Political Extortion and Union Busting

^{Local 372 President Veronica Montgomery-Costa said, “We know that these profit-minded interests are leaning on legislators, who rely on their contributions to get elected. The charter schools quota imposed by Race to the Top coupled with the fund raising squeeze by the hedge fund operators is a form of political extortion our legislators will find hard to resist.”}

^{Costa added, “At the same time, we have financiers who stand to profit from the additional charters, forming political action committees funding media campaigns accusing the unions of depriving our state’s students of $700 million in federal funds.”}   

^{Costa said, “The current trend in charter school models divides city school districts into two separate and unequal school systems — a contradiction to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.”}

^{Costa added, “The requirement by the federal government for states to increase the number of Charter Schools in exchange for federal education funding is an action that can only lead to the steady erosion and ultimate destruction of what President Thomas Jefferson envisioned as Public Education in the United States.}

^{“Local 372 has called for a freeze in the proliferation of Charter Schools until the existing Charters and their for-profit or non-profit managing entities are properly monitored to determine each schools’ fiscal ethics and transparency. Each Charter must be evaluated, not only by test scores, but by its successes and failures in students’ academic and cultural achievement, as well as their progress in obtaining skills applicable for the workforce,”}

^{Costa insisted.}

^{Charters are a good idea gone bad.}

^{Charter Schools were originally intended by esteemed educators to serve as alternative programs within existing public school systems which would pilot innovative strategies and approaches to educating children in all socioeconomic categories as well as students who are English Language Learners and children with special needs.}

 ^{Unionized Charters get positive results.}

^{The first generation of Charter Schools, the “Conversion Charters,”  retained the model of public school staffing, to include a full range of pedagogical and non-pedagogical personnel — that included a full complement of Local 372 student support service workers.  Pedagogical and non-pedagogical Conversion Charter employees were also permitted to retain their union membership.}                                                                            

^{The Renaissance Charter School, located at 35-59  81st Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, was the first of the City’s Conversion Charters.  On staff are hard working, dedicated and qualified Local 372 members.  The record of the Renaissance Charter School is an example of the validity of the original intent of visionaries like education historian and author Diane Ravitch, who served under President Herbert Walker Bush and was a staunch proponent of Charter Schools, now their most published critic.}

^{Renaissance has a student body whose families speak 24 languages other than English, and serves a high percentage of students that live in poverty.  According to the PTA Co-President, the school-wide ELL percentages are “misleadingly low, because Renaissance students are turned into English speakers by the third grade.  The Renaissance High School has a graduation rate of 95%, and last year 100%  of its graduates were accepted to college.}

^{In the subsequent proliferation of Charter Schools the prototype of Charters was mutated to exclude union membership as an elective employee option, and the staffing model was altered to permit the exclusion of vital student support services.}

^{The new charters divide and conquer neighbors and district schools.}

^{As the years have passed under mayoral sole control of New York City’s schools, non-union charters have become the model, and unionized charters have become the unwanted component in a system split into two distinct tiers.}

^{Costa said, “This two-tier divide, separate and not equal, now pits charter parents against public school parents, prides non-union workers above union workers and values charter school children over the neighborhood public school children left behind.”}

^{“This union leader can only conclude that the charter movement, as demonstrated by the recent maneuvering of our City and Federal government, is more about union busting and profiteering than it is about providing all children with the best possible education.”} 

^{“State legislators who first refused to cave in to the extortion tactics of the Race to the Top proposal were not only politically brave but wise, but their bravery has faded fast,” said Costa.  “The pressure put upon elected officials by hedge fund operators may well be too great to overcome.”}