SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Capstone Collection SIT Graduate Institute Summer 2011 The hC arter School Commercial: NYC’s Fight Against Public School Privatization Keedra Gustava Gibba SIT Graduate Institute Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/capstones Part of the Disability and Equity in Education Commons, and the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons Recommended Citation Gibba, Keedra Gustava, "The hC arter School Commercial: NYC’s Fight Against Public School Privatization" (2011). Capstone Collection. 2457. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/capstones/2457 This Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Graduate Institute at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Capstone Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CHARTER SCHOOL COMMERCIAL: NYC’S FIGHT AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION Keedra Gustava Gibba PIM 66 A Capstone Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Social Justice at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. July 2011 Advisor: Janaki Natarajan The author hereby grants to the School for International Training permission to reproduce either electronically or in print format this document in whole or in part for library archival purposes only . The author hereby does grant to the School for International Training permission to electronically reproduce and transmit this document to students, alumni, staff, and faculty of the World Learning Community. Author’s Signature________________________________________________________ © Keedra Gustava Gibba, 2011. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Introduction 2 Literature Review 4 Research Design 22 Findings 24 Conclusion 48 Bibliography 52 Appendixes I. List of interviewees 55 II. Consent Form 56 iii ABSTRACT iv Introduction Teaching in New York City public schools provided me with the opportunity become a part of the active grassroots education movement, be a part of one of the largest existing labor unions in the nation, and improve my teaching practice in the classroom. I began teaching in NYC at a time when mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed mayoral control of the public schools. For the first time in nearly half a century the NYC public school system is completely controlled by one individual, the city’s mayor. As a result, grassroots organizations have struggled to regain more participation in the governance of the city’s public schools while the current administration is making decisions to close rather than support struggling schools, provide opportunities for the testing industry to limit teaching to test preparation, support the growth of non-unionized teachers in the vastly growing charter schools, and provide ways for profit and so called non profit organizations to profit off of the backs of the city’s public school students. As a social justice educator, I found it nearly impossible to only provide social justice pedagogy in the classroom. It became urgent that I become a part of the efforts to resist the injustices of the public school system in New York City. I increasingly became interested in the growth of charter schools in the city and the impact it seemed to have on education. I watched parents who wanted the best free education for their children fight with each other over the dwindling resources available to their community schools. I watched the trend of charter schools in NYC move further away from the original concept of charter. I began to wonder about the evolution of charter schools and where the trend seems to be going. As I began to learn that the trend seemed to move towards privatization of public education, I wanted to get a sense of where the city intended to go 2 with the charter school movement and how the people are fighting for a just education system for all of the city’s children. When many of us think of charter schools, perhaps we envision little Black and Brown children dressed in school uniforms, classrooms filled with the latest Smart Boards and laptops, young dedicated educators, and high student achievement. Perhaps we have heard stories or read newspaper articles about happy parents who were able to get their children into the charter schools after going through the lottery process. Maybe we have heard about how charter schools are out performing public schools. But when we look a bit more closely and critically, we will discover some of the less reported downfalls of the charter school movement such as poor student performance, high teacher turnover, business model management, and privatization. Many radical and progressive struggles for marginalized people are often usurped by elites and used for their own interests. Often they keep the same language and “outer shell” of an idea, but change the “inner” parts of it to accumulate, maintain, and reproduce their positions of wealth and power in the society. The charter school movement was initiated as a response to the poor education of marginalized students and has now become another profit driven scheme as the elites see education as the “new market.” This paper will review the evolution of the charter school movement. In studying the original purpose of charter and discovering the current direction in which the charter school movement is going, the most important question is where is this movement heading? Will it spur reform of schools? Will it drain away resources from the traditional public schools and become the “new market” for elites? Will it spark a strong resistance 3 to privatization and radically change the public school system as we have known it and become a democratically just institution for all students? Literature Review: Evolution of the Charter School Movement Ray Budde, the originator of the term 'charter' might be surprised to know that his ideas of reform have spread to many states across the nation. Budde was an educator who wrote a report entitled Education by Charter in which he proposed that teachers could solve some of the most difficult problems within the school system if districts gave them charters or contracts. These contracts would free teachers of the strict constraints of public school policies in order to create innovative techniques. Budde's first report was written in 1974 during a time in which communities were struggling to have more autonomy in centralized school systems across the country. During this time period progressive communities of color saw the difficulties of school integration and fought for the control of their own schools. Their children were often mistreated and poorly educated in the integrated 'white' schools and they fought for the right of self determination in governing schools for their children. Wendell Pritchett writes in his book Brownsville Brooklyn , “Brownsville activists increasingly viewed integration efforts as fruitless. Instead, they decided that if the board of education could not provide a decent education to their children, then they would do it themselves.” (Pritchett, 2002 p.226) Black and Latino parents in the community also reported being “thwarted” by local school boards that were controlled whites. The idea of community control went 4 along with New York policymakers' idea of decentralization of schools. At the time in New York City, schools were centralized and decentralization would create smaller local governing boards. “As a result of pressure from parent activists... the New York state legislature in the spring of 1967 directed Mayor Lindsay to develop a plan for school decentralization. To ensure that a more radical proposal was not adopted, the board of education announced a trial community control plan of its own, selecting three districts... to participate in this program.” (Pritchett 2002, p. 229) Ocean Hill-Brownsville was one of the more advanced in their implementation of community control. They appointed a “governing board” of parents, teachers, administrators, and community members. The experiment received positive feedback and publicity from one of its grantors, the Ford Foundation and the New York City Commission on Human Rights. The board hired principals of color including the first Latino principal, transferred ineffective teachers, designed a new curriculum, and increased parent participation. Despite all of the positive changes, the board of education and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) opposed the community control experiment. Many of the predominately white teachers claimed that the governing board did not hear their concerns and they led a series of teacher strikes. Albert Shanker, who later popularized the idea of charter schools was opposed to the community control experiment and organized the strikes. He was an advocate for the predominately White Jewish teaching population who were affected by the board's decision to have them transferred. The experiment was accused of being racist and anti-Semitic and Mayor Lindsay suspended the governing board and demanded that teachers be reinstated. The experiment for community control was brief, but very instrumental in ending New York City's mayoral control of schools for the first time in history in 1969. New York City 5 went from being centrally controlled to having decentralized school boards in each borough. The mayor appointed two of the board members. The rest were elected by the community. The board did not have as much control as the governing boards during the community control experiment, but it allowed for more community participation than the previously centralized board. As of 2002, New York City has regressed back to mayoral control of schools under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. This progression from the community control governing board, to decentralized school boards, to the present Panel for Educational Policy under Bloomberg is an example of how the elites use the language and outer structures of a progressive idea to suit their own needs. The Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) is a body that seems similar to a school board.