Bill Thompson on charter schools and turning around failing schools

Working Families Party debate, July 2, 2009

“I do support charter schools, but they serve only about 25,000 students. That leaves more than one million who aren’t in charter schools.

.... When we look at what we did, a model called Chancellor’s schools; we capped the size of the school, created a rigorous curriculum, focused on teacher training, literacy, etc.. intensive teacher training and the schools improved. And we involved parents. We need to bring them in."

(He fails to mention the most important reform in the Chancellor's district -- a dramatic reduction in class size for grades K-5)

".... not everything is standardized tests. We must bring back art and music to schools and we create well-rounded students."

Bloomberg on charter schools etc.

At the Working Families Party Debate on July 2, a parent asks the Mayor:

“My children’s school is successful Harlem school, but they are downsizing it to make way for charter schools. But charter schools only educate 2% of public school students. Meanwhile many of the large schools that have thousands of students continue to fail. what is your plan to turn around big schools and failing schools?”

Bloomberg responds: "I went to public schools, I believe they are the future of the society.... Charter schools are useful, they’re open, they give us a bogie (?) to go after.

But look at what we’ve done with the big schools….Bushwick, Amanda Childs (!!!), we took the the same number of students but broke them up into smaller schools, better management. Graduation rates up. And Harlem is one of the great success stories…..

I am in favor of fair funding. We did not fund schools in poor minority neighborhoods anywhere near as we did in more affluent neighborhoods. We put all new money to give them schools underfunded. We’ve been able to upgrade teachers through training….If there’s anything I’m proud of is the progress we’ve made its whats happened to the public school system over the last seven years."

Actually, the so-called fair student funding formula the DOE devised would have cut the funding for 47% of failing schools in NYC, as we discussed here. And the additional state funding this year that was supposed to go to low-performing schools instead went to plug holes caused by the city's budget cuts to schools, as CFE recently revealed.

Tony Avella on charter schools, Joel Klein, and teaching to the test

At the Working Families Party debate: July 2, 2009



On charter schools:I am absolutely not a fan of charter schools and I never have been. The whole reason they came about was because the regular public schools were failing...Why not fix the schools that are failing."

"It would be my pleasure to say to Joel Klein, you are fired! And don't let the door hit you on the way out. And the new board is a disgrace....Why are we not listening to teachers and principals and parents? We have to stop teaching to the test."

It's our decision: new TV ad on term limits

Check out this ad from the Working Families Party; its supposed to air tonight during the debate on NY1, MSNBC, CNN, News 12 and Fox News.

See also this: Arriving in mailboxes today are 100,000 mailings, urging voters to contact 7 City Councilmembers who are yet to take a position on extending term limits without asking the voters.

The mail urges calls to Councilmembers to remind them that voters have twice backed term limits and that any extension should only be up to the public.

The targeted council districts are:

-Alan Gerson
-Melinda Katz
-James Sanders
-David Yassky
-Sara Gonzalez
-Jessica Lappin
-Peter Vallone

Billionaires on term limits

Check out this new video on term limits from Billionaires for Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, the Working Families Party has gotten involved -- their new website is called www.ItsOurDecision.org

Here's a piece on the NY Times blog about the WFP involvement -- with a quote from Dan Cantor, the head of the party:

“This is not necessarily about where you stand on term limits or whether or not you think that Mike Bloomberg has been a good mayor. This about the rules of the game. And you don’t get to change them at the end of the fourth quarter just because your team wants to keep playing....The media and business elite in New York seem to not be willing to hear the voices of regular people," Mr. Cantor said, accusing the publishers — Mortimer B. Zuckerman, of The Daily News; Rupert Murdoch, of the New York Post; and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., of The New York Times – of trying to create “a 21st century Tammany Hall.”

And see this article from today's metro, showing that many members of the NYC Council are wavering, after receiving lots of phone calls from their constituents.

Make your voice heard; call your Councilmember; that is unless you want to leave it up to the Billionaires to decide.