CETF Responds to RCSD/Charter Compact and School Closings

Recently Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard announced that the Rochester City School District has entered into a new "partnership" with local charter schools. The Compact, funded by the wealthy Gates Foundation, was established without any public input from parents, students, teachers, RCSD commissioners, or the broader community.

The Community Education Task Force (CETF) is troubled by this development at a time when Mr. Brizard is trying to close down our neighborhood schools. In fact, the superintendent was instrumental in creating the current climate in New York City, which pits charters against neighborhood public schools in a bitter battle for resources. While there are some “success” stories of children for whom charter schools are good, the market-based charter system as a whole operates to benefit a few while truly leaving the rest behind. Clear winners in New York City include “edupreneurs” who make millions “managing” education dollars, real estate moguls, hedge fund managers, and million dollar charter school “directors.”

Here in Rochester school #6 was recently removed from an “underperforming” list, and school #2 has the only on-site medical mental health program in RCSD. Despite both neighborhood community schools providing innovative and effective services and programs, not to mention having caring and cohesive staffs, they have just been selected for closure. If identifying and replicating best practices and effective school models is truly driving the superintendent’s pact with charters, why shut down these important public schools?

The CETF supports public schools because they serve ALL students without using selective screening or recruiting processes, and they are more accountable than privately run charter schools. If some of the existing charter schools in Rochester demonstrate innovations that are good for children, we have no problem with public school counterparts learning from those models. However, most parents in Rochester do not want or need corporate patrons to filter or format that process.

We refuse to pit student against student or family against family in Rochester based on public versus charter school opinions or attendance. Our families have more in common with each other than we do with Jean-Claude Brizard or with wealthy charter school managers. The Community Education Task Force does not oppose all charter schools. We do, however, oppose the movement to replace public schools with charter schools as a part of the broader corporate movement to privatize public education. If Mr. Brizard truly had the best interests of all students at heart, he would make use of best practices in the RCSD, using small autonomous schools, rather than charters, which take away public funding and filter out those students labeled as “underperforming” or “high risk.”

We are concerned that "sharing resources and ideas" could mean public school real estate being transferred at bargain prices to private charter school operators, as has occurred in New York City. We are particularly sensitive to the call for “sharing ideas” when it has become clear that this administration shies from parent and community input, unless it is vetted and controlled from within the district. The charter school compact is itself an example of an anti-democratic, market-oriented style of leadership.

Instead of looking to the Gates Foundation for advice, especially self-serving advice that puts public funds into the control of private businesses, the RSCD leadership ought to collaborate with the district's students, parents, and community members. These stakeholders have the greatest knowledge and expertise concerning the needs of their children, but their voices are almost always ignored. The RSCD needs to enter into partnerships with groups from our own community rather than outside corporate forces.

The Community Education Task Force stands in solidarity with all families being affected by the planned closure of #2 and #6 schools, and we firmly stand behind any and all efforts to organize resistance to these closures and find reasonable alternatives to them.

http://communityeducationtaskforce.rocus.org/
http://communityeducationtaskforce.rocus.org/
http://communityeducationtaskforce.rocus.org/