Craig Garber, UFT Chapter Leader at Beginning with Children Charter School in Brooklyn, reflects on his recent trip to Albany as part of Charter School Lobby Day, orchestrated by the New York Charter Schools Association and the New York City Charter Schools Center.
The early morning three-hour drive to Albany put me in a reflective mood. My mind wandered from lesson plans and midterms to the state of New York’s charter schools. I wasn’t sure what my particular “message” was going to be. But I figured I had better think of something, given that I and the 50 other members of my school’s community would be meeting with our state senator, our assembly member and perhaps the Governor. What do I have to say? What do the parents of our students have to say? Most importantly, what do our students have to say for themselves?
I decided to speak from the heart. I believe in my school. We are a small charter located in Williamsburg. We have strong academics, a proud eighteen-year history in Brooklyn, and a genuine sense of community within the school itself. We are the kind of school where people want to send their children because parents have a genuine opportunity to be involved.
As we approached the capital, we were excited to participate in the day, be part of the political process, and were ready to advocate for our school. You could imagine our concern when we entered the convention hall and encountered a “message” quite different than our own. Although there were similar groups representing their own schools, the day’s organizers were pushing a very negative message about public schools, certain public officials and teachers unions.
I was asked by a colleague, “What are they so upset about?” I explained the events of the past few weeks, the aborted effort to raise the charter cap, and several of the reforms that I believe the charter movement must embrace, including greater fiscal transparency and accountability and reforming the charter funding formula towards student-based funding. Many of these reforms were proposed by the UFT and supported by many legislators. The response from each and every parent with us was one of overwhelming support for these reforms.
But these are not the reforms that organizers from the New York Charter Schools Association and the New York City Center for Charter Schools want to advocate. Instead, the mood was anti-public school. The pre-packaged, pre-printed message that we were handed was narrow. We were instructed to demand that elected officials protect just charter schools from funding cuts — as if the other public schools don’t matter. As if we’re not in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But this wasn’t real parent, teacher, and student voice. It was an agenda — driven by special interests in the charter movement — and the good people in New York’s charter community were being used to promote it. It was upsetting to see that when parents’ voices were loudest, the message they brought was not really their own.
We left the rally and got some much needed fresh air. When the teachers, parents, and students from Beginning with Children met with our elected officials, we chose to speak from the heart. Parents and students spoke in their own words. It was powerful (and gratifying) to hear the children speak about our school in such a positive manner. It was equally humbling to listen to the reasons why our parents decided to enroll their children in our school. One parent explained why he travels some distance to drop off his 5th grade daughter every morning. As he described, “both of my sons graduated from there and are doing so well because of the education they received.” This was true advocacy and an authentic message, from the hearts and minds of the people who know and care.
I am proud of what Beginning with Children accomplished in Albany. As a charter school teacher for close to a decade, I am passionate about our sector. As a union member I am secure in my right to speak. No scripts. No talking points. Just from the heart.
9 Comments:
1 KitchenSink
· Feb 6, 2010 at 8:22 am
Hi Craig,
I have visited BWC and I agree that it is a wonderful school. Keep up the good work!
I think you are missing some important points in your recollection of Advocacy Day.
One of the proposals to make the charter movement more “transparent” was to remove the most effective authorizer, SUNY. Can anyone explain why that would happen?
People – including thousands of parents – are angry at NYSUT because NYSUT lobbied successfully to freeze charter funding in 2009, handing charters a “double cut.” As you may know, we are already subjected to the whims and vagaries of the district spending, and those fluctutations are written into our formula. What NYSUT and the legislators who we are lobbying did in 2009 was, on TOP of those fluctuations, artifically freeze the scheduled increase we had. So when district funding went up 8%, causing our funding to be SUPPOSED to be going up 8%, instead, our funding was kept at 0%.
The governor’s budget is proposing the same situation this year. We don’t like that. In fact, if you read the signs carefully, you’d see that charters are asking for funding equity, not special treatment. We understand that all schools are facing budget crunches, but the facts say that we are being hit twice – once by the budget cuts, and again by the politicians, in cahoots with NYSUT.
I have nothing against NYSUT or the UFT in principle. I support your right to organize and be represented by the union. But I am disturbed by their actions!
2 Michael Fiorillo
· Feb 6, 2010 at 9:18 am
Craig Garber,
Your honest and heart-felt comments illustrate an unfortunate reality, namely, that the charter school and ed reform movements, which began organically among teachers and parents in public schools, have been hijacked by corporate interests that seek to privatize and destroy public education. As Jonathan Kozol has pointed out, public education is “The Big Enchilada” (according to Edwards and Company, in a letter to clients extolling the investment opportunities that privatizing the schools represent). It is a trillion dollar greenfield for Wall Street and other interests, but it can only be accomplished be destroying the teacher’s unions, which represent the single greatest institutional defense of public schools. Thus the unremitting attacks on them.
It is not an unfortunate mistake that the tone of the lobbying was so anti-public school; it is the explicit intention, part of a national effort to engineer a hostile takeover of public education, starting with the urban districts. In order to do that, the public schools must be discredited, as we have seen being done for over thirty years.
Read the literature generated by the Broad, Gates, Walton, Fisher Foundations (the Malanthropists) and venture capital entrepreneurs entering public education: you will see their intentions to replace public schools with charters, as they are now doing in NYC with the real estate grabs that are reaching epidemic proportions.
But that is just the first step of a multi-year, multi-phase plan (which Eli Broad, as a developer of white-flight suburbs and gated communities, has much experience with). Once the public schools have been irretrievably weakened to the point where they can be “drowned in the bathtub,” as Grover Norquist so memorably put it in regard to non-military/non-coercive government programs in general, charter schools themselves will be “rationalized,” and “scaled -up.” You will then witness attacks on community-based charter schools such as yours, forcing you to merge with the emerging chains (KIPP, Uncommon Schools, HSA, et.al.) or face closure.
The question for you and your colleagues will then be: which side are you on? Or will it already be too late?
3 KitchenSink
· Feb 7, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Michael F., your conspiracy theory has led you to the twisted conclusion that Feb. 2 in Albany was “anti-public school.”
You couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The consensus talking points I witnessed – and I was there – were that all public schools need support, and that charters should not be singled out for excessive cuts for political reasons in times of fiscal duress.
There were 3,000 hats handed out at this conference. I’ll give you mine if you want so you can wear it. The hats read simply, “It’s about great public schools.”
4 KitchenSink
· Feb 7, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Oh, and one more thing, Michael F., because you have asked me this “Whose side will you be on, then?” question as well.
If your conspiracy comes to fruition, and Gates, Broad, Walton, etc., come to New York and force my mom-and-pop charter school to merge with one of the networks, or “scale up” to destroy the public school system, my response would be, “Over my dead body!” Give me a rifle and call me a minuteman if someone, whether from the UFT, the state comptroller’s office, a private philanthropic foundation, a corporation or the Secretary of Education’s office, is going to take away any of the freedoms that our school community has fought so hard for, and taken advantage of. The idea makes me so angry I’m dangling prepositions.
My answer – and the answer I suspect of most of the charter operators and teachers in the city – is, “I’ll be on the little guy’s side.”
5 Michael Fiorillo
· Feb 7, 2010 at 7:37 pm
KS,
You continually use the word “conspiracy” to describe my analysis, presumably to discredit it.
It’s far from a conspiracy: it’s a ruling class consensus, the same consensus that brought us financial deregulation and the resulting financial and economic train wreck, the same consensus that has brought us hyper income polarization, the same consensus that has robbed minority communities of any democratic input into how the public schools are run.
As for your macho talk, let’s see what happens when push comes to shove, and your Board is the only one making the decision. Of course, since your don’t identify yourself or your school, we don’t know who’s on your Board, do we?
Additionally, it was Craig Garber’s description of events at Charter Lobby Day, not mine, and you did absolutely nothing to refute it.
And who paid for all those buses?
6 Stacey Gauthier
· Feb 8, 2010 at 6:14 pm
I attended advocacy day along with a bus load of parents, students and staff from The Renaissance Charter School, a unionized public charter school just like Beginning With Children Charter School. What Mr. Garber may not understand is that both our schools will be seriously threatened financially if a second funding freeze is imposed. Unionized charter schools will be the first impacted due to our financial obligations to pay contracutally negotiated wages and pensions. And please readers, do not in any way take this statement as my being against this cost structure. In fact, I support it totally. However, you can’t get money from nowhere. Just because we rallied together, 3000 plus strong, against a freeze that would cause us to cut programs, lay-off staff and be unable to meet our upcoming contractual obligations does not mean we do not support appropriate funding for all students in public schools. As public school educators we support all students. Additionally, it would be against our own self-interest since charter school funding is driven by district expenditures. How about the UFT and Charter Associations hosting a joint budget rally against traditional and charter school funding cuts or freezes? Let’s put politics aside and work for the kids!
7 Rita Pret
· Feb 8, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I work in a unionized charter as well. I used to work in a district school. I do like working in a charter better but I would never do it if I weren’t part of the UFT. The UFT isn’t to blame for the condition of the DoE schools as the myth persists. On the contrary, the UFT is the answer to the DoE failure. What is the UFT? It is nothing more than a group of teachers demanding say in how children are educated. I was at charter advocacy day and I was thinking the same thing as Craig. If I were Craig, I would be offended by your assumptions (Stacey Gauthier) as to what he understands and what he doesn’t. Way to win people over! I am sure Craig knows about the recession and how it threatens everyone’s funding. What would fix this problem would be some of the changes in the charter law that the UFT has suggested that the “charter associations” rallied against. One of the changes should be a change in the funding formula. I would stand with you Stacey, if you demanded the “charter associations” back this change. Or, maybe you aren’t aware that this would actually help your school. You must be an administrator as you seem to have a problem with the staff’s benefit structure. What a surprise! We all know that charters are top heavy with adminstrators, so why not “cut” there? Why don’t you forgive your pension for the kids? Make an example of yourself–be a true school leader! Easy to say all this when you are pulling down 100k+, huh? When I get off this post, I will goggle you and post your salary and benefits—or shall we call it “fund raising?”
You are just like my CEO, Head of School, or what ever else your ego likes to be called. The are a number of other ways to cut costs but you want to kill the life blood of the school. You want to tear at the benefits and wages of the people who everyone (including yourself) rely so much on.
When my group talked to the state senator I asked to save all kids from cuts, fix funding formula, and make all schools accountable for servicing ELL and special needs students. What did you say? “The teacher’s pension and wages are killing me.” Way to win people over!
8 Stacey Gauthier
· Feb 9, 2010 at 11:08 am
Ms. Pret –
I’m not sure why there is so much hostility on your part. Let’s take this point by point –
1) I am glad you work in a unionized charter school.
2) At what point did I blame the UFT for anything in my post? Maybe you are responding to some other post?
3) My “assumptions” about what a second funding freeze would do to unionized schools are facts. I invite you to inquire about your school’s budget and also to come see my school’s as well.
4) This is not about the recession, this is about money following the children to the place where they are being educated. Do you disagree that money should follow the student?
5) I totally agree that the funding formula needs to be changed. Again, where in my post did I say or imply differently? However, this change cannot occur without adjusting for our loss of funding due to the lag embedded within or by disregarding the fact that charter schools do not get any facilities aid.
6) I am an administrator. I am sorry this seems to cause you pain somehow.
7) If you read my post, which it appears you did not, you will see that I say that I totally support the salary and benefit structure. So, you are just pulling at the wind in your misguided statement. In fact, you should be fighting as hard as I am to ensure that your school doesn’t lose funds that I am sure they need.
9) Yes, I do make a CSA administrator’s union-neogtiated salary. It is $136,959. In addition to this, I receive health and pension benefits just as you do. So, I have saved you the time of googling the information.
10) My ego likes to be called Stacey as we are all on a first name basis at Renaissance. What does your ego like to be called?
11) I am one of the few people actually fighting day and night to preserve pensions in unionized charter schools. Hopefully, if you talk to your sources they will have the ethical fabric to admit this to you.
12) What I said to the elected officials that I spoke with was that we have created a wonderful school at Renaissance that services all students. I said that I have the best faculty in the entire city who work day and night to support our students. I said that we are a team. I said that a funding freeze would force me to cut programs, jobs and not be able to meet our contractual obligations (including those I benefit from). I told them we were proud to be union and that if charter schools are to be unionized then we need their support. I told them that the kids didn’t make this mess of our system and shouldn’t have to pay the price. And finally, I said that I was tired of being in a political crossfire.
So, again Ms. Pret – your assumptions about me are incorrect.
Get yourself really informed on the issues. It is quite clear that you have chosen to ignore many of the relevant details.
My offer to host you and an team of teachers from your school stands.
And, yes, I hope no schools face cuts to funding – which I think I also said.
9 Rita Pret
· Feb 9, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Clearly the most important element to a school is its teachers. Do the right thing and meet your contractual obligations. I did some research on your school early this morning before classes. I noticed that you were a conversion charter school. When you converted to a charter the economy was good-let’s say better than today. It all seemed rosy, didn’t it? As an administrator with obviously years of experience (notice the booming salary-I didn’t have time to post as I was marking tests last night-you seemed to have time a plentiful though) did you not think a cloudy day would ever come for the economy? They call this “saving for a rainy day.” What happened to all your fund raising? Or, perhaps you thought, if it gets bad I will try to wiggle out of my contractual obligations. It sure seems from your tone no matter how much you deny it that you are indeed going that route. Did you not know that you would have these obligations when you converted to a charter? Be creative and stop whining about your staff’s pensions and salary. My sources are my intuition (I have three kids and my mother’s intuition is strong) by your constant referrals to your contractual obligations. One doesn’t mention that so much if that isn’t their point. I hope your staff sees how transparent your intentions truly are. Since you have been in the system so long, why don’t you take your past contributions from your pension, put in a portion of your salary (so that you don’t break your contract) and contribute it to your school? Put your money where your mouth is!
But you would ask your staff to accept less both now and in the future-what about their families and their children?
We all want the best education for the children of NY. As long as you have good teachers in the classroom this could be achieved. I urge you to be creative and make that happen. Maybe then I will visit with my colleagues. I will be keeping a close eye on you.
I also noticed that you will be opening another charter school next year. Will that school have union members? Will they have a negotiated contract with pensions?
If so, I would urge caution to those teachers who apply because you might get the old bait and switch with Ms. Gauthier.
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