BOE Charter Crzy

Charter Schools Crowd Out Others at Chicago Board of Education Meetings

By Jim Vail

Disgraced Charter school boosters Rangel & Emanuel

At the December Chicago Board of Education Meeting the charter schools that replaced public schools take up a good part of the public participation period by pleading to extend their contracts because they are doing such wonderful things.

Each charter school that asked to renew their contract had several representatives speak about how well they serve their students. This has prevented other people from being able to sign up to speak at the meetings because the charter people take up most of the time slots.

Not to mention that there are serious problems they leave out.

On the CTU FB page many teachers complained recently that charter schools dump their problem students back into the public schools in the middle of the year.

"When will CTU do something about the way Charter Schools take in ALL of our students in North Lawndale and then kick them back out EVERY SINGLE JANUARY???" wrote Honesty D'or. "I'm tired of supporting charters and they don't live by the same rules as everybody else. Once they take in a student with promises of a better school system they should be required to keep that student for that school year!"

D'or said her school just received eight student transfer from KIPP Charter Academy on the West Side.

Another asked if the union could require the charters to give CPS some or all of the money for the students if they are kicked out and leave the charter school.

Washington High School teacher and delegate Frank McDonald has repeatedly asked at delegates meetings and on the teachers social media pages that the CTU sponsor a resolution that would determine a timeline to transform all the charter schools back into CPS public schools.

Richard Berg, a CTU organizer, wrote that the union is ready to hold the charter schools accountable with a possible upcoming strike now that all the charter contracts are up.

"If they are going to take public money they need to provide the services to the students and wages to their educators," Berg wrote. "We, all CTU members, need to hold them accountable."

A particular problem with charter schools is working with special education students who have an Individual Education Plan. Many of these students who should be provided extra services due to their plans are pushed out of the charters because of the extra cost and extra burden. 

"When I worked at a charter I was shocked at how many SPED laws they knowingly broke," wrote Sara Lynn. "Many of the teachers and even the parents reported it to the CEO and ISBE. Nothing happened. No one cared."

Charter schools were once the darling of education reform. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama pushed charter schools as the answer to public school woes until too much corruption and lies were exposed to make them a hot potato. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke out against charter schools during her election and the Democrats have embraced this position after the unions led by the Chicago Teachers Union fought back. CORE supported a charter school moratorium in the last teachers contract. Before CORE, the CTU had tacitly supported charter schools by saying they should just unionize the teachers.

Charter schools were set up to privatize education by promoting an alternative to neighborhood schools in rough neighborhoods with empty promises. The business elite love them because they replaced unionized teachers and drained students from the public schools. 

Today about a quarter of the city's charter schools have unionized teachers. About 20 percent of CPS high schools and 10 percent of elementary schools are charter.