It’s National Teacher Appreciation Week
President Obama has declared May 3, 2016, as National Teacher Appreciation Day and May 1 through May 7, 2016, as National Teacher Appreciation Week.
And for some odd reason, May 1-7 has been separately proclaimed as National Charter Schools Week, a fairly disturbing reality because charter schools are publicly funded but privately run schools that offer a free education but are freed from public school rules such as the requirement to abide by the teachers’ union contract.
This is exactly their appeal, yet it is ironic since it is the government that puts the restrictions on public schools that charter schools are exempted from.
In fact, as Obama proclaimed, “Charter schools play an important role in our country’s education system. Supporting some of our Nation’s underserved communities, they can ignite imagination and nourish the minds of America’s young people while finding new ways of educating them and equipping them with the knowledge they need to succeed.
“With the flexibility to develop new methods for educating our youth, and to develop remedies that could help underperforming schools, these innovative and autonomous public schools often offer lessons that can be applied in other institutions of learning across our country, including in traditional public schools. We also must ensure our charter schools, like all our schools, are of high quality and are held accountable — when a charter school does not meet high standards, we need to act in the best interest of its students to help it improve, and if that does not prove possible, to close its doors.
“Charter schools have been at the forefront of innovation and have found different ways of engaging students in their high school years — including by providing personalized instruction, leveraging technology, and giving students greater access to rigorous coursework and college-level courses.”
That is so backwards. Only 2.3 million children attend charter schools out of 49 million school children. There is a self-selected factor – these children come from families that value education, so right off the bat, have a leg up on the achievement ladder. And yet, charter schools have not been shown to perform significantly better than public schools (see “Charter Schools Are Mired in Fraud and Failure” https://www.alternet.org/charter-schools-are-mired-fraud-and-failure); in fact, 2,500 have closed down, whereas public schools can’t simply shut their doors (the biggest difference between public and private). Here in New York City (where the city has to pay the rent of charter schools if they cannot take over space in a public school building), it has been shown that these schools use inappropriate discipline and basically toss out children who might bring down their stellar record. It is no wonder why the student population left in public schools is that much more challenging.
For example, Success Academy, a major charter company in New York City, is crooning over testing results that are significantly better than city averages, but less known are disciplinary programs designed to expel students who would otherwise drag down those results, as the New York Times reported: “At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’”.
And yet, to the extent charter schools can be laboratories for innovation it is because they are absolved of the same restrictions placed on public schools. But if being free to innovate is such a value, why not give public schools that same freedom?
On the other hand, the proponents of charter schools will say that a key differentiator is that they do not have to abide by union rules – they can offer a longer school day, a longer school year (and yet Philadelphia has cut back on public schools because the state has refused to fund them adequately), which union rules would prevent. Charter schools can staff up with young idealists from Teach for America, no matter that these Ivy League grads leave after a couple of years, well before they are seasoned pedagogical professionals. No matter there is a constant turnover because charter schools tend to use scripted curricula like KIPPS Academy, are extremely regimented and misuse discipline like suspending students or even throwing them out of school which public schools are not allowed to do.
But if the government wanted longer school days and longer school years like charter schools, they could have it: simply pay teachers to work the extra time.
Charter schools are also not hamstrung by the contortions of having to meet the property tax cap because they do not have to show an actual cost of doing their business – they get a per student amount equal to the per student spending of the district that the student comes from and can stick to the elementary grades which are cheaper to educate. But a public school will likely offer extra-curriculars, like sports, theater and orchestra, has to maintain its buildings and facilities, has K-12 and special needs, while charter schools can simply turn students away, or not offer the same depth and breadth of programming. Public schools can’t exclude.
Why hamstring public schools, if the concepts of charter are so wonderful and the innovations and flexibility they effect are so beneficial?
In New York City where charter schools are most prevalent, the main beneficiary has been the very politically connected Success Academy, a company run by former Councilmember Eva Moskowitz which donated generously to Andrew Cuomo’s campaign and which recently forced New York City to pay rent for its buildings.
In 2014, Moskowitz was paid a salary of over $567,000 (more than twice what the NYC Schools Chancellor earns); she was handed a $100K raise after her Success Academy doubled its revenue in one year. And why not? Success Academy’s 32 city charter schools, serving 11,000 students, took in a whopping $34.6 million for FY ending June 2013, up nearly $18 million from $16.7 million the prior year, the Daily News reported (https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-charter-schools-revenue-doubles-year-article-1.2050561). Moskowitz has declared she aims to have 100 schools by 2024 and knows she has the political clout to get it.
That $35 million represents $31,500 revenue per student. I wonder how much do they actually spend per student? New York City has 1.1 million public school students (including charter schools) and an operating budget of $27.6 billion, or $25,090 per student.
(For reference, Great Neck’s school budget of $218 million, with a projected enrollment of 6134 works out to $35,000 per student, but as we know, that figure does not accurately reflect “per-pupil spending” because it does not take into account the programs paid for out of the operating budget that recover fees or generate revenue, such as the summer recreation program; that fund programs beyond k-12, such as adult education; or the expenditures that go toward over 1700 students who attend parochial or private schools.)
One of the supposed appeals of charter schools is that they can run like a business, rather than a government bureaucracy (the same appeal, frankly, that Donald Trump is exerting). But if government wants schools to run more like businesses, it has to make its planning and construction process more efficient, streamlined and flexible – like business – instead of building in more than a year lag time when the district can seek to rebuild its science lab at South High, get approval for the $172,000, then wait another year for State Ed to approve the plans before the district can even go out to bid. The state could remove the impediment of the Wicks Law which adds significant cost to every public project (not private). Another problem for public schools which businesses don’t have is not knowing how much state aid will be allocated and having no control over the county’s assessment system or tax certioraris or PILOTs, which are not guaranteed for payment by the county, which means the school district would have to float Tax Anticipation Notes to cover its expenses while waiting payment.
But charter schools operate in the best-of-all-worlds zone between a private entity and a government entity – a little like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where those quasi-governmental agencies were allowed to keep profits like a private company but pass along losses to taxpayers.
We don’t have charter schools in Great Neck, though some years ago, an opportunist seeing the dollar benefits of tapping into Great Neck’s per-student tuition, tried to set up one in a building that would not have met Department of Education standards for a public school, but would be just fine for a charter school. But that doesn’t mean that the charter school system doesn’t affect our public schools because of the way our schools are being controlled financially.
Even though these charter schools are mainly in New York City, it means less state aid for our schools on Long Island, at a time when our Great Neck schools are having to shave $5 million worth out of a budget and looking at having to cut $7.5 million more next year in order to comply with the state’s property tax cap.
Great Neck gets less than 5% of its operating budget from state aid, and has to raise 95% from property tax, compared to New York City’s $27.6 billion school budget which receives nearly half from the state. What is more, New York City schools are not subject to the property tax cap, or to a vote.
I do not doubt that President Obama genuinely appreciates teachers and public schools, and that he has acknowledged the errors of No Child Left Behind in its cookie-cutter approach, its overuse of standardized testing, not to mention the way it has been used for political purpose, to weaken teachers unions (which tend to support Democrats) and privatize public education. The recently-signed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was intended to reverse the worst aspects, as Obama stated, “ESSA reflects my Administration’s approach to education reform by empowering States and local decision makers, who know what their students need best, to shape their own progress with accountability.” But it seems states have not yet gotten the memo.
It makes us appreciate all the more what we have here in Great Neck – our teachers and the hundreds and hundreds of other staff and administrators, and especially our school board members who devote themselves so selflessly and tirelessly to their mission: this glorious enterprise of nurturing young minds, hopefully with a love of learning, and enabling each of our young people to achieve their full potential as individuals, as members of community and society, and citizens.
On May 17, we can show our support and our appreciation for our teachers, our administrators and school board and vote in favor of the school budget.
