Charter school principals mobilize parents to lobby for Mayor Bloomberg school control

Juan Gonzalez

Charter school principals mobilize parents to lobby for Mayor Bloomberg school control

Friday, March 20th 2009, 12:18 AM

Are parents of charter school children across the city being organized into shock troops for Mayor Bloomberg's continued control of the public school system?

The state law that authorized mayoral control expires on June 30, and the debate over whether the Legislature should extend it has turned increasingly bitter in many city neighborhoods.

Supporters of Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, including principals from many newly formed public charter schools, have launched a well-financed and sophisticated effort to lobby for more charters and for mayoral control.

In recent weeks, those principals have mobilized parents from their schools for "School Choice" community rallies to demand extra space for new charters in existing public schools, and to pack a series of state Assembly hearings on school governance, the last of which will be held in Brooklyn today.

"You see the organizers and the parents brought in on buses, and the sandwiches distributed, and you can tell it's a highly organized effort," said one official who has attended several of the hearings.

Some disgruntled charter school parents have claimed their principals require them to attend such rallies.

A Harlem principal who shares space with one of the new public charter schools is furious at the "obvious double standard."

"If I tried to use my budget and resources to mobilize parents that way, my job would be in jeopardy," said the principal, who requested anonymity. "But the charters have all this extra money to do whatever they want, all with the blessing of Klein."

Asked about the practice, spokesman David Cantor said the DOE does not permit the use of school money to transport parents to political functions, but has paid for buses to take parents to Albany on school funding issues.

"Charter schools ... are independently run and can't turn to a district for this kind of funding," Cantor said. "They have to provide the funding for such activity themselves."

The biggest uproar has been sparked by DOE's aggressive policy of putting new charters in existing public schools without seeking parent approval.

"It's the same in every neighborhood," said Monica Major, president of the Community Education Council in District 11 in the Bronx. "The DOE just tells you they're putting a new charter in your building and you have to force them to even have a conversation about it."

Such directives have turned parents in some neighborhoods into warring factions. Those who favor charters claim others are denying their children the chance for a better education.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

LINK: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/03/19/
2009-03-19_charter_school_principals_mobilize_paren.html

Department of Education paid private tutor firm $21M in 2 years, most of it in overhead

Juan Gonzalez

Department of Education paid private tutor firm $21M in 2 years, most of it in overhead

Wednesday, March 4th 2009, 1:38 AM

In its drive to improve school reading and math test scores, the city's Department of Education paid a private company more than $21 million in two years to tutor thousands of public school pupils at home.

But most of that money - more than twice the amount the DOE originally budgeted - went for overhead, management and profit for the company, Champion Learning Center.

Champion got $79 an hour to tutor each pupil for up to four hours per week, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Daily News.

That adds up to almost $320 a week in tutoring costs per child.

Champion paid its part-time tutors, mostly college students with no teaching experience, an average of $17 an hour.

That's right. The company received an astounding $62 in overhead for every hour its employees spent tutoring a child.

Champion is one of dozens of private companies with state approval to provide tutoring services under the No Child Left Behind Act.

"We received very little training in our orientation," said one college student hired by Champion. "They just told us to follow the instructions in the test prep workbooks they gave us."

Champion hired the student and one of her friends at the same time. Both say they were offered only $15 per hour for their work. In addition, they were told they would have to pay transportation costs to each child's home and they were required to pay a $150 fee each for the cost of fingerprinting and a security check before they could start work.

The DOE's contract with Champion clearly states: "The Contractor shall be solely obligated to bear the costs of all security clearance procedures that involve fees or other costs for any and all persons and/or entities required to undergo such procedures."

Champion's idea of bearing those costs seems to be to pass them on to its employees.

When asked about the fee Tuesday, the company's chief executive, Abraham Sultan, said he did not charge employees, but then added, "It also depends on the situation."

Sultan declined to discuss exactly what his company receives from DOE or what he pays his employees.

"We work that out internally," Sultan said.

The firm, Sultan said, uses "a good group of certified teachers, people with master's degrees and doctorates looking for part-time work, and some college students."

Sultan said word of his company's "excellent performance" has "spread by word of mouth among parents" clamoring to get into his tutoring program.

David Cantor, spokesman for DOE, said Tuesday the department will be reviewing Champion's reports "to determine whether the costs have been properly represented."

"We are also looking at the alleged discrepancy involving payment to tutors," Cantor said.

"If we find that the contractor falsely represented its costs, we would take serious action."

The DOE's original contract with Champion was for $9.6 million over two years, but the company has received $21 million and that amount is expected to go higher by the end of the school year.

Cantor said each company recruits its students, and "actual student attendance [for Champion's program] has exceeded expectations."

This year alone, Champion claims to have tutored 8,600 pupils at home.

But until now, there has been little auditing of these tutorial programs under No Child Left Behind - including those run by Champion.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

IMAGE: Theodorakis/News
LINK: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/03/03/2009-03-03_department_of_education_paid_private_tut.html

Former City Council member Eva Moskowitz makin' a bundle at nonprofit schools

Former City Council member Eva Moskowitz makin' a bundle at nonprofit schools

Friday, February 27th 2009, 12:32 AM

Ex-Council member Eva Moskowitz made $371,000 for running four charter academies, more than Chancellor Joel Klein got for running 1,400 city schools. Costanza for News

Ex-Council member Eva Moskowitz made $371,000 for running four charter academies, more than Chancellor Joel Klein got for running 1,400 city schools.

Eva Moskowitz, the former City Council member who founded a small chain of nonprofit charter schools, is a passionate and abrasive champion of the charter school movement.

She's also making a bundle.

Moskowitz, who makes no secret of her desire to create 40 charter schools across the city and run for mayor some day, raked in $371,000 in salaries in the 2006-2007 school year from organizations connected to her four schools, tax records show.

Those schools, Harlem Success Academy 1, 2, 3 and 4, have an enrollment of about 1,000 pupils, from kindergarten to third grade.

The nonprofit organizations connected to the schools have yet to file more recent tax returns, but Moskowitz said in an interview late Thursday she received $310,000 last year - the 2007-2008 year - $250,000 in salary and $60,000 in a bonus.

That means Moskowitz, who is responsible for four schools, makes more than Chancellor Joel Klein, who gets $250,000 to run 1,400 schools.

In 2006-2007, she even surpassed John Ryan, the former chancellor of the State University of New York, who earned $340,000 to manage some 70 campuses with nearly 300,000 students.

Needless to say, she left your run-of-the-mill public school principal, with an average annual salary of $124,000, in the dust.

Tax records show in her first year of operation Moskowitz made $85,000 as executive director of Harlem Success Academy, the group that receives DOE money to operate the charter schools.

At the same time, she received $186,000 as chief executive officer of the Success Charter Network, a separate nonprofit that provides "management services" to her schools.

Finally, she received $100,000 as an "independent contractor" for Friends of Gotham Charter School, which provides support finances for Harlem Success.

All three organizations share an address and list as officers Joel Greenblatt and John Petry, the millionaire hedge fund managers who bankrolled the Success Charter Network.

Moskowitz said her unusually high pay for 2006-2007, included compensation for months of planning work from the previous year.

"Yes, I earn a good living," Moskowitz said. "I also have an enormous responsibility to try and design 40 schools that are immensely successful. If your child walks into my school, I treat them like my child."

Charter schools are free to use the money they raise from outside sources any way they see fit - even if that means huge salaries for the chief executive.

Given that Moskowitz routinely complains that the Department of Education has failed to provide a fair share of funding for her students, it's fair to ask why she's paying herself so much for educating so few. Charters get about 90% of what it costs to teach each child and raise funds for additional money.

Parents from Moskowitz's schools vehemently defend the Harlem Success Academy and say their kids are making phenomenal progress. That could very well be true, but the DOE has not posted independent test results for any of the Moskowitz schools.

Her critics, who include educators, parents, the teachers' union and Harlem political leaders, say she is a relentless self-promoter.

They say she is not shy about packing public meetings with a parent group she has organized, and then demanding that other public schools give up their space to make way for her programs.

"We had one meeting in East Harlem last year where she bused in her [students'] parents, and the situation got ugly and tense as they kept demanding space in our school," said one East Harlem community leader.

This week, more than 500 parents from the Harlem Success Academy were bused to a hearing at Public School 241 in West Harlem, a school the DOE wants to phase out and turn over to Moskowitz.

"We're unwilling to accept failure," Moskowitz said. "PS 241 has failed for years on end, and it needs to change."

Parents who send their children to 241, along with the local Community Education Council, say the DOE is violating the law by eliminating a zoned public school and replacing it with a charter.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

IMAGE: Costanza for News | Ex-Council member Eva Moskowitz made $371,000 for running four charter academies, more than Chancellor Joel Klein got for running 1,400 city schools.

LINK: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/02/26/2009-02-26_former_city_council_member_eva_moskowitz.html

Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein determined to keep parents seen, not heard

Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein determined to keep parents seen, not heard

Updated Wednesday, February 25th 2009, 12:11 PM

Public school parents in this town should be seen and not heard - no matter what state law says.

That's the kind of dictatorship Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein seem determined to wield over our school system - until someone in Albany gets up the nerve to stop them.

All across the city, parents who serve on local Community Education Councils are furious. The CECs replaced the old community school boards after the Legislature eliminated the Board of Education in 2003 and gave Bloomberg greater control of the schools.

Several provisions of that law were intended to assure parents had some oversight over the mayor's new powers.

Klein and his aides have repeatedly flouted those provisions, CEC leaders say.

The most recent example is a spate of school closings and Klein's creation of dozens of new small schools, all without bothering to consult CECs in the affected districts.

Take Public School 241 in West Harlem. The Department of Education announced last fall it was phasing out the school because of poor performance.

Two weeks ago, Klein's aides suddenly informed the District 3 education council that Harlem Success Academy 4, one of several nonprofit charter schools run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, will move into the PS 241 building in September.

That will leave the neighborhood with no regular elementary school for its zone, except for the Moskowitz charter school.

John White, head of portfolio management for Klein, defended the decision.

"Most parents in the northern part of District 3 are already choosing not to attend their zoned school," because of its poor record, White said.

Those children who don't want to apply to the new charter school will be given priority to attend other nearby public schools, he added.

In effect, White and Klein have rezoned a neighborhood school.

State education law requires that the local CEC approve any such zoning change.

"This is a significant change that has been made without any consultation with us," said Jennifer Freeman, member of the District 3 CEC.

Then there's the new 300-student high school for educationally troubled youngsters that the DOE was planning to put into PS 173 in Washington Heights, a thriving school lucky enough to boast a dance studio, a huge science lab and full-size art room.

When they learned the educrats at Tweed were moving forward with the plan, PS 173 parents and local political leaders organized a protest three weeks ago.

Now the people at Tweed are having second thoughts.

"It became apparent that the parents [at PS 173] are concerned," White said. Putting the new high school there is now "one possibility of several scenarios," he said.

In East New York, Brooklyn, parents at PS 72 were suddenly informed that their failing school will be phased out and replaced by two new schools.

Councilman Charles Barron, who organized a protest at the school two weeks ago, said the DOE has starved the school of resources.

"They don't have a decent library, no computers, no science lab and the new principal has been there only one year," Barron said.

"They never had any discussion with the CEC," said Virginia Carlton, a parent at the school.

By June, lawmakers in Albany will have to decide whether to reauthorize mayoral control of city schools.

The way Klein and Bloomberg keep abusing the law, the Legislature needs to put some stronger safeguards against a complete dictatorship.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

LINK: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/02/24/2009-02-24_mayor_bloomberg_and_joel_klein_determine.html