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Opinion

Charters: Flush With Cash, Yet Still Trying to Pull Funds from Neighborhood Public Schools


uft teacher floor

(photo: UFT)


Even as they are pleading poverty to the Legislature in Albany, charter schools across New York State are sitting on nearly half a billion dollars in cash and unrestricted assets.

An investigation by the state teachers union has shown that New York City charter schools alone have at least $323 million in unrestricted net assets, most of it in cash. When you add in charters in the rest of New York State, the sector as a whole has unrestricted assets of more than $450 million.

Those are resources that can be used to pay for academic programs, support staff, and rent of school facilities.

But despite these available funds, New York's charter chains are lobbying for more public support in the form of increased tuition reimbursements, additional rent subsidies, and the elimination of the cap on the number of charters – all of which would siphon off public funds that could go to the state’s traditional public schools.

Charters are famously resistant to transparency, and anyone wanting to find out how much cash charters have on hand, or how much they pay their top managers, has to track down audits and non-profit tax returns on the internet.

A review of these documents shows that in New York City alone the Uncommon Schools chain has cash and unrestricted assets totaling more than $28 million; Success Academy has more than $22 million; and Democracy Prep have more than $14 million.

Ignoring these facts, Republicans in the state Senate have proposed to eliminate the charter cap and drain an additional $334 million statewide that could go to traditional public schools, sending that money instead to charters.

Charter cheerleaders constantly complain that the UFT is an enemy of charters. But the fact is that we represent teachers at a number of New York City charter schools and support their original purpose: to be incubators of innovation that can then be spread across the public school system.

But to achieve that goal, charters have to be a vibrant part of the system and also be accountable to parents and taxpayers. Right now, New York charters are not.

Despite a 2010 change in charter law, too many charter chains still fail to accept and keep all students, and they have significantly lower numbers of English language learners, special education students, and homeless children than neighborhood public schools.

And too many charter chains have fought even the most basic accountability measures, such as audits of their finances or reviews of their school discipline policies.

As budget negotiations continue in Albany, the state Assembly right now is seeking to hold charters more accountable.

Charters would have to be transparent in how they raise and spend their funds to make sure tax dollars are spent in the classroom. They would need to report how much they pay their top managers and management companies.

They would need to abide by guidelines that they accept and keep all children and make sure the number of high-needs children they educate is comparable to the number educated in neighboring public schools.

As a measure of good faith, one of the first things charters could do is to acknowledge that many of their schools do not need the tuition and rent hikes they seek, particularly when their increases would come at the expense of New York City’s neighborhood public schools.

***
Michael Mulgrew is President of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). On Twitter @UFT.

Cuomo Holds the Key to Bold Climate Action in 2017


 latrice walker

Assemblymember Latrice Walker, the author


Here are a few things we know:

President Trump’s policies benefit the one-percent.

His agenda, particularly dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as rolling back climate and public health protections that New Yorkers benefit from, disproportionately harms low-income communities of color. (The World Health Organization just released data that 1.7 million children die annually worldwide due to environmental pollution.)

Trump’s denial of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, and gutting of life-saving policies like strong vehicle emission standards, will push our planet to the brink of catastrophe, jeopardizing vulnerable people while enriching the fossil fuel executives driving his backwards energy policy.

Here’s what we also know:

Governor Cuomo holds the key to leading the nation in climate action with passage of the Climate and Community Protection Act in this year’s State Budget.

This groundbreaking bill sets into law the elimination of climate pollution from all economic sectors in New York, while making sure at least 40-percent of state energy funding is directed to disadvantaged communities, also attaching fair labor standards to a robust renewable jobs agenda.

Like most New Yorkers, I’ve seen the devastating impacts of climate change, especially in the communities I represent in New York City. Superstorm Sandy hit frontline communities first and worst – after the flood, there were outbreaks of mold in public housing that greatly exacerbated the already chronic problems of asthma and bronchitis in communities like East New York and Brownsville.

Another well-documented firsthand impact is the “urban heat island,” which creates dangerous temperatures in the summer, especially for seniors, children, and those with chronic illness.

In other words, even when New Yorkers are not directly harmed by a weather event, the pollution fostering extreme weather, and the aftermath when the storm has passed, compromises our health.

If we don’t get a handle on this problem, it’s going to run away from us, with disastrous consequences.

Tackling climate change isn’t just a safety measure for my community, but every community represented by the Governor and my colleagues in state government. As Chair of the Assembly’s Subcommittee on Renewable Energy, I know that bold action is a down payment on a new future – one built on wind power, solar power, microgrids, energy retrofits, and community-shared renewable energy.

According to data from the Solar Foundation, the solar industry in 2015 added jobs 12-times faster than the rest of the economy.

Last August, wind industry jobs were on track to end the year up more than 20 percent according to the U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report.

That means if we make the right policies now, those jobs can be guaranteed to support families and lift up our communities.

There’s a tremendous risk in doing nothing in the face of Trump’s intransigence, or to simply continue the status quo. If New York ups its ambition, we can be the lodestar to the entire country, rising to the climate challenge in a way that lifts thousands of people into the middle class and protects our most vulnerable communities at the same time.

No state in the country is better prepared, and no legislation in the country better accomplishes that goal, than the Climate and Community Protection Act, sponsored by Assemblymember Steven Englebright, championed by the NY Renews coalition, and placed on the budget negotiating table by the Assembly Majority.

Last year it passed the Assembly easily. But Senate leadership refused to allow a vote despite having a clear and bipartisan majority of support. If Senate leadership continues to blindly follow the lead of the only national political party that denies climate science, then it’s up to Governor Cuomo to join the Assembly to make sure that the key provisions of the bill are included in this year’s enacted state budget.

Climate change is not an “environmental issue.” It is fundamentally an issue of both racial and economic justice, two principles we hold dear as New Yorkers. As Trump and his cronies shirk the responsibilities of history, New Yorkers can and must lead.

***
Assemblymember Latrice Walker represents parts of Brooklyn and is Chair of the Assembly Subcommittee on Renewable Energy. On Twitter @AssemblyLWalker.

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Students Need More than 'Abstinence, Abstinence, Abstinence'


seanyc


On Tuesday, I’ll be testifying at a New York City Council preliminary budget hearing to ask for funding for comprehensive, K-12 sex education in city public schools. For teens like me, curiosity and questions surrounding sex are common, and have been throughout the ages. But a reason so many of us still have questions is due to the lack of good, clear, thorough sexual education, specifically in city public schools.

For me sex ed began outside of the classroom. Friends would tell me bits and pieces of information that they picked up from the most random sources, whether it be other friends, the internet, or, most commonly, television. I thought of sex as some type of mystical explosion with fireworks abounding. I went throughout all of middle school without receiving even a tidbit of sex ed from my teachers.

Once I reached high school, I had a health class my freshman year in which sex ed was a small, one-week unit. In addition to the short timespan I also found that I was overloaded with facts, like rates and percentages of STDs that didn’t explain data in a way that I or my classmates could apply to our lives. My teacher did a great job of stressing the importance of abstinence – but it stopped there. We never had a condom demonstration or even mentioned LGBTQ issues. I knew there was more to sex and sex education, and I was determined to seek it out.

I had my first glance at the other piece to the puzzle when I joined the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (NYCLU) Teen Activist Project. TAP was the first time the lack of comprehensive sexuality education was directly addressed, and hearing someone say what I was thinking and affirming that it was an issue was powerful. I was moved to action and from TAP I was given the opportunity to take more specific actions towards sex ed through the Youth Advisory Council of the Sexuality Education Alliance of New York City (SEANYC).

On the Youth Council, I have a platform to make a direct impact on my community, my public school and public schools across the city. I jumped at the chance to join this group, where real conversation can happen, and the opportunity to help others is so central to the mission. How often do youth get to work on issues that directly impact people and their families? Not often enough. I joined the Council so I could have a seat at the table to work on something that affects me and the generations coming after me.

Part of the reason that sex ed is so essential is teen pregnancy. Comprehensive sex education and teen pregnancy correlate; when teens receive quality sex ed they make smarter decisions when it comes to sex and reduce their risk of pregnancy.

In my own life, I have had family friends, ages 16 to 18, become pregnant before their time. I’ve had friends fear that they’ve contracted an STD after a night of unprotected sex. These are all woes that could’ve been avoided if they’d been taught how to be safe.

My friends come to me for questions that should’ve been answered years ago in a classroom. Whether they’ve received sex ed or not, many young people will become sexually active, and they deserve to have the information they need to make healthy decisions. We can directly feed the knowledge into our public schools.

I’ve never talked to my parents about sex; it’s too awkward a conversation for us to ever have, and I know that many of my peers feel this way. Not having the chance to talk about sex in school and become educated about so many related topics only compounds the problem. Without anyone to talk about sex with, where will teens learn?

By providing comprehensive sex education, schools do so much more than they realize – they’re elevating a student’s health and well-being in the long term. Every school should offer this needed education, so that every student receives it.

***
Sherell Farmer is a high school student and member of the Sexuality Education Alliance of NYC’s Youth Advisory Council (SEANYC), which advocates for age-appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education in grades K through 12 in New York City schools.

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