chalkboard will continue, of course, and will adjust in style and approach is it did when I assumed its mantle. I hope in the future I can be a guest contributor as the occasion warrants.

I look forward to ongoing interaction and can be followed on Twitter (@PeterMurphy26) as I continue other pursuits in research and writing on public policy.

Thanks for reading and--most importantly--for all you do to improve the lives of children in the classroom.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
[New email: MurphyPeter458@gmail.com]

She got to stay. Will Amani's students get to stay?

It's gotten more than ugly in Mount Vernon in Westchester County. A state supreme court justice named Joseph Teresi, based in the capital city of Albany, late in March ruled that Amani's Charter School's charter is "vacated," and that the state Education Department must cease paying the school through the state aid intercept process.

In sum, the court has ordered the closing of Amani in the middle of April, which will force its 80 students to return to the Mount Vernon School District from which they fled, and will send the charter employees to the unemployment line.

Barring a "stay" of the judge's ruling, and reversal in the appeals court, this educational lifeboat in this low-performing, pathetic school district will soon cease to exist.

One Battle in a Ongoing Struggle
I wonder if those obsessive Mount Vernon school district officials with their proverbial guns aimed at this charter school for the last 18 months were high-fiving themselves over their latest victory? Doesn't it feel great? For the moment, the school district may believe it finally succeeded in smothering the dreams and opportunity of Amani's children - many of whom, along with their teachers and parents, have no doubt shed a few tears in the last week.

Amani Charter School was recommended by the state Education Department and approved by the state Board of Regents more than a year ago for good reason as it was found to offer a superior public education opportunity for children, nearly all of whom are African-American, from a low-performing, failing school district. The Mount Vernon School District, of course, opposed the charter for purely abstract and embellished fiscal reasons which, in reality, was minimal and inconsequential. The district offered no valid educational objection.

No matter, Mount Vernon pursued this affront by the state by litigating against the school's existence in an attempt to shut it down. Justice Teresi I'm told is not known as a political hack wearing robes while holding a courtroom gavel, but the question is worth asking since perhaps not a few such persons preside as state supreme court justices, which in New York is the initial trial court level.

The court ruled that while the Regents did make the proper legal finding in its approval of Amani Charter School (thereby rejecting one of the school district's claims) the board did not follow letter of the Charter Schools Act in terms of its procedural requirements when it re-approved the charter last fall in response to a previous court ruling (by a different justice) to vacate the charter. In addition, Justice Teresi upheld the district's allegation that the charter school failed to adequately provide the require programmatic and fiscal impact of the charter school on poor little Mount Vernon School District, and its $200 million dollar enterprise.

Court Technicalities Run Amok
This decision reeks of technicalities and splitting hairs, and appears to have arisen from this jurist's resentment that the Regents had the temerity to reinstate the charter immediately following the first court ruling last October.

The Regents have approved nearly 200 charter schools in the last dozen years either directly or from SUNY Board or NYC schools chancellor. The process has been refined and increasingly rigorous. In short, the findings by Justice Teresi do not rise the level of closing the school in mid-year and majorly disrupting the lives 10-year-old minority children and the adults who serve them. One has to wonder where's the civil rights community is in all this?

The venomous, unprecedented behavior of the Mount Vernon school district's board of education and administrators toward Amani Charter School is bad enough. Such treatment toward real individuals should not also come by the stroke of a judge's keyboard.

It may not look good for Amani Charter School, but it's not over yet. State Ed and the Regents need to correct this district/court injustice to the very students and parents whom the board sought to help.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The education reform movement is about to burgeon in size in the Empire State, as the national group, StudentsFirst, founded in 2010, will shortly establish a statewide organization to advocate for a variety of education reform issues.

The national organization was recently founded by Michelle Rhee (pictured) the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system and Teach for America alumnus. Ms. Rhee received national attention as a result of her outside-the-box appointment to chancellor by then D.C.-Mayor, Adrian Fenty, and her subsequent school reform efforts in the nation's capital. These included closing low-performing schools and proposing a teachers contract that combined substantially higher salaries with removal of tenure protections - a deal that AFT president, Randi Weingarten, refused to bring to a vote out of fear her flock would approve.

Ms. Rhee's D.C. experience was one of the featured stories in the documentary film, "Waiting for Superman." After Mayor Fenty lost a primary election for a second term, Ms. Rhee subsequently departed and is now pushing a nation-wide effort for education reform.

StudentsFirstNY Featured
The StudentsFirst New York organization was featured in today's New York Times, and includes among its founding board the former New York City schools chancellor, Joel Klein and two prominent charter school network operators, Eva Moskowitz of Success Charter Network and Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone. The head of the state organization will be Micah Lasher, who is leaving as the state legislative affairs director for New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and who is both knowledgeable on education issues and has an accomplished record of advocacy in the state legislature.

Anna Phillips, the Times' reporter, writes that group hopes to "neutralize the might of the teachers unions" as it seeks to continue education reform efforts, particularly in the post-Bloomberg era after the mayor's term expires at the end of 2013. (The Chalkboard discussed this "confrontational" aspect last evening). Major reform issues just in the city that face near-term uncertainty include charter school facility needs and space-sharing with district schools, differential teacher pay and bonuses, tenure reform, and renewal of mayoral control when the state law expires in 2015.

New York City United Federation Teachers president, Michael Mulgrew, had a predictable response to the advent of StudentsFirstNY, calling them the "1 percenters" and claimed that parents "have not bought into the Bloomberg education reform movement." It's long become tedious when Mr. Mulgrew invokes the interests of parents when it's district teachers that he represents - not parents. The truth is that many thousands of parents have indeed "bought into" the mayor's education reform agenda, with just one example being that every charter school I know of in the city (about 134) has never had trouble filling up with the children of those parents to the point that anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 students are annually placed on waiting lists for admission to those schools.

Post-Bloomberg Era Coming Soon
As for mayoral control, continuation of this vital means to govern public education in New York City will be a huge battle not so much over whether it remains, but the details of its renewal. The role of StudentsFirstNY hopefully will matter enormously in influencing this outcome.

Any successor to Mayor Bloomberg who is, for the sake of discussion, more sympathetic to the UFT will soon realize his or her job goes far beyond the UFT's agenda. Any mayor must be mindful the city's fiscal health and budget limitations, and will be accountable for the school system's effectiveness or lack thereof.

Regardless of who becomes mayor, he or she will no more want to see their control over education weakened than the current occupant. It's not a leap to envision cordiality with the UFT turning negative once one becomes the chief executive officer of New York City's sprawling municipal government. Mr. Mulgrew, like Randi Weingarten and every previous UFT president, will continually pressure the state legislature against the mayor's interests if it deems it necessary since the state has a great deal of control over policies affecting the city. A reform group like StudentsFirstNY can play a key role in such legislative battles, which are never-ending.

New York State's institutional forces against reform are a big challenge for any organization, so it's welcome news to see Michelle Rhee plant the StudentsFirst flag in New York. Congratulations to her and Micah Lasher as they move forward.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

This evening's New York Times story (for tomorrow's print version) on the StudentsFirst organization setting up a New York State chapter included mention that two of the group's founders, Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein, "have a confrontational history with teachers' unions."

Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein were former schools chancellors in Washington, D.C. and New York City, respectively, and sought to impose greater accountability and reforms in their city school systems with varying degrees of success. Such attempts invariably involve "confrontation" with respective teacher unions that traditionally stand in opposition. Such is life in that arena. It's not a bad thing and the temperature need not be turned down necessarily when seeking to do right.

"Confrontation" also is a two-way street. Education reform efforts to confront problems or imbedded, dysfunctional systems typically are "confronted" with opposition from teacher unions, the most recent example being the reaction by opponents to Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposed public pension Tier VI.

Union "Confrontation" Against Reform
Teacher unions in New York have consistently opposed the creation of the Charter Schools Act and its two subsequent expansions; and sought charter funding cuts through a variety of means. They've also opposed many other reform efforts, including sound evaluation systems, school closings and the aforementioned pension cost savings. The unions' "confrontational" approach to these and more is well documented on The Chalkboard, including lobbying (or threatening, depending on your interpretation), attack commercials, lawsuits, bogus claims in the media, name-calling demagoguery, setting up front groups as echo chambers, holding rallies, and more.

Now, the teacher unions have their interests and agenda, and certainly have a right to oppose policies they disagree with and believe would be detrimental to education. Their tactics in many instances are rightly questioned, but the democratic political process is not always pretty, and politics ain't bean bag, as the saying goes.

When one confronts decades of entrenched practices and dysfunction, as chancellors Rhee and Klein have done, along with many other reformers, there will be confrontation in the form of resistance and push-back. Should the reform side have the sole burden of lowering the temperature, or be faulted for the subsequent reaction of its opposition?

It would be nice to "turn the temperature down," since we all have better things to do to improve education, but that's never just up to one side of the debate.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa