PEP, March 2006: Charter schools: new name for privatizing

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

Labor unions across the nation mobilized their forces last year and scored a major victory when they defeated George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. But the forces of privatization are gearing up again — this time with their eyes on the public school system.

In hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, the privateers are taking advantage of the collapse of the public school system to push for privately operated, publicly funded charter schools. In Chicago, one of the most radical privatization plans would replace 60 failing schools with 100 smaller ones. Most of these schools will be run by private managers, without union contracts and outside the influence of school boards and state authorities. Since 2001, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $25 million to revamping Chicago’s school system.

Raising the cap
In New York, where the Legislature allowed a maximum of 100 charter schools statewide starting in 1998, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have been aggressively lobbying for “dramatically expanding charter schools,” as the governor put it in his January State of the State address. Pataki’s proposed budget, which would raise the cap to 300, could be decided in a legislative session by April. The mayor has vowed to open another 75 charter schools and has helped raise $41 million in private money for a center to help them.

“Charter schools mean privatizing the public school system,” said DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams. “We believe in public schools.”

New York City has 47 charter schools. Buffalo has 13 and Albany has six. Statewide there are 92. “These small schools serve very few students and usually close after two years,” said Veronica Montgomery-Costa, president of DC 37 and of Dept. of Education Employees Local 372, which represents 28,000 members.

The local recently submitted testimony in Albany arguing against lifting the cap. “It takes an enormous amount of money to start a charter school,” added the local president. “Those resources come from the General Education Fund, undermining the budget for other schools.” Some upstate communities have had to raise local school taxes to fund the charter schools.

While Gov. Pataki has been aggressively advocating charter schools, he has fought against complying with a court order that calls for an additional $5.6 billion per year to be spent on New York City schools.

The governor and the mayor have also failed to take into account the numerous studies that show that public schools outperform charter schools. In 2004, the Dept. of Education found that charter schools were less likely to meet state performance standards than traditional public schools. In Texas, only 66 percent of the charter schools meet state standards, compared with 98 percent of traditional schools. A nationwide study of math scores of 340,000 students in 13,000 schools found that charter schools lagged behind public schools.

“What we need to do is find a solution that works for the vast majority of our kids,” said Montgomery-Costa.