Our Co-Location Moratorium Letter to the Chancellor

On Nov. 18, along with many parent leaders and other advocates, we sent the letter below to the Chancellor, urging a moratorium on any more co-locations until all NYC children could be ensured of their constitutional right to a sound basic education, including smaller classes.  WNYC reported on our letter here.

It was reported yesterday that the DOE has turned down three new charters asking for co-located space, one in District 6 in Upper Manhattan, correctly stating there is no room in their schools, and the other two in Brooklyn, and is negotiating with them on leasing private space. 

Under the new state law, NYC has to provide free space for all new and expanding charters going forward, or pay them up to $2600 per student for leased space. After NYC reaches $40M in total rental costs, state will pick up 60%.

Under the existing charter cap, NYC already has 197 charters, 31 more have been approved to open over the next two years,  and 28 remain under the cap.

Governor Cuomo & Regents Chancellor Tisch favor expanding cap & will likely push for this in Legislature this year. We will be drafting a resolution, urging the Legislature to oppose any lifting of the charter cap, and asking the state to cover entire cost of charter rent in NYC.  Email us at info@classsizematters.org if you’d like a copy.

Co-Location Moratorium Letter_FINAL 11 14 14

Comments on the school closures and co-locations to be voted on tomorrow

Check out my official comments to the DOE below on the proposed school closures, co-locations and grade expansions to be voted on tomorrow at the Panel for Educational Policy.  

This includes a discussion of the effect of these proposals on the availability of CTE/vocational seats and programs, the likely impact on overcrowding and class size, and other reforms which should have been considered before closing these schools, especially class size reduction.  

Click on the charts showing  very large class sizes at some of the schools slated for closure -- including Gompers, Jane Addams, Grace Dodge, Manhattan Theater Lab -- and never given any support from DOE or a  real chance to improve before the Mayor decided to close them down.  There are more charts in the document below.

CSM Comments on School Utilization Feb. 9 PEP  

Brooklyn parents, teachers & community members speak out: we don't want your charter school!

Thanks to Darren Marelli, here are highlights from the hearing that occurred on Tuesday about the controversial proposal to co-locate another branch of the Success Academy charter chain in Cobble Hill, District 15, in Brooklyn. 

Passionate and articulate parents, teachers, elected officials, students and community members spoke out against this damaging, deceptive and most probably illegal proposal, and pointed out how the co-location will likely wreck the schools that now inhabit the building, one of which is in transformation, by overcrowding them, forcing them to increase class size and lose valuable programs.  Does the DOE care?  You be the judge.

We take the city to court over charter co-locations!

Here is an article about the court hearing from GothamSchools, here is video from NY1; here is our updated press release.

Yesterday morning, parent groups, including Class Size Matters, the NYC Parents Union, and individual parent plaintiffs, took the city to court over charter co-locations, and the way in which DOE provides space and service to charters for free, which we believe violates state law.

First, we had a press conference on the steps of the State Supreme Court. Then we took seats in Judge Feinman’s courtroom at 10 AM, which wasn’t nearly as crowded as when he heard the NAACP/UFT lawsuit, but was about half full with attorneys from the NYC Corporation Counsel’s office, DOE chief counsel Michael Best, and a large number of attorneys from the firms representing the charter schools.  In contrast, our side was represented by one lone attorney, Arthur Schwartz of  Advocates for Justice, who was terrific. 
 
There were actually three related lawsuits that were argued by Arthur; the first was on behalf of the parents at IS 303, who oppose the proposal to co-locate Coney Island Prep charter in their building, which sparked huge protests last year. Over the last few years, IS 303 had turned around its previously struggling school, by using a program that has students stay in their classrooms rather than travel from one room to another.  Arthur argued that this co-location would prevent this practice from continuing, and this would degrade the quality of education.  This was backed by an expert report from the 21^st Century Fund that Commissioner King had refused to consider because he received it one day after his deadline.  

Arthur also cited the precedent of the CFE case, which held that NYC students had the right to a sound basic education, and said there were constitutional issues involved.  He added that the Educational Impact statement for IS 303 did not properly asses the negative impact on the school’s special needs students, whose services and programs would be squeezed into inadequate spaces, though Commissioner King had claimed that DOE substantially complied with the law because the EIS simply mentioned these students in passing.    Finally, Arthur pointed out that the announcement for the public hearing on the co-location was only translated into Spanish after the hearing had taken place, even though 20 percent of the IS 303 parents are Spanish-speaking.

Then Chuck Orsland, the lead attorney from the NYC Corporation Counsel’s office, spoke. When he argued that Commissioner King did not have a duty to accept the 21^st Century report, Judge Feinman expressed some skepticism about why King couldn’t have easily granted an extension. Orsland also claimed that DOE had no legal requirement to notify the parents in Spanish, and that it was speculation to say that abandoning the teaching model that had improved outcomes at IS 303 would undermine the quality of education at the school.

Then Arthur went on to argue a second case: that the co-location of Explore Charter at Parkside Prep/MS 2 in Brooklyn was illegal, citing many of the same grounds.  The public notification of Spanish and Haitian parents was inadequate and there was little or no analysis of the co-location’s impact on special needs students and English Language Learners.  Orsland responded with a long procedural objection that I didn’t really understand about Article 78 hearings.  He also argued that citing CFE was a red herring, but the Judge explained that when a co-located school takes away 40 classrooms, it may undermine the quality of education.  Orsland concluded that even given these charter co-locations, the public schools remained under-utilized.  (Meanwhile, the NYC Comptroller pointed out in an audit on Wednesday that the DOE utilization figures are so unreliable, with 10-25% error rates, as to be “a house of cards.”)

Finally, it was time for our case to be argued.  (Here is our original legal complaint, here is our reply brief.)  Arthur pointed out that NY state law holds that when districts provide space and services to charter schools, they shall do so “at cost”, but the DOE provides all this for free to co-located charters.  Since co-located charters represent about 2/3 of all the charters in the city, this means that DOE forgoes about $100 million a year in revenues.  This estimated figure is based on an analysis here and here, released by the Independent Budget Office in February 2011.  (These analyses corrected an earlier IBO 2010 report , which mistakenly held that co-located charter schools received less in per student public funding than district public school students.  Strangely, the charter school attorneys included only the uncorrected, erroneous 2010 IBO report as Exhibit 1 into evidence, without including the subsequent report or mentioning that the IBO had revised their estimates.)

Here is the relevant passage in the state law:
 
Article 56, Section 2853, Part 4(c): A charter school may contract with a school district or the governing body of a public college or university for the use of a school building and grounds, the operation and maintenance thereof. Any such contract shall provide such services or facilities at cost.

Arthur went on to explain that that this free provision of space and services leads to co-located charter schools being provided with more than the per pupil public funding that district public schools receive, leading to inequities in services and staffing.  He also pointed out that the illegal subsidy they receive from DOE of $100 million per year could prevent the loss of many of the 2500-3000 teaching positions that have occurred, and the consequent increases in class size.  

Orsland, the city’ attorney focused his rebuttal on three main points:  first, there were no contracts between charters and DOE and so there was no need for these contracts to include any charges for space or services.  Yet in Exhibit 2,  entered into evidence by the charter school attorneys, Michael Regnier of the NYC Charter Center stated something different: that “a handful of charters may have signed use agreements…but to the best of our information and belief, those agreements were in fact never executed”  (whatever that means).  In any event, Orsland’s claim is contradicted by the fact that we have a copy of a signed, notarized contract between Girls Prep charter and the DOE, saying they will pay $1 dollar in rent for the space, and laying out other detailed provisions about their use.  Until recently, the boilerplate contract agreement for space for co-located charters was prominently posted on the DOE website.  

Orsland’s second argument was that even if the city recovered these funds, they would not necessarily be spent on new teachers or programs that benefit our children, and that instead, the DOE might spend the funds on more administrators or other priorities, so the parents’ claims of injury were hypothetical.  (This point was also made in the city’s brief and the affidavit of Sharon Olds of the DOE budget office.)  This led into his third point:  that parents have no standing to sue and no private right of action, and whatever financial arrangement exists is instead a private matter between the DOE and the charter schools, and “we think co-location is a good thing.”

The lead attorney for the charter schools, Andrew Dunlap from Kirkland & Ellis, chimed in that if charters had to pay rent, some of them might have to close or lay off staff.  These arguments were also made in the various charter affidavits, such as this one from DREAM charter director, Richard Berlin:

 “DREAM currently has a model that provide for two fully certified teachers per classroom, with teaching assistants for grades K-1.  DREAM would likely be forced to reduce leadership and instructional staffing, eliminating 4-6 full-time teaching position and 1 to 2 school leadership roles, destroying the DREAM teaching model parents sought to obtain by applying for a lottery pot at DREAM.”

A similar affidavit was filed by Ian Newton of the Explore Empower Charter school: that his school “has a model that provide for two teachers per classroom” and if forced to pay rent, they might have to “cut core teaching positions, increasing student-teacher ratio, and destroying the Empower teaching model…”

The charter attorney, Dunlap, also argued that if these schools closed, their students would shift back to DOE schools which would lead to “worse overcrowding.” (Why?  Not sure; each new school that is co-located exacerbates overcrowding, because of the need to duplicate administrative and cluster space.) He reiterated the city’s argument that the DOE might use the money for other purposes rather than hiring more teachers.  The Judge interjected that perhaps the funds could be used for school supplies, since the teacher’s choice program had been eliminated this year. 

Judge Feinman went on to say that “no one could argue that $100 million wouldn’t make a difference” in how the DOE provides resources to the schools, and if parents don’t have standing, who does?  Dunlap maintained that parents, students, and advocacy groups had no right to sue, since none of these groups are mentioned in the relevant statute.

In his final rebuttal, our attorney, Arthur Schwartz pointed out that it was specious to claim that the DOE could get around the law by saying they had no contracts with the charters; and that another statute says that charters may lease or own space, but nowhere is it mentioned that they can get space for free.  

Arthur also commented that while the charter directors complain that they might have to sacrifice their great teacher-student ratios or some of their other assets, this is exactly what has happened in our public schools.  Because of repeated budget cuts, public schools have been forced to eliminate teachers and raise class sizes for the last three year in a row, and have lost many valuable programs.  Finally, if DOE chose to provide more money in the form of cash to charters than the state-mandate formula prescribes, would they also argue that public school parents could not sue?  

Judge Feinman wrapped up at about 1:15 PM, by saying our case was “interesting” and raises “different issues.” He asked for final legal papers to be due in a couple of weeks.  At that point, presumably, he will make a determination about whether he would order a preliminary injunction (meaning charter schools would be asked to pay rent immediately), whether he would dismiss the case,  or whether it should go to trial.

It was a very fascinating couple of hours, and for me as a plaintiff, thrilling, since theoretically at least, we have an equal chance to win as DOE.  In court, only the law and the strength of our arguments rule, rather than the money and power of Bloomberg and the DOE, who are generally able to steamroll their policies over the vehement protests and opposition of parents, no matter how legitimate our objections.  

Also revealing, I thought, is how the city openly argued that they wouldn’t necessarily use the extra funds to prevent class size increases and to benefit our kids, but might spend it on more bureaucracy; and that parents have no legal standing to intervene in their decisions.  Let’s cross our fingers and hope that the Judge disagrees.

Our new lawsuit on charter school co-locations filed today!

UPDATE: news of our lawsuit was covered in GothamSchools,  NY Times blog, Daily News,
NY Post,  and NY1.

The press release below is pretty self-explanatory; we should have video soon.  Here is the verified complaint ; here is a fact sheet showing where we got our estimates of the nearly $100 million in space and services that the co-located charter schools should be paying the NYC per year -- which could prevent most of the budget cuts and class size increases at schools expected next year.

After DOE found out about our press conference at Tweed at 1 PM, they programmed their own at a KIPP co-located charter at the exact same time to draw the media away; pretty sneaky!  But we hope for good coverage anyway.  The case was filed this afternoon in the State Supreme Court, Index no. 108538-2011.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 25, 2011

Contacts:

Mona Davids, NYC Parents Union, (917) 340-8987

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters (917) 435-9329

Arthur Z. Schwartz, Esq., Advocates for Justice, (917) 923-8136

New York City Parents File Lawsuit Against Separate and Unequal Charter Co-locations and Illegal Free Rent and Services to Charter Schools

The New York City Parents Union, Class Size Matters and public school parents today filed a lawsuit charging the New York City Department of Education with creating a "separate and unequal" education system through the co-locations of charter schools in public school buildings.

In New York City, charter schools are private non-profit education corporations which have contracts called "charters" with an authorizer such as the New York State Education Department or State University of New York to provide educational services.  Charter schools are publicly funded but, to date, have usually been managed either by a for-profit corporation or by a non-profit corporation who has hired a for-profit corporation to assist with management.  In these cases, a private entity is deriving a profit -- a profit that is not necessarily benefiting our children.  The NYC Department of Education provides space and services to charter schools for $1 per year that according to state law should be charged “at cost”.  Next year the amount of space and services provided by the city to co-located charters will be nearly $100 million per year.  These are funds desperately needed by our public schools at a time of scarce resources and sharp budget cuts.  (see attached fact sheet).

Arthur Z. Schwartz of Advocates for Justice, lead attorney in this litigation says:  "For several years now the NYC Department of Education has done all that it can to promote charter schools, acting not only to bring them into existence, but providing them with resources far in excess of what children in non-charter schools receive.  The most odious circumstances arise where schools are co-located.  Today we are filing and serving a lawsuit which addresses the unlawful nature of the DOE's program.  We are going far beyond a procedural challenge, alleging far more than that the DOE didn't follow the steps in the statutory process correctly. Today we raise three substantive challenges.

First, we are challenging to provision of free space and services to charter schools.  There is no question that this action violates state law, providing an unlawful subsidy to co-located charter schools.  It is a policy which allows them to spend their money on staff, supplies and equipment rather than rent and  creates gross inequities between the charter schools and their building-mates, and between charter schools in their own facilities and co-located schools.   We are also challenging the DOE on the impact of co-location on the education of the public school students in the building asserting that the co-locations will increase class size and undermine children's constitutional right to a sound and adequate education. Finally, we are challenging the co-location process, which is supposed to be a "meaningful public process" as being nothing of the sort:  dominated by boilerplate documents, difficult for parents to understand, not properly translated, and issued beyond statutorily mandated deadlines.  Parents’ views are solicited but ignored, and  in the impact statements, inadequate attention is paid to children with disabilities and English language learners.

This is not an attack on charter schools. Our plaintiffs include charter school parents. It is an effort to force the NYC Department of Education to pay attention to the impact of its actions on public school students, and provide them with the education they have a right to."

Muba Yarofulani, Vice-President of New York City Parents Union and a parent plaintiff in the lawsuit, says: "Our public school children continue to be served in an educational system where quality and equal opportunity are not the norm. We will continue to fight to the end for equal access to a quality education for our public schoolchildren."

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, a citywide parent advocacy group which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, says: "The New York charter school law clearly states that if a district chooses to provide space and services to charter schools, it must do so at cost; and yet the NYC Department of Education provides this to charters for $1 per year.  Using figures from the Independent Budget Office, we estimate that the space and services DOE will provide to charters next year are worth nearly $96 million.  These are funds that our public schools desperately need and could be used to prevent devastating budget cuts, the loss of teachers and sharply increased class sizes next year.  As it is, each student in a co-located charter receives nearly $1000 more in public funding on average compared to a district public school student, a situation that is highly inequitable and needs to stop."

She adds: "We also believe that the co-location policy pursued by DOE and imposed on our public schools is deeply wrongheaded; as educrats use every available inch of space to jam a new school into a building; without any regard to how this will increase class size or prevent schools from being able to reduce class size in the future, which the state’s highest court said is necessary for NYC public schoolchildren to receive their constitutional right to an adequate education.  And yet these damaging effects are nowhere reflected in the DOE’s Educational Impact Statements – a critical and potentially illegal flaw."

Faye Hodge, a parent plaintiff of a child who attends a charter school in private space says: "It is not fair that charter schools located in private space receive nearly $1,000 less than co-located charter schools.  My charter school does not have enough books, does not provide academic intervention services, and cannot renovate our cafeteria or gym because we have to pay for rent, utilities, insurance, food service and cleaning services, while co-located charters are illegally subsidized by the New York City Department of Education. That is not fair. "

Mona Davids, the President of the New York City Parents Union, the President of the NY Charter Parents Association and a charter parent says, “We believe all children must have equal access to a quality public education. We respect the choice a few families made in removing their children from the public education system and enrolling them in publicly funded, but privately managed charter schools. However, public education is a cornerstone of our democracy and will always serve all children including children with disabilities, English Language Learners, homeless children, low performing students, and new immigrants. We must ensure all these children receive a quality public education and their rights are not violated by a separate and unequal system created by the New York City Department of Education.”

###

DOE's "happy hour" celebrating school closures and charter co-locations

Video of Deputy Marc Sternberg at the DOE "happy hour" at Tribeca Tavern this evening, being asked why the court's decision that will allow the DOE to close 22 struggling public schools and squeeze charter schools into 15 more schools is a cause for celebration.  For more on this "happy hour," see GothamSchools.

Though Sternberg phrased it as “an important moment for New York City’s public school families!" it was instead yet another way in which arrogant and heedless Tweed educrats have been able to exert their irrational authority over thousands of NYC parents, teachers, and students who begged them not to close or co-locate these schools.

See also the photo below the video of General Counsel Michael Best, celebrating while surrounded by other DOE staff members.

Say it Ain't So, Hakeem! Jeffries flip-flops on charters and school closings

Below is a press release from Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union.  Just a few months ago, Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn sponsored legislation in Albany that would require a one year moratorium on closing schools in NYC; he also opposed a charter co-location in his district.  Today, just hours after the Judge Feinman ruled that the school closings and co-locations could go forward, Jeffries co-authored an oped for the Daily News, along with AM Karim Camera, attacking the NAACP for suing to stop these same closings and co-locations. 

What happened? As the press release notes, Jeffries has recently been put on the candidate "hot-list"  by Democrats for Education Reform, a pro-charter group run by deep-pocketed hedge-fund operators, soliciting donations for his run for Congress.  As DFER puts it, Jeffries "has the potential to be a solid education reform vote in Washington. ...but he'll need to show a strong fundraising filing in order to make that decision."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, July 22, 2011

Contact: Mona Davids, (917) 340-898

NYC Parents Union Sounds Off Against Charter School Industry's Political Influence Through Money

                            Hakeem Jeffries:  Another politician, another flip-flop

The New York City Parents Union is sounding the alarm against ambitious politicians seeking money from the charter school industry.  A few days ago, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio decided that co-locating charter schools with public schools was acceptable -- after standing with parents to oppose a co-location.  It is rumored that Mr. de Blasio wants to live in Gracie Mansion.

Now, a Daily News opinion piece has been co-authored by New York State Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries regarding the co-location of charter schools and it has left the New York City Parents Union and parents in Mr. Jeffries' 57th Assembly District puzzled and very concerned.  It is rumored that Mr. Jeffries would like to go to Washington.

Mr. Jeffries' support of the charter industry's attacks on the public school parents, NAACP and the United Federation of Teachers lawsuit for challenging school closures and charter co-locations comes as a surprise, since Mr. Jeffries recently made impassioned remarks against a school closing and a co-location just this past February.

At a meeting of the Department of Education's Panel for Education Policy (PEP) on February 3, 2011, Assemblymember Jeffries opposed the closing of Middle School 571 and the co-location of a charter school within Public School 9 -- where MS 571 was already located.  Mr. Jeffries testified:   "Many of our schools remain separate and unequal".  At that time, parents and community members were impressed and grateful.

Specifically, in calling for a "time-out" for the Department of Education, Mr. Jeffries said:    "The Department of Education needs to be put on time out...They have refused to hear our voices, the school closure policy of the Department of Education is out of control.

 In a March NY Daily News interview, Mr. Jeffries said:  "The Department of Education has been on a school closure binge for the last several years without any meaningful evidence that this policy benefits students."

The NYC Parents Union and local parents are wondering what has happened to Mr. Jeffries and to Mr. de Blasio.  Mr. de Blasio is clearly desperate for campaign funds in pursuit of the Mayoralty and is hoping to hook big donors in the charter school field.  It would be most unfortunate if Mr. Jeffries thinks that his road to Congress needs to be paved with gold from the charter school money players hotlist  rather than with votes from the people in his Assembly District.

The NYC Parents Union is keeping score of politicians' behaviors and positions.  All elected officials will be held accountable if they choose to abandon their previous commitment to quality public education for all children.

                                                                          ###

Fact-checking Beth Fertig on the charter co-location issue

See Beth Fertig’s story today on WNYC about the UFT/NAACP co-location lawsuit.  Here are some problematic assertions in her piece:

Success Academy is a chain of charters run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. Recently, her organization used city data to conduct its own study of 81 charters that share space with regular schools. It found average class sizes in the district schools only went up by about one student over four years, which was no more than the citywide average.

This is the wrong comparison to use; charter co-locations tend to occur in the least crowded schools and neighborhoods.  For example,  in Queens, where the overcrowding is intense, and class sizes are increasing fast, there are very few co-locations.  The comparison in class size should NOT be to schools citywide, but with a similar set of schools nearby.   Class sizes should not be increasing in any school, but particularly not in struggling schools in  communities like Harlem which otherwise would have the space to keep class sizes small.

Genevieve Foster, who has a daughter attending Harlem Success Academy 1 in the same building as PS 149... " If you look at our classrooms we have more children," she said. We have less space, and we're also receiving less money to really provide the resources necessary for our children. ... We can also say we have issues with space.  "

First of all, co-located charters like Harlem Success are getting more public funding per student than regular public schools; see the recent IBO study on this.  This doesn’t even count the millions of dollars that they privately raise.  It’s astonishing to me that charter advocates are still proclaiming this myth, no less reporters letting them repeat it without any rebuttal.

If you count the lower need level of the students enrolled in charters, as this report did, the disproportion in public funding is even greater, since charter schools have smaller proportions of ELL and poor students.
Secondly, if HSA charters feel squeezed, why not get their own space?  With the millions Eva has raised, she could afford it.  Finally, there are many claims about the larger class sizes at HSA charters.  What’s rarely mentioned is  that Eva ensures that there are at least two teachers in every classroom.

There's no doubt sharing isn't always easy, but charter parents accuse the teachers union and the NAACP of inflaming the situation. They note that the Success Academy renovated the playground for everyone at PS 149.

No one who has been paying attention to the fierce battles over co-locations in recent years would believe that the UFT or the NAACP could possible “inflame” the situation.  All the lawsuit has done is to provide parents in the co-located schools a weapon to fight for the rights of their children not to be unfairly deprived of adequate space to learn.  And the playground is a huge issue for the parents and kids at PS 149 – HSA came in, and without their consent, tore up the playground and installed an Astroturf soccer field which deprived the 149 kids of their baseball playing area.  See Juan Gonzalez on this.

More broadly, why is it that this article and others like it do not mention the prospective loss of the PS 149 art room, the fact that there is no space for special needs students to get their services, that their counseling room has to share space with the PTA room separated only by a curtain, or that the D75 school is now forced to have gym on the auditorium stage?

If you have other observations about the effects of this or other co-locations, you can email Fertig at bfertig@wnyc.org

Sign the petition in support of the NAACP, and MSBNC video

Check out the General Counsel of the NAACP Kim Keenan  on MSNBC on June 6th, explaining the inequities in NYC public schools and why the NAACP has filed a lawsuit against the unfair charter school co-locations. 

Then sign the petition supporting the NAACP and their insistence that all children be provided with an equitable chance to learn.  The way the co-locations have been handled in NYC is shocking; with charter kids receiving preferential treatment at every turn. 

In general, the co-locations have been a disaster, given our chronic overcrowding, with class sizes rising and children losing access to art rooms, libraries and gyms.  Our special needs students have been treated the worst, often pushed into hallways and closets.  Go sign the petition now!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Lawsuit to block the closing of schools and charter co-locations!

Stop the presses!  Today, UFT, NAACP and parent groups filed suit to stop the school closings and charter co-locations.  Lawsuit papers posted here; here is a NY1 story, about how "outraged" Dennis Walcott is;  here is the UFT press release.

But the best statement is from Ernie Logan, head of the principals union, who represents the people supposedly "empowered" by DOE.  Let's cross our fingers this lawsuit wins.  But too bad Logan isn't the person empowered to make the decisions when it comes to closing schools!

“Chancellor Walcott is understandably outraged because students in our lowest-performing schools don’t have better options. But the underlying outrage should be, not that the UFT has filed suit to keep 20 schools open, rather that the DOE long ago chose to close schools  rather than fix them. Over the last nine years, the city has systematically neglected many schools, usually in financially disadvantaged neighborhoods, offering them little supervision and support, then encouraging the Office of Student Enrollment to dump formerly incarcerated students, English Language Learners, special education youngsters and temporary housing children into those schools as if they had given up on them like some preordained underclass. 

“The new Chancellor should focus his considerable talents and attention on changing the DOE’s approach towards the lowest achieving schools and find a way to make them work. One of the reasons CSA has called for legislation on assessing any school identified as persistently failing is to ensure that no school close unnecessarily. It is a tragedy when a city admits failure so easily.”

Last night's Panel for Educational Policy meeting

As predicted, the PEP (Panel of Eight Mayoral Puppets plus borough appointees) voted to approve ten school closings and several co-locations and expansions of Success Academy Charters into public school space.

See video of the Caped Real Reformers (parents and teachers ) singing "What a Wonderful World it would be" and students at Metropolitan Corporate Academy, one of the schools being closed, perform, ""DOE don't care about us" at last night's PEP meeting. More video of the evening's events at NY1, including Chancellor Cathie Black's annoyed response to the vociferous crowd.

Some lyrics:

They don’t know how to teach history,
they don’t know how to teach biology,
They don’t know much about science books,
they don’t know much about the cuts we took,
but they do know how to close down schools,
we’re fighting back you know that we’re not fools,
What wonderful schools they could be.

They know a lot about charter schools,
and that they think that merit pay is cool,
..Parents, teachers, students know there’s more
They know there’s more than just test scores
What wonderful schools these could be.

My comments last night:

Choice is not real choice if someone else’s child is being squeezed out into hallways, closets or basement rooms. Choice is not real choice if someone else’s child is being forced into larger classes or you are closing their school, against their will. Every time you close or co-locate a school you are creating more overcrowding and more disruption of someone else’s education. Every time you close or co-locate a school, you are undermining choices for all parents and their children, and imposing your own will on a community. Clearly the people whose lives are most affected oppose these proposed closing and co-locations. I urge you to listen to their choices, and to vote against these proposals.