In Monday's New York Post the Editorial Board wrote a misleading and largely false editorial on the superior qualities of charter school teachers when compared to the public school teachers. This editorial was an attempt to show that charter schools are superior than public schools, which education blogger Gary Rubinstein proved is not true and fly's in the face of evidence of the inferior quality of charter school teachers.
The Post editorials stated the following:
A thousand-plus charter teachers plan to march. Like the families of the 100,000 kids in city charters, these teachers have voted with their feet: They believe in the charter model — public schools that are privately run and largely free of union handcuffs.
In other words, charter school teachers are more dedicated, work harder, and don't want to be unionized while working for the public school system. Of course, the opposite is nore likely true than not.
Many charter school teachers are hired not from the public schools but from Teach For America and other alternate certification programs, some are not even certified! Moreover, the few teachers that left the public schools to teach in charter schools were either discontinued, terminated, or suspended from the public schools. Additionally, many of these teachers would rather land a job in the public schools, given a choice. Finally, the moment a unionized public school teaching job is offered, the charter school teacher jumps ship and go, even for less money but for the better benefits that a union job offers!
The high teacher turnover in the charter school universe where few teachers last three years and a 100% teacher turnover is the rule and not the exception . The result, is an unstable school environment with little teaching and continuous test prep that no longer resembles the real educational experience necessary for real student growth.
The New York Post Editorial is so very wrong on so many levels and conveniently ignores the facts that charter school teachers are not superior to their public school counterparts and most can't wait to leave the charter universe for more stability, benefits, and the right to have time with their family.
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7 comments:
I have worked in both charter and regular district schools. Almost every charter teacher I worked with could not wait to get out of the charter school. They felt "stuck" in Hell. When the economy finally got better and the district schools were hiring again, most jumped ship the second they got the chance. I guarantee you that if a secret poll is given at that 1000 teacher charter rally, the vast majority of those teachers would love nothing more than to land a job in a regular district school where there is still somewhat of a vestige of a career left in teaching. Nobody, and I mean nobody ,teachers for 30 years and then retires from a charter school with a pension. As much as we complain about the UFT, at least we have some sense of due process and a say in our careers. (Oh yeah, for the record I am not a Unity slug)
Love your thoughts, Chaz, but spelling counts!
ATR English Teacher
It's the NY Joke (Post) for crying out loud-what do you expect them to say. In the newspaper business, Murdoch took the Post from a semi-respectable unionized newspaper of the 1960's and early 70's-and created the first NYC Charter newspaper that's now one big tabloid joke---which keeps losing tons of money-but he doesn't care as long he's able to get his conservative anti-union agenda out to the public.
More nonsense in the Post today via editorial and op- Ed all touting charter schools. How can private companies commander public space and funds? Has the union ever filed a lawsuit? I know they tried to open their own charter! (Incredibly stupid and self defeating) I should mention there are teachers leaving the public schools to teach in charters. The young lady I met had 5 period a day of dirt bags abusing her. She couldn't teach and the school refused to suspend or hold kids accountable. Then she was observed constantly failing to teach them. She would have been discontinued and lost her license. She told me she can actually teach in a charter school. If a teacher is going down the road of discontinuance jumping ship seems smart. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.
A lot has changed in the last two years for United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
Two years ago, he was shepherding the city teachers union through the waning days of the Bloomberg administration and fending off threats to teachers’ job protections. Now, Mayor Bill de Blasio has proven a faithful partner for the union, supporting its agenda on improving struggling schools and schools’ role in addressing poverty.
The union’s improved relationship with City Hall has come with ample benefits, Mulgrew said in an interview with Chalkbeat Tuesday. But he said it has also stripped the union of a useful organizing strategy — a built-in opponent to rally members around.
“As a union leader, it’s always great to have a foe,” Mulgrew said. “But as a teacher, it’s better that you can concentrate on what you know is going to make the profession better, and therefore your members’ lives and the fulfillment of what they’re trying to do, better. How do you marry the two is really the question.”
Mulgrew has so far seemed to answer that question by focusing the union’s sharpest criticism on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and charter-school operator Eva Moskowitz, while holding back on some issues that he would have used as opportunities to attack City Hall under Bloomberg. He celebrated a decline in the city’s class sizes this week, but last year declined to criticize de Blasio even even though classes had grown, for example.
And while tensions are at a low in New York City, Mulgrew said he still has a responsibility to participate in national debates about teaching. “There’s still a fight for the profession,” he said, alluding to the growth of charter schools, which tend not to have unionized teachers, and debates about using test scores to evaluate teachers.
“It is an interesting dynamic as it shifts,” he said. “Relishing the fight is great, but I think what I’m doing right now is more important in terms of building a workforce that will move the profession and education to a much better place.”
I was the discontinued teacher who wrote that letter to Horowitz some months back. Chaz, I agree with your analysis of Charter Schools. Speaking as somebody from the vantage point of being relegated to work in the Charter world after a grossly unfair discontinuance. I can see first hand how the kids are just as bad as the kids in the regular district schools.
One important thing to consider (and this is regarding anon 8:23's comment about teacher's not being able to do their 30 years in the Charter schools) is that the conditions in teaching as deteriorating so fast and so rapidly especially in the DOE that it is highly unlikely for a relatively new teacher to stay in the system that long anyway. It bother me that the Charter's don't participate in TRS or TDA but then I always have that painful fact to fall back on.
To 12:47,
What a load of absolute horse MANURE! At least give Chalkbeat the (dis)credit of writing it.
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