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Blake Neff, The Daily Caller

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.

Matt Carmel, New York Post

We’ve all heard the jokes about students taking courses in “basket-weaving.” It’s not so funny when your kid’s school actually forces him to take one.

My son, Kalman, just started 10th grade at Columbia HS in Maplewood, NJ — which is supposed to be a pretty good public school. But it’s making him waste his time on basket-weaving.

OK, the official name of this art class is “Fibers.” But the Web site — and all the pictures of knitted baskets — make it clear that title is just, uh, spin.

And despite all my huffing, puffing and foot-stamping, Kalman has to take it. You can imagine how my blood boiled.

This past summer, Kalman skipped sleep-away camp — where he could’ve swum, sailed and launched pantie raids on the girl’s bunk line — so he could take 10th-grade math in summer school and qualify for 11th-grade math this year. With an eye on majoring in engineering at college, he wanted to get a leg up.

The basket-weaving requirement doesn’t exactly send a message of support.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate the arts — even fabrics and fibers, if not baskets. My dad worked in haute couture women’s fashion in the Garment District; I grew up in a home littered with Chagall prints, sculptures and early American furniture — plus model ships I built. I even have a portfolio of my own.

But that’s not what school should be about — certainly not a required course. It should be about giving our kids the tools they need to become successful entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, researchers, doctors, lawyers (well, let’s stop at doctors).

That means a focus on the sciences, math, English, history and other traditional courses. Not laudable — yet wholly dispensable — esoterica, the kind of thing kids can do on their own time.

The waste of valuable class time is only more infuriating when you’re paying $18,000 a year in property taxes — much of it for the public schools.

It gets worse: When I took my complaints to school officials, a seasoned interference-runner tried to cheer me up by saying, “Don’t worry — it’s an easy class!”

Not exactly what a father who wants his son to be challenged, to get the best education possible, wants to hear.

The general public, particularly taxpayers, will also be troubled to learn that students are being taught that their education isn’t something they need to work hard at.

Next, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, Susan Grierson, told me the district wants “well-rounded” students.

“The district wants”: Who’s working for who, here?

I don’t need a well-rounded son who can’t get a job. I’ll take a triangular son who can earn a good living and can afford to round himself out later. (And, I hope, with something that tops basket-weaving.)

Fine, so schools all over the nation have art-class requirements. That just means the whole country’s taking an unserious approach to education.

This, when world competition is on the rise — particularly in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.

The Programme for International Student Assessment is a key global measure of academic achievement among 15-year-olds (my son’s age).

On the latest test, American kids performed below average in math, ranking 27th out of the 34 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. We also ranked 17th in reading, 20th in science.

Then again, we did beat Kazakhstan (take that, Borat!).

China ranked No. 1 in math. If the top Chinese kids have to take basket-weaving courses, I’ll eat my hat (my well-rounded son can weave me one) in Macy’s window.

True, I’m just a parent. But folks in the field share my horror. Kara Kerwin, president of the DC-based Center for Education Reform, laughed out loud when I told her about Kalman’s class. Another expert called it “crazy.”

As for Kalman, he’s now in his third week of basket-weaving class. We’re dealing with it — and I’m confident he’ll stick to his engineering dreams, despite the obstacles his school puts before him.

But I also know this: If America is to retain its economic edge, our attitude toward education needs to get a whole lot more serious.

Danielle Dreilinger, The Times-Picayune

Negotiations are going well in New Orleans’ first collectively bargained teacher contract since Hurricane Katrina, at Benjamin Franklin High School, participants say. Yet despite the initial buzz, it hasn’t sparked copycats.

Larry Carter, president of the United Teachers of New Orleans, said Thursday the labor union is not organizing teachers at any other schools, nor has it been approached by faculty of a particular school. The group had 5,800 members before the 2005 storm and has 530 now, he said. It posted ajob description over the summer for a charter school organizer.

Collectively bargained contracts for teachers are rare in Louisiana, where school boards have the right not to participate. They exist only in St. Tammany, St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, St. Helena and Vermilion parishes, union leaders said.

Jefferson and Orleans parishes had contracts in the past only because protracted teachers’ strikes forced school boards’ hands, said Les Landon of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, UTNO’s parent organization. Jefferson’s contract ended in 2012; its chapter’s leader is running for a school board seat.

Charter schools are public entities that operate independently of a local school system. Across the United States, the percentage of charters that are unionized fell 5 points to 7 percent in 2012, according to the Center for Education Reform. Indeed, unions and charter school advocates started off at odds, with organized labor saying charters dictated teachers’ working conditions and charters saying unions protected bad teachers and tied administrators’ hands.

Landon said the small size of charter schools is a disincentive to labor organizers. “The same amount of effort that it takes to negotiate a contract with a district, you spend on one school,” he said.

The American Federation of Teachers thinks charters should open admission to all students. Ironically, its only New Orleans chapter is at Franklin, a charter that requires students to pass an entrance test.

Franklin’s board chair, Duris Holmes, acknowledged the friction between charters and unions. “Some of the charter schools feel very strongly, as do we, (to) not be drawn into the old ways,” he said. “But you’ve got to balance that against – here’s my school,” where 87 percent of the teachers signed a petition to unionize.

No one involved in the Ben Franklin contract negotiations would share details, except to say that the contract’s duration is still being debated. The negotiating team, which includes a United Teachers of New Orleans staff member, has met regularly since July.

“Things are moving along well. We are positive about the direction things are going in negotiation,” said Greg Swanson, a Ben Franklin English teacher. The point is “just fairness and a little bit of job security and having a voice. … It’s about making our school better.”

He said the process had opened up a valuable conversation about real issues at the school, and that the union drive had made the board take teachers seriously.

Swanson said he had not heard from other schools considering a union chapter but that individual teachers elsewhere are curious and watching the Franklin process closely. “I think seeds are out there,” he said.

New Orleans’ only other charter school union, at Morris Jeff Community School, is affiliated with the Louisiana Association of Educators. So far, it has chosen not to bargain a contract. Aesha Rasheed, a member of the school’s governance committee, said teachers have gained a formal role in determining changes in school policy.

At schools without a collectively bargained contract, the two Louisiana unions say they offer legal representation, insurance and professional development to members. That includes suing the state to try to throw out Act 1 of 2012, which stripped away most protections of tenure. A state Supreme Court decision on that law is pending.

By Arianna Prothero
Education Week
September 18, 2014

Unions have struggled to gain traction in the fast-growing charter sector. As the number of charter schools has grown nationally, the number of unionized staff members has shrunk according to the most recent data from the Center for Education Reform.

Only about 7 percent of charter schools were unionized in 2012, down from 12 percent in 2009, according to a 2014 annual survey by CER, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Arianna Prothero
Education Week
September 17th, 2014

Despite a national decline in the number of charter schools with unionized staffs over the past few years, one high-profile charter chain based in California is not only unionized, it’s also expanding into new states.

Green Dot Public Schools has had a unionized staff since its inception 15 years ago. But nationally only 7 percent of charter schools were unionized in 2012, down from 12 percent in 2009, according to a 2014 annual survey by the Center for Education Reform, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.