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Saturation point: Teachers unions must stop trying to hamstring charter schools
NY Daily News ^ | May 22nd 2010

Posted on 05/23/2010 2:09:15 PM PDT by george76

The future of charter schools in New York hangs on negotiations between City Hall and teachers union President Michael Mulgrew. This is perverse.

The United Federation of Teachers is fighting to limit the growth of charters even as the state's application for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top money demands letting the number of schools expand.

Mulgrew's strategy has been to give the nod to upping the charter cap while trying to make it all but impossible for a sponsor to open one of these privately run, publicly funded academies. For example, by creating barriers to moving a charter into unused space in a public school building.

Although the city's charter schools have almost universally racked up amazing achievement gains, the UFT resists them because most are not unionized. And the more successful charters have become, the greater the resistance has grown.

Nothing illustrates the phenomenon more vividly than the UFT's push to impose a so-called saturation limit on the number of charters in individual cities or neighborhoods.

This is about holding the line in three places: Buffalo; Albany, where around 20% of kids are enrolled in charters, and Harlem, where education is undergoing a renaissance thanks to new charter schools.

So profound is this rebirth, so intense the demand, that one in five Harlem children is enrolled in a charter and getting a top-tier education.

At Harlem Success Academy, 96% of second-graders read at or above grade level. Little wonder the organization that runs it had 7,000 applications for 1,100 spots at various schools - and has 5,900 students on waiting lists.

(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: charterschools; children; education; schools; teachers; teachersunion; teachersunions; unions

1 posted on 05/23/2010 2:09:15 PM PDT by george76
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To: metmom

Teachers unions should stop trying to hamstring charter schools


2 posted on 05/23/2010 2:10:48 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

The teachers’ unions are making it quite clear that they favor neither children or education. All they care about is money flowing into their own coffers, some of which they use to bribe Democrat politicians. How much longer are taxpayers going to tolerate this organized criminal activity?


3 posted on 05/23/2010 2:12:46 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: george76
They are afraid competition will show the rest of the country what inept teachers we have. Some are great but in certain community's schools are a social club for espousing propaganda.
4 posted on 05/23/2010 2:15:19 PM PDT by RocketRoland
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To: george76

Force Charter School teachers to be in the NEA and the opposition would immediately drop.... Oh... wait...


5 posted on 05/23/2010 2:18:28 PM PDT by alancarp (Please don't tell Obama what comes after "trillion")
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To: george76

Education is too important to leave in the hands of the government.


6 posted on 05/23/2010 2:19:38 PM PDT by highlander_UW (Education is too important to leave in the hands of the government.)
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To: george76
"Teachers unions must stop trying to hamstring charter schools"

Who's going to stop them? Surely not our Great National Mistake.

Another reason for the separation of school and state.

7 posted on 05/23/2010 2:25:39 PM PDT by YHAOS (you betcha!)
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To: george76

PATCO all publik skool edumacator unions.


8 posted on 05/23/2010 2:51:57 PM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principles,)
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To: george76

Nice to see this is the Daily News, which is generally very pro-union.


9 posted on 05/23/2010 3:17:48 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GladesGuru

It’s happened here, in Kansas City, Kansas. District kept none of its side of the bargain with the school founders or with the parents. Teachers’ union dragging what could have been the city’s only real school down to the bottom.


10 posted on 05/23/2010 3:19:03 PM PDT by Kanzan
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To: george76

This in the Daily News?

Truly the world is awakening, at long last.


11 posted on 05/23/2010 3:23:33 PM PDT by Carley (WE CAN SEE NOVEMBER FROM OUR HOUSE)
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To: Carley

What has the NYTIMES said?


12 posted on 05/23/2010 5:07:28 PM PDT by ardara
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