from Diane Ravitch's blog | http://bit.ly/1iIoSoW
Diane Ravitch writes:
Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters describes the deal to benefit the billionaire-funded charter schools that is being negotiated right now by the New York legislature and will be voted on next week.
It is not too late to make your voice heard!
Governor Cuomo, who received $800,000 for his re-election campaign from charter school advocates, is making good on his promise to take care of charters. These privately operated schools, supported by billionaires like Paul Tudor Jone, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg, and a long list of hedge fund managers, will never have to pay rent for their use of public facilities; they will get additional public fund; and a guarantee that they can never be moved out of their public space. The billionaires proved in the past month that they are willing to spend $5 million or so on attack ads, but they will not pay rent to the city for their use of public space. The Robin Hood Foundation, founded by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, is able to raise $80 million in a single night. But the charters can’t pay the city rent for use of public space. According to Forbes, Paul Tudor Jones manages $13 billion in assets, and he has decided to “save” public education. He and his fellow hedge fund managers have determined to privatize public education. With the help of New York’s feckless legislature and cold-hearted Governor, they are on their way.
Leonie Haimson writes:
According to today’s NY Post, the legislature is about to make the worst possible deal imaginable: considerably more per pupil funding for charters, including more than $1100 per student over three years, and free space or rent paid for by NYC for any new or expanding NYC charter going forward – just in NYC, by the way, where we have the most overcrowded schools in the state, with more than half our students sitting in extremely overcrowded schools by the DOE’s own metrics, which we know are an underestimate.
Thousands of kids on waiting lists for Kindergarten each spring, thousands more sitting in trailers, and the capital plan provides less than one third of the seats needed to eliminate current overcrowding and address future enrollment growth. But charters will be guaranteed the space to expand – paid for by city taxpayers, while our public school students are crushed into larger and larger classes with less space to learn.
Call the Speaker’s office now: tell him to say NO to the deal forcing the city to pay for facilities forever for new or expanded charters, while public school students will sit in increasingly overcrowded buildings.
Speaker Silver: (518) 455-3791
Then call your Assemblymember and urge them to say NO to this deal as well; find their contact info here:
If this deal goes forward, this will truly create a two tier system in which the charter schools will be the only ones in uncrowded facilities, with the rent paid for by NYC taxpayers, and all parents will be forced to apply to charter schools whether they want to or not, just to guarantee a seat for their child in a school that is not hugely overcrowded.
Please call the Speaker’s office and your Assemblymember now.
Thanks,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
Superintendent Deasy’s homegrown but unaccountable LOS ANGELES FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION is patterned after New York’s ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION [see:John Deasy Announces Formation of 'Robin Hood West' http://huff.to/1i1ISBc]. The LA Fund has come nowhere close to raising $80 million in-a-night …instead putting up billboards and bus ads promoting Arts Education (as opposed to actually promoting+funding Arts Education) and force feeding (but not cleaning up after) Breakfast in the Classroom.
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