THE HOME STRETCH: In shared facilities, the charter school is privileged, the real public school treated like dirt
During the CSDU’s numerous visits to public schools across the city of Chicago, we have had the chance to visit buildings that are public schools that are shared with private charters. I have noticed in many of these shared facilities that there are discrepancies in the esthetic ambiance projected to the visitor, which I feel is also projected on the children and parents of the school.
KIPP has been in three Chicago public schools in three years because of what teachers, parents and students describe as the organization's arrogance. They are now in Penn Elementary School, where the same problems have arisen again. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.I noticed in one school that there were two separate offices. The original glass enclosed, well lit main office of the charter had large windows and a modern counter. This charter office contrasted with the Public School office that was smaller and not well lighted. The lack of space added to a feeling of clutter that was not present in the charter office.
Also the wonderful aroma of hot cafeteria food emanated from down the corridor of he charter side. I had noticed a high number of Special Education teachers mailboxes in the Public school office that I didn’t notice in the charter office.
In another school the sign outside the public school entrance was falling down in places on the side of the building but wherever the signage for the charter appeared it was pristine. These are subliminal methods to try to convince the public that charters are better than public schools. This is the use of public funds to finance private education where subliminal messages are saying “we’re better than you”. The esthetics of charter change, is a way of brainwashing our parents and feeds the plutocracy that is insidious in our city and country today.
As the majority of Chicago teachers gather to vote on the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union in May 2010, it is a fact that the majority of Chicago's charter schools — and charter school operators — are not simply "non-union," but "anti-union." Because of this, the idea of housing a charter school and a unionized true public school in the same building is bound to result in conflict. Because of the Amendatory Act of 1995 (the last that gave Mayor Richard M. Daley control over the schools), the Chicago Teachers Union is not allowed to bargain for charter school teachers, and charter school teachers have had to form their own local union (inside the Illinois Federation of Teachers, IFT), where they have been able to organize (at some of the "Chicago International" charter schools, and, most recently, at the Aspira charter schools). Most of the city's more than 80 charter schools are, however, carrying out an anti-union campaign, sometimes under our noses in the city's unionized true public schools.
Above, Penn Elementary before KIPP began to take the building over from the inside. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.If we truly want change for the better we need to finance our public schools first, so Public Education is the best education that money can buy.
By: Jim Vail
CTU Joins Charters
Good Story!
This is why our current union leadership has to go - Marilyn has joined forces with the charter crowd to promote this anti-union measure. She had the gall to tell teachers in her presidential forum that charter school teachers are our friends - a classic divide and conquer.
Sweatshop laborers in China are not the enemies of US workers either, but that does not mean we stand by and even help promote off shoring our jobs.
Marilyn - the UPC - the CTU leadership = a company union that has helped Daley and his corporate friends spread charter schools, close public schools and ridicule public school teachers.
That is why CORE, despite being totally outspent by Daley's "gal" did well in this election. Substance and CORE have been at the forefront in the counter-attack against this most hideous privatization, anti-union, de-regulation corporate concoction.