Parents affiliated with the Parent Advisory Council have planned a rally today at 5:30 p.m. at the Aquaculture School, 60 Stephens Road, to protest the Montessori charter school application, claiming it will drain funds from public school interests. A public hearing on the application is scheduled for 6 p.m. according to the Board of Education website.
Citing issues of funding, disparity in treatment and basic fairness, parents of Bridgeport public school students question what impact charter schools will have on the city’s educational system, according to a news released issued today by leaders of the District Parent Advisory Council.
“Bridgeport is the most underfunded school district in Connecticut,” said Marylee Taylor, PAC President of Black Rock School. “If this charter school is approved, it will cost our school district $9.5 million over the next 5 years. We simply can’t afford to take that money away from our public schools.”
“This proposed charter school would essentially provide special treatment to any student lucky enough to get in by lottery, while the rest of our children wouldn’t even have the basics. Why should some students have two adults in every classroom while our traditional public schools do not?” asked Eric Alicea, Vice President Elect of the District PAC.
Janet Gomes, President Elect of the District PAC also raised concerns, according to the statement. “Our public schools are underfunded, underserved and over-crowded. Some of our public schools lack full-time nurses and social workers, there are only three truancy officers for the whole city, and class sizes are at capacity. We need to fund and strengthen our public schools, not charter schools.”
More on this issue from CT Post:
Nate Snow, head of Teach For American-Connecticut and on the board of Excel Bridgeport, is the lead applicant for the new school. Snow has said his participation in the school is not connected to his job or association with Excel.
“We believe a free, public Montessori school is great for Bridgeport and are excited to work with the district to select the appropriate opening date — 2013 or 2014 could work with pros and cons to both,” Snow said.
Read more here.
Parent leaders, as a City resident of 27 years and taxpayer for the same duration, I am happy you are speaking up for what you see as the educational needs of the City. I have mentored more than one student for the past eight years and have some sense of the turmoil that has swirled through each level of the system in recent years through reading a variety of documents and attending local meetings of the BOE and City Council, among others.
I have supported the moves by Superintendent Vallas to secure adequate current and future funding commitments from the State in terms of a five-year plan. Increases from the City are required by the State and strictly out of fairness. Increases from the State have come in but the “minimum budget requirement” has not been observed so far this year. I am not aware of any parent groups protesting this ignorance of the requirement to the Council. Why are you not speaking at their meetings? The $5 Million adopted from the City to the BOE last year was recently cut to $3.9 Million. And the City administration is in Hartford trying to change terms once again, without public comment. As a taxpayer I place school funding very high on where my tax dollar should go, assuming Open, Accountable and Transparent governance, especially of the fiscal record. The Vallas administration is putting out much more information about where they are and where they are moving, than previous education managers in Bridgeport.
From a human view, choice for parents is positive. As someone said at the City budget hearing, Mayor Finch enjoys choice through the “controlled transfer” process in the City so his children can be in a school outside of their neighborhood. Superintendent Vallas has said more than once he wishes many choices to be available to families. Changes and the administration of change takes time, but signs of transformation are present.
Please get out to City Council meetings and ask the City Council to dig deeper than they have shown themselves able to find the $3.3Million to put the school budgets where they should be. More choices or alternatives will be available with more funding. Ask questions. And expect answers from your representatives. Time will tell.
Your infatuation with the educelebrity, but not an educator, is seriously clouding your judgement. Imagine parents, students and certified lifelong educators knowing what’s best for children. Traveling edufrauds are good at manipulation and flowery language. It all ends there. Other cities in the USA are relieved he isn’t pillaging their communities. Keep defending your friend.
Beware, I am pleased to see an administrator in the service of the Bridgeport public who practices a broader form of OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE, and TRANSPARENT governance than this community has been used to.
I assume you are part of the “parents, students and certified lifelong educators” community you reference. If you are a parent, may I assume you are in the minority, those who voted on election day in recent years, as so many I asked at one elementary school voting site were not going to vote. I will guess you are not a current student and thus move on to assuming you are a “certified lifelong educator” probably employed in Bridgeport.
As such can you honestly ask yourself where the school system stood in your estimation in 2011 before Vallas? Were you happy? If not how were you working for change?
If the best you can come up with to challenge my writing about the system since Vallas is vague character assassination of him, or a suggestion my judgement is clouded, perhaps you will be specific about what “fraud,” manipulation and/or pillaging is ongoing in Bridgeport.
My criticism of much about City governance for several years has caused me to seem toxic to more than one person in leadership responsibility in Bridgeport. And yet that same sense of inquiry and curiosity has not met roadblocks on the Public School front where I have attended meetings, asked questions, and received courteous responses.
Change has been necessary for some time in Bridgeport. Come in out of the cold. Give some credit for any positive change occurring, please. It would make you seem more reasonable. People who sit in the dark and hurl ominous bits of info hither and yon are also “good at manipulation,” I have discovered.
What part of my commentary do you find objectionable? Any facts you are challenging? Are you content with the Finch administration backing away from its $5 Million of funding for this budget year? Are you in favor of them reneging on the minimum budget requirement for 2014 set by the State of CT and perhaps putting more State funds at risk? Provide some facts within your opinionated mindset, please. Time will tell.
I will have to read again carefully because you lost me on accountable, open and transparent.
Actually I choked laughing after a gulp of iced tea and I had to excuse myself and gather my wits.
That was pretty funny … I didn’t know you were also a comic. Just in case you didn’t know, not all feel the love and need to worship Paul.
Vallas is a self-promoter, and has done a good job of it. By the time people realize what’s really going on behind the curtain, he is on to his next eduventure. He left Philly with a $73 million deficit. Chicago is being reformed again even though he reformed it and his once-touted success in NOLA is now ranked 69 out of 70 districts with most of his schools earning D’s and F’s.
Can you spell $ucce$$?
Vallas regularly adjusts his finger in the wind to see which way the green is blowing. Self-preservation is the name of the game for the superstar.
Check out this post and commentary. You too can see the light:
dianeravitch.net/2013/05/12/paul-vallas-nixon-to-china-moment/
Subscribe too and learn something new.
Tip for the day from an informed parent AND educator.
Maybe my comments are not that funny. Maybe you need a straw or a sippy cup when you try to do two things at one time.
Okay, you are a parent and educator but you still are dealing in broad historic generalities. I asked about pillaging, fraud and manipulation. Where do you see signs of it in Bridgeport? Where in the public school site do you detect signs of any or all of these accusations?
I was at the BOE Finance meeting listening, while many fellow citizens were outside in their new red t-shirts proclaiming PAC negativity to Charter Schools. I have not heard the subject discussed in enough detail to have formed an opinion, but I do know those parents could have learned something additional about the direction of the schools with or without MBR funding that is important to hear, reflect upon and understand. They missed out tonight. Many more nights. Time will tell.
BRG, per his request, is Dave Moore. Does this mean you had to move to Arizona to find work?
I am going to plead the fifth on that, Lennie. Let us just say right now apartments are kind of expensive considering the job market is just coming back. And I can cause just as much trouble for the bad guys here as I can at home … all those nuts in the state legislature here who think it should be legal to carry loaded guns into bars. There’s a new sheriff in town.
John, you are really off base with that remark. And please explain how you can reconcile your OATS concept when Vallas is in the Mayor’s pocket and the majority of the Board are members of Finch’s machine and private schools associated with Moales’ church (which I believe may be seized by a bank) and member of his family are receiving funds from the Board of Ed. Oh and did I forget, Moales was Finch’s campaign treasurer? In the words of Ricky Ricardo … You got some splainin’ to do …
I would almost think, John, you like privatization of city services … because in reality charter schools are basically private schools operated with public funding … and as someone who still has some taxes to pay in the Park City I find that troubling since some of that is my money … and I shouldn’t be funding private schools (that is why most of them are called private).
Cosmic Tinker says:
May 12, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Those in Chicago who were the first people subjected to non-educator businessman Paul Vallas’ neo-liberal approach do not have high hopes that he is really trying to redeem himself.
He is the father of high-stakes testing and, when he suddenly came out against standardized tests not long ago, it turned out that he was only against JUST using standardized tests at the end of the year and he advocated for mini versions used every six weeks as formative assessment.
http://www.geauxteacher.net/2012/06/remember-paul-vallas.html
I don’t see a requirement for standardized formative assessment written into RTTT yet, but formative assessments that are valid and reliable (aka standardized tests) ARE required for the RTTT- Early Learning Challenge.
That is even worse, in my professional opinion as an Early Childhood Specialist, because we’re talking about subjecting babies to frequent standardized tests–which are very time consuming since they must be administered 1 to 1 with these ages. And this replaces the use of informal and qualitative measures, such as systematic observations and work samplings, so once again, the message to teachers is that they are not trusted and cannot even design their own tests.
The greatest irony in Vallas’ career was actually when he went to Chile to “fix” education, since that is the first place where Milton Friedman’s neo-liberal crony capitalist privatization scheme which passes for education “reform” was instituted. What on earth did he think he was going to do there? The exact opposite of what he has been doing across America for the past two decades? I don’t think he had a clue about how to reverse privatization and bring back free public education to Chile, as the students there have been demanding for years now. No wonder they booted him out of there so fast. Sadly, that suggests how difficult it may be to recover our own free system of public education once it’s fully lost to privatization.
If Vallas really wants to redeem himself, he ought to make a concerted effort to figure out how to wrestle the demon that he was so instrumental in unleashing on our nation.
Vallas reminds me of the movie Independence Day where the aliens suck all the resources out of a planet and move to the next. When the dust settles he will be off to a new city and Finch will be working for his boy Malloy in a clean and green capacity.
The PAC and other residents are right to oppose this charter school. Regardless of how you feel about charter schools, this is not the time for a city-funded charter school. Finch has yet to find the money to fund the legally required contribution from the city to the Board of Education budget. Even if he does, where does the $9.5 million over the next years come from to support this new school? Where does Finch find the dollars to do something but flat-fund the education budget? His big-money donors aren’t coming in, the folks he told us would pay for all of this chaos aren’t writing checks. Where does the money come from?
Chosen, your remark about Vallas is right on target. I think, however, Malloy has a full plate regardless of what you think of him and would be well advised to steer clear of appointing Finch to anything involving “clean and green” since Finch’s record on that is very mixed. I may be gone from B’port but it has only been a few weeks and I don’t think anything has changed that much.
Hello–
I looked back at CT Post online and found this article. I think the PAC is in error when quoting the full $9.5m as additional expense.
www .ctpost.com/default/article/School-board-considers-charter-school-plan-4454831.php
It is true–the school would require $9.5M to operate. However, they are not bringing in new students, just allowing current BPT students to be part of the lottery. The money being spent on those students just transfers over from where it is being spent now. I do recognize it is more per student at the Charter School, so there is some funding to be made up–the article states $3K per student from the state. To me, this is not diverting funds from the current school system. Taking the charter school element out of the equation, if a child transfers from Dunbar to Thomas Hooker, doesn’t his/her funding move with her?
Is this not the same? Or is the issue this is a charter school … Vallas … Finch?
JML, Lennie–you two are more dialed into the city finances, are my comments on the funding accurate (as portrayed in the article)?
Disregard my previous post. Saw the article in today’s paper, looks like additional cost makes this prohibitive.
I do like the outside-the-box thinking. Something needs to be done to break the cycle in our current system.
One thing from today’s article is troubling … only 100 responses to the survey. That is poor considering there are 20k students in the system. And the sad thing is, there are two groups of parents (PAC and Excel) who have the same goal–better school–but they spend more time fighting each other. BOE fights, parent fights and the kids are all collateral damage. And we wonder why this generation does not understand compromise and common ground.
Excel is run by groups promoting privatization regarding the public schools regardless of the intentions of parents who may belong to the organization. And I find it very troubling members of Excel have tried to intimidate their opponents by trying to break up rallies. Some among their membership apparently have a problem with freedom of speech. I have witnessed this first hand.
I do not have “all of the answers,” most usually I have many questions in search of answers. That is why I read broadly, attend Committee meetings where I can listen to the folks assembled who are supposed to be performing the public business show how much they know or care about the subject at hand.
As I have stated above I do not have an opinion on Montessori schools or on Charter Schools. I do have a positive opinion of the Bridgeport Public Schools for the posting of financial, employee and grant information in a regular, accessible manner with projections as part of the effort. THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE FROM WHAT IS GOING ON WITH FINANCES CITY SIDE! How many of you recognize that? Last evening I addressed the City Council and made them aware the February financial report is the last one available (as of yesterday) to the Council or the public. The Public Schools are on the same MUNIS system and their expenses run a little less than $300 Million for the current year while BOE operating, nutrition and debt repayment is around $240 Million.
Well, if you look at the Public Schools web site you will see the April 30, 2013 monthly report available from the school system. And they are projecting a balanced budget for year end. That’s what financial managers are responsible for. What is the story on the City side? No year-end projected summary? No variance narrative? No total appropriation expenses in the February report? No electronic transmission of a monthly report pdf file for the public? And no members of the red-shirt brigade coming to City Council meetings asking questions, good ones, about the funding of education in Bridgeport? What gives, parents? Time will tell.
Why are you demeaning one particular group by calling them the red shirt brigade?
Did you have a problem with the orange shirts a while back who were supportive of the Vallas contract renewal? Is it the color of their shirts, wearing the same shirts, or not agreeing with you?
Why can’t you refer to them as informed parents, citizens and/or taxpayers?
Your true colors are vibrant as you type.
We certainly don’t want to stereotype a group by the color of shirt they wear, do we?
That would be similar to believing all men who wear bow ties are pompous, know-it-all poindexters. Can you imagine?
Beware,
Hope you are having better luck with your iced tea today.
If you walk through a large group of people wearing red shirts promoting a certain cause, I find it appropriate to refer to them as a ‘red shirt brigade,’ frankly a testament to the numbers involved rather than anything demeaning as you suggest.
I don’t know their positions as I have not heard them enunciated. I have made it a point to attend BOE Finance Committee meetings when my schedule permits. That is why I was there.
I would like to consider them informed parents, citizens and community activists, but as a group I have not seen them at the usual barricades where financial battles are fought in this City, the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the City Council budget sessions. Is there a reason why they were not there this year with any show of force? So take off your ‘rose-colored’ glasses and see my communication as it has been, not as you would like to see it.
The ‘education skirmishes’ with unions, Charter school enthusiasts, suburban voters etc. will continue for a time, I guess, until some changes get to be observed with the Public School System. I am but one voice seeking Open, Accountable and Transparent institutional governance. You think that is funny, but does your dream embody OATs institutionally and ultimately? Well for my price of admission, we have more of that today than we did two years ago. And the Public Schools financial releases and projections are ahead of the City in timeliness, coverage and projections. Isn’t that a change? And isn’t that good for the City? By the way if I can assist your parent groups in learning more about City finances, I will make myself available for any meeting they wish. Time will tell.
I worked for him in Philly.
Watch the privatization soar by the addition of contracts for formerly district positions. Watch the dollars subtracted, spent on programs and technologies without the funding stream to follow through effectively. Watch the number of administrators multiply as new programs are implemented while attempting to accommodate existing positions. Watch the community become divided between those who support him added to those who benefit and those who suffer the result of his policies.
www .dailykos.com/story/2013/05/16/1209666/-School-turnaround-genius-Paul-Vallas-leaves-a-trail-of-destruction
Here’s a link to more on our educational savior.
www .susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1612
*** Not sure about all the possible “pro perks” in eventually doing away with most city public elementary schools in favor of charter schools besides just the money side. Is it possible, legal and in the end better academics for the kids in general I wonder? *** WHAT SAY YOU, OIB? ***