Imagine schools: corporate-style reform in NYC rearing its head once again

On Thursday, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza announced a new $32 million initiative, called “Imagine Schools NYC”, described as a “Public-Private Challenge to Open 20 New Schools and Transform 20 Existing Schools Across 5 Boroughs”.  A competition was announced for teams to submit their ideas for new or redesigned public schools, with winners to be announced in May 2020 and these schools to open in 2021 or 2022. 

According to this press release from the Mayor's office, the Robin Hood Foundation will contribute “up to $5 million to support the creation of up to 10 new Imagine Schools”  and the XQ Institute  will contribute another $10 million to create 10  new or redesigned public high schools.  Presumably, this means DOE will itself be putting in an additional $16 million to create or restructure another twenty schools. 

Robin Hood is also spending $1M to expand the  DOE’s District-Charter Partnership work, “centered on proven, effective professional development,”  as well as spending up to $10 million for 18 new charter schools, as mentioned in the NY Times, which is twice as much as they’re paying for new public schools.

The XQ Institute, founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, focuses on questionable “competency-based learning” and spent a boatload of money on promoting itself, first via a flashy 2017 TV prime-time special, replete with celebrity performances, and then unsuccessfully pitching the show to be nominated for an Emmy via a national bus tour. 

The DOE press release describes the XQ Institute as “a national leader in transformational high school design…Based on research and expert practice.” Yet the schools that the Institute has helped launch so far have not had an impressive record of success. Four of the first ten high schools that were awarded $10 million each by XQ in their 2016 “Super School” competition  either never opened, failed to expand as planned, or have already closed. 

In addition, one of the schools awarded $2.5 million in a second round of funding, Crosstown, a new high school in Memphis, experienced a student walk-out this fall, to protest how the tenth grade had apparently been separated into two cohorts; one composed of mostly white students and the other black students, with the first group provided with extra attention.  Just last week, the school lost its principal for the second time since it opened last year.

Over the last decade or so, the Robin Hood Foundation has primarily supported charter schools in its education portfolio, as might be predicted considering it was founded by hedge funders and its board is still composed largely of corporate executives and financiers.  According to Wikipedia, its board chair, Larry Robbins, is also the board chair of KIPP NY charter schools, and board chair of the Relay Graduate School that trains teachers in the charter school “no excuses” regimented style of instruction. Robbins is also a member of the NY Board of Teach for America.

Robin Hood’s co- founders have a spotty record.  One co-founder, Paul Tudor Jones, who still sits on the board, also was a board member of the Weinstein Company and continued to support Harvey Weinstein even after the stories of his numerous sexual assaults were exposed in the NY Times. 

Another Robin Hood co-founder and board member, Glenn Dubin, was a close associate and business partner of Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein served time for the sexual abuse of minors. Economist Roland Fryer, board member, was suspended in July from the faculty at Harvard for two years and lost his research lab for repeated instances of sexual harassment.

The DOE application form to submit an idea for a new or redesigned ImagineNYC school is here.  Among the information required are the members of the school design team, a theme for the school, several essays and a video. And yet the application is due on Nov. 6, only one month from now.

While the DOE press release claims that this will be a community driven process, and that "Department representatives have attended community events and distributed flyers in neighborhoods across the City to raise awareness,” I have yet to hear from any parent leader or community member who had seen any such flyers. 

The press release also indicates that some design teams “have already begun forming across the City,” which suggests the entire competition may be an inside job, with the administration giving a head start to certain favored groups or individuals. Indeed, the release discloses that “through the spring and summer, the DOE has invited principals to attend design day sessions."

Given that these two private funders will help select the winners, or as Robin Hood put it, “will partner with the Department of Education on a rigorous selection process”, that means DOE will be sacrificing control for the design of these public schools to these two organizations for a relative pittance, compared to what it will cost to operate them.

But an even greater concern, as I expressed it to the Daily News, is that every new school will likely take space and funding away from our existing public schools, which are already underfunded and in many cases squeezed for space. Every new school makes overcrowding worse by eating up classroom space with the need to carve out new, replicated administrative and cluster rooms. 

We already have seen how worse inequities have resulted from the expansion of co-located charter schools in our public school buildings, as well as how the Gates-funded small schools initiative led to many of the remaining large high schools becoming even more overcrowded with the high-needs students that the small schools refused to enroll.  
Many of the disadvantaged students at the large schools ended up more likely to be discharged, enrolled in low-quality credit recovery programs, or graduate without a Regents diploma  -- all of which served the purposes of the organizations running the show as their small schools data appeared better in comparison.  Another piece of evidence that DOE is caught in an infinite feedback loop: the Senior adviser to the XQ Institute is Michele Cahill, who ran the small schools initiative for Chancellor Klein when she was at DOE. 

One of the proposed XQ “Super Schools” awarded $10 million in 2016 was later rejected by the Somerville school board in Massachusetts, because the district Superintendent and school board realized that even with these funds, starting yet another school would cause  big cuts to their existing high schools, and that “opening the new school would force the district to cut at least 20 teacher or counselor positions and to eliminate most before- and after-school programs districtwide.”

As the Somerville Superintendent was quoted in the Boston Globe:

“As someone who believes in and has championed the power of new ideas my whole career, it pains me deeply to not be able to solve this problem,” she said. “In this case, the investment to create something that may only add an unknown amount of benefit to 2 to 3 percent of students, at the expense of the remaining 97 to 98 percent, is one I cannot recommend making at this time.”

NYC already has more than 1800 schools, as a result of the mistaken notion that constant “innovation” (meaning experimentation) and “choice” will raise all boats. Under Bloomberg, 500 new, mostly small schools were created, in addition to 210 new charter schools. How many more do we need?  Instead, it would be better if the Mayor and the Chancellor would focus their attention on making real improvements in the schools we already have, with reforms that have been proven to work, like reducing class size. 

This new “competition” seems like a vanity project and an attempt to enhance the image of Mayor de Blasio, who after coming back from a failed run for President is suffering from a 33% approval rating, and whose sole school improvement effort so far, the Renewal schools, is widely recognized to have failed.  Instead of forging a different and more progressive path, he and Carranza are following in the corporate-style footsteps of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein in outsourcing of decision-making to private foundations with problematic records and vested interests, in addition to their other recently-announced plans to impose a new system of  interim standardized testing on the schools and create yet another new data system. 

Sure enough, Ray Domanico of the right-wing, pro-privatization Manhattan Institute recognizing this when he applauded the-new initiative, writing that "this approach is built on the same valuable concepts de Blasio’s predecessor embraced, which have been missing from the mayor’s agenda until now."

Another deeply concerning development was the concurrent Robin Hood announcement that they intend to fund 18 new charter schools, when NYC reached the cap on charter schools last year.  According to this NYSED chart, there are already 281 charter schools in NYC, with 25 more already  approved and due to open from 2020-2023. 

Does Robin Hood expect to fund 18 of these already-authorized charter schools, or do they plan to use  their billionaire bucks to try to lobby the Legislature to raise the charter cap once again, as they did in 2010? Let’s hope not the latter.  Only time will tell, I suppose.

Why SUNY should not allow Success Charters to expand.

On Wed., October 8, 2014, the SUNY charter committee is due to vote on authorizing a gazillion new Success charters for nearly every area of the city -- though without telling us exactly where they will go, and how much space they will take from our public school students.  Where: 116 E. 55 St., Boardroom;  Time: 9:30 AM.

Eva Moskowitz is determined to occupy as much real estate as possible as quickly as possible at city expense,  and is preparing with a massive rally this Thursday where she will gather the troops, closing her schools for the occasion, and ordering every parent, teacher and student at her command to show up.

In addition, her hedge fund supporters have given $1.75 million in the past week alone to GOP State Senators, determined to fix the election in her favor. .Of that,  $350,000, came from Paul Tudor Jones II,  of the Robin Hood Foundation and Tudor Investment Corp., a hedge fund in Connecticut. Here is a picture of him with his wife at his 60th birthday, where John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater and Jon Bon Jovi sang.

Not to mention millions more they have given to the best friend of the charter schools, Governor Cuomo. Truly, the charter movement is not an educational movement, but a political one, in the worst sense of the word -- and their billionaire backers are intent on using their outsized wealth and power to get their way, whether it is in the best interests of NYC children or not. Check out the column by Prof. Dan Katz on their collective hypocrisy.

On Monday night there were hearings at the District 2 offices on 7th Ave, where many eloquent teachers, parents, community leaders, and Assemblymember Deborah Glick spoke in opposition to this land grab, and several parents from Upper West Success spoke plaintively in support.  The Community Education Council in Districts 2 and 3 are also opposed, as is the Community Board in District 2, whose representative suggested that if SUNY liked Success charters so much they give them space in their own buildings, instead of invading our local public schools.  Interestingly, not a single parent who said they wanted to enroll their own children in any of these schools showed up, and the representatives from her charter network refused to speak, though as usual, they had hired a cameraman to take videos.  I told the videographer that he must have filmed hundreds of hours of hearings of parents protesting  Success charter schools, and he just shrugged.
Norm Scott has posted some videos here of the MORE contingent, and DNA info covered the hearings here, as did the Columbia Spectator.  I  spoke briefly, and today I sent my comments to two out of the three members of the SUNY charter committee  (the only two I could find emails for.) 

To: jbelluck@belluckfox.com, jmurad@hancocklaw.com, charters@suny.edu 

Dear Mr. Belluck and Mr. Murad:  

I urge you not to allow Success charters to expand, on the grounds that they do not enroll their fair share of high needs students, receive more per student funding in public funds than public schools, and drain our public schools of the resources and space necessary for a sound basic education.

I will briefly explain these points, but for back-up material or citations for any of these points, you can refer to the attached document, called the Six Myths of Charter school, also  posted here:  http://www.classsizematters.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/testimony-charters-5-6-14-final1.pdf

1.        Charter schools are NOT public schools. 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.  They are able to cap their enrollment and class sizes at any levels they like, they enact extreme disciplinary policies, and often exhibit high suspension rates.   In NYC, they can and do expel students –forbidden by NYC public schools for any student under 17.

2.      Charter schools DO NOT educate the same exact kind of students as public schools.  Charters have fewer special needs students, English language learners, students in poverty. This is especially true of Success Charters. According to the 2010 Amendments to the Charter Schools Act , when charter authorizers  renew or allow charter schools to expand, these schools are 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, yet despite this, Success charters has been allowed to rapidly expand without showing this.

3.     NYC charters receive MORE in per student public funding than district schools.  As the NYC Independent Budget Office has pointed out, 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.  The large disparity in public support will grow even greater with the boost in charter funding  in the new state budget, and the guarantee of free space for all new and expanding NYC charters moving forward, .

4.   Charter schools DO NOT get higher test scores because of some secret formula. 

The test scores of charter chains like Success is likely not due to superior teaching or curriculum, but to increased funding, and their much higher suspension and attrition rates. Of course, the more a school pushes out struggling students, the higher their test scores will likely be. According to the latest available figures, Success Academy charters lose half of their students by 6^th grade.  Suspensions are especially high among special education students.

5. Charter schools DO NOT have huge waiting lists. According to DOE figures, there are many public schools whose acceptance rates are the same or smaller than charters.

6.    The new state law which guarantees free space paid for by city for all new charters going forward will further drain the city’s schools of resources they cannot afford.  The new law actually provides 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 will now be guaranteed space free of charge.  Already NYC is spending over $1 billion per year on charters, while our public school budgets have been cut 14% in recent years.

While hundreds of thousands of NYC public school children continue to sit in overcrowded classrooms, in trailers, and on Kindergarten waiting lists, and wait for smaller classes, which is the state’s highest court said was their constitutional right, the charter schools will get a free ride at the city’s expense.  This will further exacerbate a dual system of separate and unequal schools and is fundamentally unfair.:

On the first day of school, a visit to the Excellence Charter school in Bed-Stuy

Jenny Medina of the NY Times captured the following exchange during the usual dog and pony show of yesterday’s media tour of the first day of school:

“In a kindergarten classroom — its door designating the students inside as members of the Class of 2025 — Mr. Markowitz cornered Mr. Klein. “Why can’t our public schools have a place like this?” he asked a bit testily. “Do you know the resources it takes for a place like this?”

Elizabeth Green of the NY Sun also observed this conversation:

On a visit to the Excellence Charter School, which is housed in a sparkling new 90,000-square-foot school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, became visibly agitated.

"Listen to me," he said to the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, as the two toured a classroom, "we have some public schools that are starving for these kinds of resources."

Mr. Klein replied that some schools are doing as well as Excellence with more modest budgets.

Mr. Markowitz was not convinced; he said that while he supports charter schools, he is "conflicted" about the extra resources they sometimes receive from private donors.

"I really believe the jury is out on this whole thing," Mr. Markowitz said, walking out the door.

Is it all a matter of private donors? According to the school’s website,

Excellence is housed in a 90,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility with a 10,000-volume library, a 500-seat auditorium, music and art studios, a gymnasium, a climbing wall, a rooftop turf field, and sufficient classroom space to house Excellence as it grows into a K-8 school.

According to InsideSchools, the building was renovated from a former DOE public school (PS 70):

In the new facility, students will enjoy amenities that rival deeply-endowed private schools. Designed by Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern, the renovated building includes an AstroTurfed roof garden/play yard with sweeping city and harbor views, secluded and inviting book nooks on every floor, double-sized science labs, a giant gymnasium complete with climbing wall, a spacious school library, and a state-of-the-art auditorium. Sawicki lives around the corner from the new building.

Here are some before and after photos, including this photo that looks like there are about ten kids per class. So where did all the money for this incredible facility come from?

See this 2006 article from Fortune magazine, about the Robin Hood foundation and its founder, “hedge fund maestro Paul Tudor Jones” :

“The school is the product of a pooling of dollars by the New York City Board of Education, Robin Hood, and Jones personally, plus contributions from a variety of corporations.

The school's physical plant, including a fabulous AstroTurf roof, would be the envy of any $30,000-a-year private school. Inside, groups of energized young teachers and little boys, kindergarten through second grade (and 100% minority), in white shirts and ties, ready themselves for the coming school year. Principal Jabali Sawicki tells me there is a 170-student waiting list.

Just a few years ago this building was a neighborhood eyesore, a symbol of all that had gone wrong in Bed-Stuy. Originally constructed in the 1880s as PS 70, and later used as a yeshiva, it became a home to drug dealers and prostitutes after a fire in the 1970s - even a venue for illegal cock fights.

Then, in 2004, another organization that Jones supports, Uncommon Schools, committed $30 million ($6 million from Jones personally) to buy and renovate the property. David Saltzman, the executive director of Robin Hood, persuaded Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, to design the facility, which was completed this spring. Signs throughout the school were done gratis by renowned design firm Pentagram. And Robin Hood sent a check for $150,000 for the school's operating budget. Books were donated by Scholastic and HarperCollins, which have given a collective two million volumes to Robin Hood…”

This 2006 article notes how the Robin Hood Foundation raises hundreds of millions per year; from charity concerts of the Rolling Stones (take: $11 million); benefit dinners hosted by Jon Stewart with guest star Beyonce, and the auctioning off naming rights to charter school buildings going for $1 million:

Most charity dinners in New York are considered a smash if they bring in $1 million. Here success is measured in tens of millions. "If you are on Wall Street, particularly in hedge funds, you have to be here," says one of my tablemates….The final tally? In a single night Robin Hood hauls in $48 million. Some $20 million is earmarked for the new school - which will be matched by the board, $2.25 for each $1. And New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who at one point during the gala, at Jones's urging, stands and takes a bow, has said the city, in turn, will match the combined sum (as well as the amount of a tax credit). Overall, the $20 million for the school will grow to $180 million. The cost to put on the dinner? Around $5.6 million.

And the cost to taxpayers: $90 million.

In answer to the Fortune reporter’s question: Don't charter schools draw precious resources away from other public schools?

Jones makes no apologies: "Charter schools are the best thing that ever happened to education in New York City because they provide competition to regular public schools and raise the bar that everyone is trying to attain. They provide thought leadership for other schools, so again there's a multiplicative impact."

This is Klein’s usual response as well. Wonder why so many other schools in Brooklyn and citywide still have substandard conditions.

Can someone explain to me how that competition thing works again?