My testimony before the City Council hearings today; a pdf of this testimony is here.
Six Charter School Myths
Testimony
before the NYC Council Education Committee
Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters
May 6, 2014
Thank you, Chair Dromm and members of
the City Council Education Committee, for the opportunity to provide testimony
on charter schools today. Class Size
Matters is a citywide advocacy and research organization, devoted to providing
information on the benefits of class size reduction and equitable conditions across all NYC
public schools.
In their attempt to justify
expansion and take more space and resources from our public schools, the
charter school lobby has repeatedly put forward six myths, which I shall show
to be untrue.
1. 1. Charter schools are public schools.
Actually,
charter schools are publicly funded but governed by private corporate boards,
and do NOT have to follow the same laws or rules that public schools do. According to NY state law,
A charter
school shall be exempt from all other state and local
laws, rules, regulations or policies governing
public or private schools, boards
of education [and], school districts AND POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS, including
those relating to school personnel and students, except
as specifically provided in the school's charter or in this article.[1]
Charters
are not governed by any democratically elected body, and are able to enact
extreme disciplinary policies, and often exhibit high suspension and student
attrition rates. As Bruce Baker has
written, charters are different from public schools in that:
·
They
can define the number of enrollment slots they wish to make available
·
They
can admit students only on an annual basis and do not have to take students
mid-year [or in any grade other than they choose]
·
They
can set academic, behavior and cultural standards that promote exclusion of
students via attrition.[2]
Charter schools have also used their private
status to evade federal constitutional and statutory protections for employees
and students.[3]
2. 2. Charter schools educate the same exact kind of students as public schools.
Although this myth
has been claimed many times by charter supporters, including Steve Brill in magazine
articles and his book, Class Warfare,
and more recently, Nona Aronowitz at MSNBC, more specifically about Success
charters, this has been conclusively contradicted by the data.[4] Aronowitz writes about Success Academy 1,
which shares space with PS 149 and P811, also known as the Mickey Mantle School:
“The
demographics of the three schools housed at 41 West 117 Street are virtually
identical: nearly all black and Hispanic, with a majority of students eligible
for free and reduced lunch.”[5]
Yet according to the
publicly available statistics gathered by the DOE for their in 2012-2013 school report cards, PS 149 has nearly
double the number of special needs students compared to Success Academy 1: 20.6%
compared to 12.6%, and more than four times the number of English Language
learners --18.9% compared to only 4.1% at Success Academy.[6]
In
addition, according to DOE’s “Economic Need Index” which is a formula that
includes the percent of free lunch students, in conjunction with the number who
are homeless and/or on public assistance, the economic need of students at PS
149 is sky high, at 0.98, compared to the much lower figure of 0.69 at Success
Academy 1.[7]
At P811,
also located in the building, 100 percent of students are severely disabled,
though figures related to their economic need or English language learner
status are unavailable.
The disparity in
high needs students is found citywide at charter schools. The NYC Charter Center has admitted that
charters enroll fewer students with disabilities and English Language Learners
than the districts in which they are located.[8] Bruce Baker at Rutgers has reported that
there are significantly fewer free lunch students at NYC charter schools as
well.[9]
3. 3. Charters receive less public funding than district schools.
This is
untrue, at least as regards NYC charter schools. As the NYC Independent Budget Office pointed
out in 2011, the two thirds of NYC charters that are co-located receive MORE per pupil public funding than public schools when their free space and
services is taken into account.[10]
Yet the IBO
analysis actually underestimated the inequities in public funding for charters
vs. public schools, as it did not include the fact that while NYC public school
budgets are tied to student need through the “fair student funding” formula –
including the number of children in poverty, with disabilities and/or English
language learners -- the charter school aid formula is not.
This means as charters enroll fewer of these
students, their public funding is even more unfair. Given their lower
percentage of high needs students, NYC
charter schools should receive approximately $2,500 less in per pupil aid, but
in fact receive more.[11] Charter students are also twice
as likely to receive free busing paid for by the DOE, another factor that was
left out of this IBO analysis.[12]
The large
disparity in public support will grow even greater with the boost in per
student charter funding in the new state
budget, and the guarantee of free space for all new and expanding charters
moving forward, which has sparked a “gold rush” for companies applying for the 73 new charter slots going forward, as
yesterday’s Daily News pointed out. [13] Not only will any of these schools be
guaranteed free space at city expense, but any of the existing nearly 200
charters that are allowed by the state to expand to new grade levels will by
law receive space paid for by the city as well.
Of
course these inequities do not begin to touch on the even larger disparity in
private funding. Studies show that many
of the NYC charter chains receive substantially
more than similar district schools in privately raised funds, up to $4000 per
pupil or more.[14] The
Success Academy chain is estimated to have a surplus
of at least $30 million, and two weeks ago raised $7.75 million in just one
night.[15]
These
additional resources, both privately and publicly funded, allow many charters to
offer smaller classes, a longer school day, and other programs and services denied
NYC public school students. [16]
4. 4. Charter schools get higher test scores because of the superior quality of education they provide.
Whether
or not they achieve superior results, and there is much dispute about this, it may
be due to charters’ increased funding, the socio-economic and demographic
background of their students, and/or their much higher suspension and attrition
rates. Probably all these factors contribute.
Of course, the more a school pushes out struggling students, the higher
their test scores will likely be.
For
example, according to the latest available figures, Success Academy loses half of their students by 6th grade, with an annual student suspension rate of 22 percent, compared to suspension rate of 6 percent at PS 149.[17] The average suspension rate in all the Success Academy schools was 14%, about
twice as high as district public schools. See below chart from the NY Daily
News:
Suspensions were
especially high among special education students, and according to Nelson Mar,
an attorney from Legal Aid, at least one of these suspensions “was an illegal
act of exclusion without any due process.” [18] Meanwhile, expulsion
rates at NYC charters are not reported by charters to the city or the state;
while at NYC public schools, expulsions are not allowed until a student turns
17.[19]
The Success
authorizer, the SUNY Charter Institute, noted problems with disciplinary
practices, suspensions and expulsions at Harlem Success 2, 3, and 4 in its
renewal report in 2013:
Harlem 3 has the required student discipline policy in place but
the implementation of the policy relating to expulsion does not align with
stated policy language. During renewal
interviews, Harlem 3 school leaders reported the Network implements the
expulsion policy. The stated policy
language does not closely track with the actual expulsion steps implemented. While the policy indicates each school leader
may initiate an expulsion, the Success Network handles expulsion situations
when they arise. While such an
arrangement could be permissible under applicable law, the school has not
implemented the discipline policy as drafted.
As such, procedures should be modified to properly implement the policy
or the policy itself should be amended by the education corporation board to
prevent the potential for due process violations. The Institute will follow-up with the
education corporation to resolve this and the other compliance issues. Finally, pertaining to student discipline,
alternative instruction for suspended students was not consistently presented
to parents as mandatory. It was unclear
that live instruction was consistently provided in accordance with New York’s
compulsory education law.”[20]
Nevertheless, the
Charter Institute recommended without reservations that these three Success
charters, as well as the entire network, be reauthorized for another five years,
and has encouraged the network to replicate and expand at a faster rate than
any other charter chain.
Considering these disciplinary,
suspension and expulsion practices, it is not surprising charters shed their special needs students at a higher rate
than public schools, as reported by the Independent Budget Office. [21]
According
to the 2010 Amendments to the Charter Schools Act , when the charter
authorizers renew or allow charter
schools to expand, these schools were obligated to show they are meeting or exceeding
enrollment and retention targets of students with disabilities, English
language learners and free and/or reduced price lunch.[22]
And yet despite the lower numbers of high
needs students at nearly all charter schools, and strong evidence that of
higher attrition especially among special needs students, “There has not been a Regents,
SUNY or DOE authorized school refused renewal or expansion due to enrollment
and retention targets not being met,” according to Megan McCarville of
the NYSED charter office.[23]
5. 5. The charter schools have huge waiting lists, showing there is more parental demand for charters than public schools.
The charters often
trumpet their waiting lists in their political push for expansion. However, these waiting lists and application
figures are not independently audited by any state or independent agency, as
pointed out by a just-released study from the National Education Policy Center and
should be eyed with skepticism as a measure of true demand.[24] According to NEPC researchers, other reasons
for this skepticism are that students
often apply to multiple charters, and are thus double or triple counted on
waiting lists; and in a recent national study, researchers could find only 36
out of 500 charter middle schools with sufficient large number of applicants to
hold a lottery.[25]
Moreover, some
charters spend many millions of dollars to advertise and market their schools,
with ads at bus stops, websites, and mailers sent out to thousands of parents
across the city. In 2012, Juan Gonzalez
estimated Success charters spent more than $3.4 million “on marketing and
drumming up huge numbers of application forms - in just one year.” [26]
At the same time, there
are also waiting lists for many NYC public schools, if less publicized, and great
demand, though DOE often tries to minimize those figures. It was recently revealed that there are 950 applications for just one
hundred ninth-grade seats at Frederick Douglass Academy II -- an
acceptance rate half of Success Academy’s claimed rate of 20 percent --despite
the fact that a Success charter is being allowed to expand into their shared
building and take three more of FDA II's rooms next year, including the
school's only art room.[27]
According to the DOE, more than 7,000 NYC families received
none of their top choices of public schools (up to ten) for Kindergarten next
year, though the methodology for creating the waiting lists is still unclear
and for the first time, DOE officials have refused to release complete figures for
the number of zoned waiting list Kindergarten students at each individual public
school. The DOE has also consistently refused to release any figures for unzoned
students, and/or waiting lists for unzoned public schools, though we have
asked for this data, as has reporters and Community Education Councils members.[28] For some reason, even as the charters use
their waiting lists for political advantage, the DOE too often tries to hide theirs.
Of course the acceptance rates of the highest performing NYC high schools are even smaller. For example, in 2012, Millennium HS in Lower Manhattan had an acceptance rate of only 3 percent, with more than 5,000 students applying for 150 seats.[30] Similarly, the overcrowded Baruch HS had 7,606 applications for 120 seats, giving it an acceptance rate of about 1.6 percent.[31]
If parents were encouraged to apply to popular elementary schools outside their zones, and DOE made public their acceptance rates, these would likely far outshine those of any charter. Instead, under the Bloomberg administration, most of our elementary schools are so overcrowded that few intra-district transfers are allowed any more.
All this overcrowding, of course, plays into the hands of the charter lobby, since parents in many districts apply to charters as well as public schools, just to be assured that their child will get a seat in any school nearby the next year.
6. The new state law which guarantees free space paid for by city taxpayers for all new and expanded charters going forward, will merely afford charter “protections” so they are treated like public schools.
These provisions are
not protections, but actually provide unprecedented privileges to charters, as
there are overcrowded communities in NYC that have waited twenty years for a
new school to be built in their neighborhoods, but now any charter that wants
to open up shop in a district and is authorized by the state will now be
guaranteed space free of charge. What is
especially shocking is that the State Legislature and the Governor approved
this law without any sort of fiscal impact or estimate of its cost to the city.
After the city pays
out $40 million annually in charter rent, the state is supposed to pick up a
share of the cost; yet for any public school currently, the state pays half of
any leases. Thus, it appears that the
while obligating the city to cover the cost of any new or expanding charter,
the state is willing to contribute less of the burden than it is for public
schools.
With more than 70
new charters allowed under the cap, and any existing charter of nearly 200 that
now decides it wants to expand to new grade levels with the right to demand
that the city provide them free space, this law will likely cost the city
hundreds of millions of dollars per year, in an unprecedented corporate giveaway
to private interests and the wealthy lobbyists and hedge funders who have
contributed millions of dollars to the Governor’s campaign.[32]
Moreover, this new law, which is the most generous
in the nation in terms of obligating district to pay for charter schools free space,
applies to only New York City, where we have the most overcrowded schools in
the state, the most expensive real estate, and the most underfunded capital
plan.
While hundreds of
thousands of NYC public school children continue to sit in overcrowded
classrooms, and in trailers, and on Kindergarten waiting lists, the charter
schools will get a free ride at the city’s expense. It is truly a “gold rush”
for private interests, as the Daily News describes it, and is likely to create
vastly more inequities and disparities in future years, and further exacerbate a
dual system of separate and unequal schools.
[1] The New York State Charter Schools Act of 1998 (as
amended), § 2854, General Requirements, 1B, http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=@SLEDN0T2A56+&LIST=LAW+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=09843019+&TARGET=VIEW. “Political subdivisions”
was added to the charter law in this year’s budget bill; see http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A08556&term=2013&Summary=Y&Text=Y
[2] Bruce D. Baker, “Charter Schools Are… [Public? Private? Neither? Both?] “ School Finance 101, May 2, 2012; http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/charter-schools-are-public-private-neither-both/
[3] Preston C. Green III, Bruce Baker, Joseph Oluwole, “Having it Both Ways: How Charter Schools Try
to Obtain Funding of Public Schools and the Autonomy of Private Schools, “ Emory Law
Journal, Vol. 63, No. 2, 2014, February 22, 2014.
[4] Leonie Haimson, “Steve Brill’s Imperviousness to the
Facts,” Huffington Post, June 6,
2010; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/steve-brills-imperviousne_b_602362.html
[5] Nona Willis Aronowitz, “Shared Space
at Heart of New York’s Heated Charter School Debate,” NBC News, April 17, 2014,
[6] New York City Department of
Education, 2012-2013 Progress Report for
Elementary/Middle Schools, December 19, 2013, http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/1550033E-3F15-4746-BD1A-DF3364721785/0/2012_2013_EMS_PR_Results_2013_12_19.xlsx.
[7] New York City Department of
Education, Educator Guide, New York City
Progress Reports Elementary/Middle/K-8 2012-13, http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/7B6EEB8B-D0E8-432B-9BF6-3E374958EA70/0/EducatorGuide_EMS_20131118.pdf.
[8] NYC Charter School Center, The State of the NYC Charter School Sector,
2012; http://c4258751.r51.cf2.rackcdn.com/state-of-the-sector-2012.pdf
[9] Bruce Baker, “What does the New York City Charter School Study from CREDO really tell us?” School Finance 101, February 25, 2013; “Here, we see that compared to same grade level schools in the same borough, NYC charters have in many groups, 10% to 20% fewer children qualifying for free lunch... These groups are substantively different in terms of their educational outcomes.” http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/what-does-the-new-york-city-charter-school-study-from-credo-really-tell-us/
[10]
New York City Independent Budget Office, “Charter
Schools Housed in the City’s School Buildings Get More Public Funding than
Traditional Public Schools,” February 15, 2011, http://ibo.nyc.ny.us/cgi-park/?p=272.
[11] Bruce D. Baker and
R. Ferris, Adding Up the Spending: Fiscal
Disparities and Philanthropy among NYC Charter Schools; National Education
Policy Center, 2011; http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/NEPC-NYCharter-Baker-Ferris.pdf
[12] Juan Gonzalez, “Mayor Bloomberg should stop blaming bus workers for the strike and look for creative solutions,” Daily News, January 17, 2013. About 20% of charter school students receive busing paid for by the city, compared to 9% of public school students.
[13] Ben Chapman, “New state law changes makes opening charter schools in New York City easier than any other in nation,” Daily News, May 5, 2014.
[14]
In New York City, these include KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon
charter schools.
Bruce D. Baker, Ken Libby, & K. Wiley, “Spending by the Major Charter Management
Organizations: Comparing charter school and local public district financial
resources in New York, Ohio, and Texas,” National Education Policy Center,
2012; http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/rb-charterspending_0.pdf
[15] Mercedes Schneider, “Success Academy Tax Documents: Moskowitz Can Afford the Rent,” deutsch29, December 1, 2013; http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/success-academy-tax-documents-moskowitz-can-afford-the-rent/; Eliza Shapiro, “Unions blast Bush-headlined charter fund-raiser,” Capital NY, Apr. 30, 2014.
[16] For comparative class sizes, see
Bruce D. Baker, “What do the available data tell us about NYC charter school
teachers & their jobs?”, School
Finance 101, August 28, 2012; http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/what-do-the-available-data-tell-us-about-nyc-charter-school-teachers-their-jobs/
[17]
Gary Rubinstein, “How to Define Success?” TeachforUs.org,
August 13, 2013, http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/08/13/how-to-define-success/;
New York State Education Department, 2011-2012
New York State Report Card for Success Academy Charter School, https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2011-12/RC-2012-310300860897.pdf, and New York State
Education Department, 2011-2012 New York
State Report Card for PS 149 Sojourner Truth, https://reportcards.nysed.gov/files/2011-12/RC-2012-310300010149.pdf.
[18] Juan Gonzalez, “Success Academy school chain comes under fire as parents fight 'zero tolerance' disciplinary policy,” Daily News, August 28, 2013.
[19] For more on suspension, expulsion and attrition rates
at charters, see Gail Robinson, “Vanishing students at Harlem Success?” InsideSchools, June 6, 2012, http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1000359-vanishing-students-at-harlem-success;
see also Arni Karni, “Charters 'nix 23%' of kids,” NY Post,
April 24, 2011. For the fact that public
schools are not allowed to expel students until they turn 17, see NYC DOE, The Discipline Code and Bill of Student Rights and
Responsibilities, K-12, Effective September 2012; http://schools.nyc.gov/nr/rdonlyres/f7da5e8d-c065-44ff-a16f-55f491c0b9e7/0/disccode20122013final.pdf
[20] Charter Schools Institute, State University of New York, “Renewal Recommendation Report, Success Academy Charter School - Harlem 3,” February 11, 2013; http://www.newyorkcharters.org/documents/SAHarlem3RenewalReportFINAL.docx. The same phrases and recommendations were issued for Harlem 2 and Harlem 4 Success charters at the same time; see http://www.newyorkcharters.org/documents/SAHarlem2RenewalReportFINAL.docx and http://www.newyorkcharters.org/documents/SAHarlem4RenewalReportFINAL.docx.
[21]
NYC Independent Budget Office, “Staying or Going? Comparing Student Attrition Rates at Charter Schools with Nearby
Traditional Public Schools, January
2014; http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/2014attritioncharterpublic.html
[22] These requirements are in Section 2851(4)(e) related
to charter renewal applications, and in Section 2852(9-a)(b)(i) related to
applications for new charters under RFPs issued by the Board of Regents and the
SUNY Board of Trustees. Section 2852(9-a)(b)(i) requires that the Board
of Regents and the SUNY Board of Trustees prescribe enrollment and retention
targets. All charter schools that were initially chartered after August 2010 or
renewed after January 1, 2011 are expected to meet or exceed the enrollment and
retention targets for each individual school.
[23]
Megan McCarville, NY State Education Department, email to Leonie Haimson, dated
April 29, 2014.
[24] Kevin G. Welner and Gary Miron, “Wait, Wait. Don’t
Mislead Me! Nine Reasons To Be Skeptical About Charter Waitlist Numbers,” National Education Policy Center, May
2014, http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/nepc-policymemo_waitlists.pdf.
[25] Philip. Gleason,
Melissa Clark, Christina Clark Tuttle,
and Emily Dwoyer, The Evaluation of
Charter School Impacts: Final Report,
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, 2012, http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/education/charter_school_impacts.pdf
[26]
Juan Gonzalez, “Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Schools network rolling in
money but still wants 50% increase in management fees from state,” New York Daily News, June 25, 2012, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eva-moskowitz-success-academy-charter-schools-disproportionate-share-state-education-money-article-1.1101668.
[27]
Emily Frost, “Demand for Harlem School Spots Should Prevent Charter Growth,
Leaders Say,” DNAInfo.com, April 22,
2014, http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140422/west-harlem/demand-for-harlem-school-spots-should-prevent-charter-growth-leaders-say.
Ben Chapman and Steven Rex Brown, “Success Academy Charter Schools admission
rate is only 20%, lower than NYU,” New
York Daily News, April 4, 2014,
[28]
Pamela Wheaton, “Long kindergarten waitlists persist at 5 schools,” InsideSchools.org, April 23, 2014, http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1000826-long-kindergarten-waitlists-persist-at-some-schools.
[29]
Leonie Haimson, “Acceptance rate at proposed closing schools,”, New York City Public School Parents Blog,
January 26, 2010; http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/01/acceptance-rate-at-proposed-closing.html.
[30] InsideSchools,
Profile for Millennium High School, http://insideschools.org/high/browse/school/69.
[31] Liz Robbins, “Lost in the School
Choice Maze,” The New York Times, May
6, 2011.
8 comments:
Thank you Leonie! You're a wonderful spokesperson for public school parents and students. Just Brilliant!
Mary
I also want to thank you. Incredibly well written and documented and devastatingly persuasive--should any of the powers-that-be actually read it.
Excellent testimony. Very impt to constantly expose and repeat lies of the private charters posing as public schools to grab money and free space from our kids.
WOW!
Terrific take-down.
Very well stated, Leonie! Thanks so much for such a comprehensive report! Hopefully, these politicians will realize that their own jobs are on the line if they support this favoritism towards privately managed, unaccountable charter schools, while neglecting the majority of students, many of whom are in under-resourced genuine public schools.
A couple points about Success Academy: While kids in neighborhood public schools languish in over crowded classes with high student-teacher ratios, the additional funds have enabled charters like Success Academy to hire two teachers for each classroom, lowering their student-teacher ratios considerably.
Also, parents have reported that the online application for Success Academy allows for the child to be put on lists for all of the Success Academies at the same time, and they count each application separately, so their waiting lists are greatly inflated. (And who would waste so much money on advertising when they have waiting lists?) Plus, the application process takes 3 minutes online and applicants don't have to prove they have a child.
Thanks for posting this. Parents need to learn the danger of "corporate charter schools". They may seem like a better alternative now, but that is only because there are still other options out there.
As soon as those option disappear, charter school will be staffed with a minimum wage, uncertified staff in order to keep as much of the schools budget as profit.
It's a bad situation, and people really need to wake up.
Excellent analysis. It's hard to argue with this.
Charter schools are very crowded schools in New York. If you want your child to study in these schools you should wait because thousands of parents are in row to get their child admitted to these schools. If you have a disabled child then I advise you to admit your child in a private special education school that has a good reputation.
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