Posted on 09/25/2014 7:14:12 PM PDT by markomalley
York, Penn., desperate to turn around major holes in its budget and major shortfalls in academic achievement, is considering the drastic step of turning every school in the city into a charter school run by one of two for-profit companies.
To do so, however, it will have to overcome major resistance from both parents and organized labor.
York, which already has several small charters in operation, is considering hiring one of two charter school companies, Mosaica Education or Charter Schools USA, to take over all of the city’s remaining schools starting next year.
The measure is primarily driven by York’s failing finances and subsequent efforts to negotiate with the town’s teachers’ union. David Meckley, the state-appointed chief recovery officer for the school district, says without a new collective bargaining agreement with local teachers, the city simply won’t have the money to run the schools in a suitable way.
Despite the prospective takeover potentially costing dozens of teachers their jobs, so far the union has held firm, resisting possible changes that were initially agreed upon in a school district recovery plan. Instead, teachers are hitting back hard by trying to harness public sentiment against the “charterization” of the city.
Several hundred people rallied Wednesday night to oppose the plan. Protesters said that an all-charter system would make York’s children “guinea pigs” in a radical experiment and argued that such a system would make a mockery of the “school choice” typically advocated by charter proponents.
Clovis Gallon, one of York’s teachers, told a local Fox News broadcast that he couldn’t trust anybody “in it to make money” to run the city’s education system.
The battle has drawn in some major players in organized labor, with National Education Association vice president Becky Pringle participating in Wednesday’s rally.
Charter school advocates, such as the Center for Education Reform, argue that for-profit firms can do little worse than the current regime has already done running York’s schools. Besides its recurring budget troubles, the city’s schools have persistently failed to achieve yearly progress mandated by No Child Left Behind, and a ranking of Pennyslvania’s approximately 500 school districts conducted by a state business journal placed York almost dead last.
Defenders counter that York has suffered worse than most from draconian spending cuts at the state level, as well as from wider societal issues of poverty and inequality.
An all-charter system is not without precedent in the United States. Last spring, Louisiana’s Recovery School District, which operates most public schools in the city of New Orleans, closed its last conventional public schools and shifted to an all-charter model.
Meaning that taxes will go through the roof.
My, what a delicate daisy he is.
> Meaning that taxes will go through the roof.
Absolutely. Why don’t they just stop installing multimillion dollar stadiums wiith million dollar plus programmable color scoreboards? Or stop buying IPads for every student.
I’ve been a York resident for 20+ years and in that time have had several “dialogs” with 1) the School Board over out-of-control education costs and 2) the superintendent who is unwilling to demand needed changes. As the cost per student increases year over year and student achievement steadily declines no one has been held accountable. The union and teachers always ask for more and wash their hands of any responsibility for the failure to meet educational expectations. Give the Charter Schools a 5-year contract with clearly defined goals. If they fail, they’re out. If they meet it, they get another 5 years.
Book, pencil, paper - that’s it.
B-b-b-b-but that racist or sexist or homophobic or something...
If they really want to make money, they should charge a fee like when you go to the movies, only do it when they leave every day!
No pay, no leave!
Makes you wonder how they accomplished it in those one-room schoolhouses with teachers not much older than the students. Back then, many kids brought a Bible or an almanac from home to learn how to read. If they were lucky, they had McGuffy’s readers. Just look at tests from the olden days, it appears kids learned better then.
I can tell you personally from having lived the majority of my life in Pennsylvania that the one worst thing that happened to education was unions.
And with the leftist running Penn State, it is in the toilet too.
Uh, oh, author dropped the “D” word (”draconian”).
Will never happen.
The teachers unions have squashed far smaller school privatization projects in the past.
They are about to send Tom Corbett to the showers, and will no doubt be quite full of themselves after that happens.
Government and Liberals and Democrats always know what’s good for you since you’re unable to cope with the modern world.
exit fee, brilliant
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