Charter Schools Mysteriously Survive the Budget Ax that Falls Hard on "Regular" Public Schools

A memo from the law firm White, Osterman & Hanna to the New York Charter Schools Association (circulated on nyceducationnews) urges members to file a "Request for State Aid Intercept" with the NY State Education Department to preserve their "legal right" to increased per-pupil funding--a right they seem to have acquired through a combination of stealth statutory insertions and legislative inattention in the confusion of budget negotiations. So, we'll be looking at even more money being taken out of our schools to satisfy the hungry Charter School Monster that's devouring the public school system.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:

• The Governor and the Legislature intended to freeze 2010 aid payment to charter schools at 2008 levels, and such a freeze was actually in the Governor’s budget and in the relevant Assembly and Senate bills (that seems eminently fair and just, given what they've done to "regular" public schools in the same period).

• Somehow, those provisions were not enacted into law.

• Therefore, charter schools now will now get increased funding by operation of law (a statutory formula found in §2856 of the Education Law, according to the White Osterman memo and I’ll take their word for it)

• Charter schools have a mechanism, kindly provided by the State Education Department on a handy form, for “intercepting” from school districts money due to them under the funding formula, which apparently inexorably “mov[es] forward” to ever increasing levels of funding unless stopped by vigilant legislators.

Some quick research reveals that financing uncertainties are probably the biggest impediment to the spread of charter schools. (for an overview, see the paper presented by Jonathan Kivell of United Bank at the Charter Schools Facilities Finance Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board in September 2008). Several states (e.g., Colorado) help charter schools through "Intercept” programs that guarantee payment of principal and interest on charter school bonds by literally "capturing" funds allocated to school districts.

New York caters to charter school operators’ dislike of uncertainty by guaranteeing their per-pupil allocations through State Aid Intercept. Nothing wrong with that in principle because after all, we wouldn’t want to disrupt kids’ education by not giving their schools money they have already taken into account in planning the school year.

No, sir—that would be unfair to the kids, though we do allow it for “regular” public school kids……to wit, the great “midnight raid” of February 2008, when each NYC school principal woke up to find out DOE had snatched a pile of money from his/her school, literally in the middle of the night.

The biggest thorn in the side of charter school operators, however, is facilities funding--most states (including New York) bar or restrict direct public funding for it. But even here, there’s government help: US DOE has a program—the Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools—which provides full or partial guarantees of principal as well as interest (pretty generous, really) to lenders that finance construction or renovation of charter schools. But why bother with all that paperwork and uncertainty (it’s a competitive program) when you can just snatch space from hapless "regular" public schools?

LESSON: IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS, ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE BACKSTOP--IT'S ALMOST INVARIABLY PUBLIC FUNDS.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: WRITE AND CALL GOVERNOR PATTERSON (1-877-255-9417, press 1), AND YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS --ASK THEM TO STOP CATERING TO CHARTER SCHOOL INTERESTS AND TURNING PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN INTO SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS.

Here's my sample letter:

Dear XXXXX:

It has come to my attention that provisions freezing 2010 payments to charter schools at 2008 levels, contained in the Governor’s budget as well as in Assembly Bill 9707 and Senate Bill 6607, were never enacted into law. UNLESS YOU ACT, charter schools will be entitled to increased funding, which they intend to capture under the “intercept” procedure provided by state law. That would be both contrary to legislative intent and grossly unfair to our “regular” public schools, which have been asked to absorb budget cut after budget cut. Please do whatever is necessary to prevent this injustice when the Legislature reconvenes.

OH, AND YOU MIGHT ALSO ASK WHY THERE ISN'T AN "INTERCEPT" MECHANISM FOR THE CFE FUNDS THAT ARE NO LESS "DUE AND OWING" TO NYC SCHOOLKIDS THAN INCREASED PER-PUPIL FUNDING IS "DUE AND OWING" TO CHARTER SCHOOLS.

Merriman's appeal: political payback time for the charter school lobby

James Merriman of the Charter School Center sent out an alert to charter school leaders over the weekend, urging them to attend an important meeting tomorrow with Deputy Mayor Walcott to which the Mayor is invited as well.

At the meeting, the charter school lobby will ask the city to voluntarily increase funding for charters out of the city’s discretionary funds, if the state maintains the freeze on per pupil charter funding that occurred last year.

Merriman’s appeal is nakedly political, and he writes that the mayor needs to pay them back for their support for his re-election and extension of unlimited mayoral control (as well as the charter cap lift, though why that benefited him more than them is unclear.):

The Mayor has been a strong supporter, but it is your unprecedented record of success that has allowed him to hold up New York City as a model of educational achievement. It was your results that helped make such a strong case in Albany for the recent cap lift. It was your parents who rooted him on during the mayoral control battle and his re-election campaign. We've been there for him and now he needs to be there for us.

Meanwhile, even if charter schools have suffered a one year freeze, our district schools have had their budgets slashed to the bone. If the 4% cut now being proposed goes through, their budgets will have been cut by 12% since 2007.

As it is, the overall charter school budget is still growing fast -- because of increased enrollment, which is estimated to grow another 31% next year. Even if the per student freeze is maintained, charter school funding will cost the city an estimated $545 million next year.

If the mayor accedes to the charter lobby’s demands, it will be yet another sign how politics rules at City Hall; and how charters continue to get favorable treatment compared to district schools.

Last night, State Senate voted to continue to keep profit in public education, 45-15

Last night, the NY State Senate approved the expansion of the charter school cap last night by a vote of 45 to 15, without any of the necessary accountability and transparency provisions and without protection of parent and student rights. Check out how your Senator voted here.

As the NY Post reported this morning, “Privately, they [the Senators] conceded that passing the measure was an attempt to derail a threatened big-ticket political campaign against them by Mayor Bloomberg and other prominent charter-school supporters that could cost them their razor-thin majority in the November elections.“

As the Daily News reported, “charter school advocates… have threatened to spend $10 million to unseat opponents.”

Now only the Assembly and Speaker Silver are standing in the way of this unprecedented move to privatize our public school system and force more charters into our already overcrowded school buildings. On Monday, Assemblymember Karim Camera of Brooklyn introduced an identical bill in the Assembly.

Sign our petition now, to send a message your elected leaders that they need to stand up for the rights of public school parents, children and taxpayers, rather than the charter school lobby and the hedge-fund managers who appear to have determined the outcome in the Senate.

As of this morning, after less than two days, our petition already has more than 800 signatures, but it needs even more if we are going to get across our message strongly enough to rival the millions that the charter school lobby is willing to spend to achieve their goal of putting more profit and unregulated greed into the running of our schools. The petition is posted here.

The tangled web of money and political influence of the charter school lobby

Today, Meredith Kolodner and a crack investigative team at Daily News begin to untangle the tangled web of money, connections, and political influence that lies behind the story of Peninsula Prep charter school, which is still sitting in trailers on a developer's land, despite the promise of $31 million from DOE to help build a facility.

Still, many unanswered questions remain, including what was behind the city’s promise to donate millions in taxpayer funds for a facility for this charter school, considering its shaky history?

Also, if private developers realize that providing schools give them an advantage in selling their properties, why doesn’t the city recognize the economic value of building more regular public schools, to sustain and strengthen the city’s economic future?

See also the today's Crain's NY, about how many of the financiers who are backing the charter school lobby are pouring millions into the campaigns of certain State Senators, while targeting the elimination of others:

In addition to targeting state Sen. Bill Perkins, the legislator who is
most outspoken against charters, they'll likely set their sights on state Sen.
Shirley Huntley. Proponents hope to hire former Bloomberg campaign manager
Bradley Tusk to coordinate.

Senators Perkins and Huntley were also two of the more vociferous opponents to the renewal of mayoral control last summer. No doubt the mayor will be inveighing on billionaire buddies to contribute funds to defeat them, and will likely put forward a pretty penny of his own.