James Merriman, the head of the New York City Charter School Center and former chief of SUNY's Charter School Institute (a state authorizer), writes a level-headed assessment of CSI's decision to grant a short-term renewal to the UFT's charter school in NYC.
Although the school will likely receive a three-year extension for its improvement, it has had some notable struggles. Beyond its lagging ELA performance, Merriman points out that the school has fewer disadvantaged students than its neighborhood and that its board had violated open meeting rules--issues that run counter to the unions' charter talking points. But he also points out that the report gives the UFT reason to be proud in several other areas.
A couple years ago, after the school's opening, I attended a UFT-sponsored event in DC to celebrate the new venture. Randi Weingarten spoke and touted her organization's courage for getting into the charter business. I had the opportunity to ask a question, so I wondered aloud what she and her team had learned about chartering through the experience. I was hoping for a bit of modest self-reflection, as in "You know, starting a school from scratch is much harder than we expected..."
Instead, she said something along the lines of she learned that there are many opportunities for charters to game the system.
As I wrote in this recent post, I try my best not to be a reflexive union antagonist, though I am deeply frustrated by much of what they do. I've been looking for an opportunity to praise them to show my goodwill and possibly contribute to at least a partial detente.
It would be great if the UFT or AFT responded to this report by acknowledging how challenging and rewarding the charter experience can be and admitting that some of their standard charter critiques are actually undermined by the events of their own school. Then charter backers could congratulate the UFT for its school's improvement and see if there's an opportunity to collaborate on some charter issue, perhaps a cap lift in NY.
I'm most optimistic early in the morning, so maybe this is just a flight of fancy. But Merriman's judicious post is a good start.
--Andy Smarick