You know the Union is going to fight this tooth and fang. I wonder if they will ever learn that they are really getting the public mad at them.
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The New York Sun; Date:2003 Oct 31; Section:Front page; Page 1
Mayor To Push for Charter Schools
WANTS ALBANY TO GIVE CHANCELLOR MORE AUTHORITY
By KATHLEEN LUCADAMO Staff Reporter of the Sun
Mayor Bloomberg will push Albany to give the chancellor more authority to approve charter schools and change a state law that limits the number of such schools in the city.
The announcement came yesterday as he unveiled his long-awaited plan to raise private money to open 50 new charter schools in the city over the next five years.
The state charter school law, signed in 1998, allows for 100 charters; more than half have been granted.
There are only 33 left, and the city would have to fight with school districts across the state for those slots, according to the Albany-based Charter School Resource Center.
“The mayor and chancellor now have to fight hard to get the state Legislature to eliminate the statutory cap on new charter schools just as tenaciously as they did to get mayoral control of the city school system,” said the vice president of the Charter School Resource Center, Peter Murphy.
The mayor and Chancellor Joel Klein can convert an unlimited amount of public schools to charter schools but that requires convincing parents to support the change.
“The law isn’t going to be changed just to accommodate something the mayor wants,” Assemblyman Steven Sanders said. “After we see how the first 100 perform, we will make decisions about the future. There’s ample room for the city to convert 50 to 150 schools, so long as they go about it the right way.”
The mayor wants the chancellor to sign off on new charter schools, not just conversions. Two groups approve charter schools: the State University of New York’s Board of Trustees, and the state Education Department’s Board of Regents.
SUNY set up an institute with public dollars to help charter schools submit their proposals and open.
A spokesman for the Charter School Institute, a SUNY-funded entity that helps charter schools, Jeffrey Perez, said he didn’t know enough about the mayor’s plans to comment.
To accomplish his goal of starting 50 charter schools — most K to 8 — the mayor created a not-for-profit city entity that would focus exclusively on creating charter schools, as The New York Sun first reported this month.
His aim is to raise $70 million to operate the New York Center for Charter Excellence; he’s garnered $40 million, he said.
“The entrepreneurial and competitive nature of these schools inspires and stimulates positive changes throughout our entire school system,” the mayor said at the Renaissance Charter School in Queens yesterday.
The center will have a Board of Trustees,which will include Mr.Klein,to oversee the privately run public schools.
“Charter schools represent a tremendous opportunity to attract new resources to our public schools and to spur systemwide change,” Mr. Klein said.
The city stands as the first school district in the country to use private donations to multiply charter schools, which traditionally operate outside the control of local school districts.
“To have the mayor and the chancellor behind charter schools in such a big way is a wonderful thing.They’ve taken their support to a new level,” the director of the Bronx Preparatory Charter School, Kristin Kearns Jordan, said. “This is a way of putting us in the city budget.”
When a student opts to attend a charter school, the state money allocated for the youngster is diverted from his or her local school to the charter school.
But in New York, charter schools are not included in the construction budget. In the city, the funding problem for charter school directors is compounded by the high cost of land and construction.
Once the mayor proves he can successfully open charter schools, he can justify including them in his capital plan,observers close to his plan predict.
The president of the Albany-based Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability, Thomas Carroll, said the mayor’s announcement “marks a dramatic change in the politics of charter schools in New York State.”
Most remarkable, he noted, is the city teachers union’s desire to get involved. Statewide, unions often spurn charter schools or view them as a threat to public education.
Not in this case.
The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said she wants her members to run one of the mayor’s 50 charter schools. Unlike most charter schools, her teachers would have a contract, she said.
“I think it would be a great opportunity to show the world that teachers and the principal in a collegial environment, under the current contract, could help kids soar,” Ms. Weingarten said. Still, she said she was suspicious of the mayor’s motives.
“Why would Mr. Accountability want for the charter schools to have less accountability than district schools?” she said.
Often donors who find disdain for the teachers union and red tape choking the school system invest in charter schools.
The mayor appears to be trying to lure them back into the school system by setting up a 501 (c) (3), which allows them to pump money into charter schools and get a tax break.The hope is they invest in all schools.
The Robertson Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation and Joe and Carol Reich have committed money to the not-for-profit.
“Because the city is building these charter schools with private money, there is no guarantee that the schools will continue to exist once this current administration leaves town,” said the president of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, Jill Levy. “You cannot base a public education system on capricious private donations.”
The mayor anticipates the Center for Charter Excellence will pair with the national New Schools Venture Fund, which supports charter schools. The group recently received $22 million from Microsoft-billionaire Bill Gates to develop 100 charter schools across the country, including 40 in New York.
Mr. Gates also donated $51.2 to private groups in New York, such as New Visions, to build small high schools.
In some ways the Center for Charter Excellence would serve as the New Visions of charter schools: the middleman between philanthropists, schools, and the city.
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