On Friday, I took a personal day from school to deal with some long standing doctors’ appointments. Between appointments, I went home for lunch when the phone rang. The person on the other started the conversation by saying. “Hello, may I speak to . . .”
I answered, “Yes, that’s me.”
Next came this: “My daughter was going to one of New York’s best charter schools and I am so upset that Mayor DiBlasio has closed my child’s school and she has nowhere to go. We need your help in this fight so my beautiful child, Bianca, can continue to have a good education. We would love for you to help us by making a small contribution to continue this fight.”
Then I blew my stack and asked who is really paying you to say this. How can your daughter’s charter school be closed when it never opened in the first place? Mayor DiBlasio did not close any schools. How can one close a school that was never even opened? By the way, with all the money being paid for your fake grass roots campaign, jingoistic ads and commercials, your pal Eva could build ten more charters. Of course, she hung up in the middle of my rant.
I was still angry and wanted to say more. So I looked on the call waiting and, to my surprise, it was a 518 number which is the area code for the Northeastern part of New York State. I called back the number and the mailbox was full. Therefore, I decided to wait until Saturday night and got through. The voice mailbox said, “This is campaign headquarters, please leave a message.”
Now my investigation began in earnest. I did a reverse phone lookup. What did I find? The phone number was a landline located in Averill Park, New York, which is suburb outside of Albany. I guess that Bianca must have had a long commute to her Success Academy Charter every morning to Manhattan.
Next, I put in the Google search engine the name of the town, charters, and campaign. What came up was a list of jobs on Monster for the Northeast Charter School Network. Listed was a bunch of positions for a state-wide campaign in support of charters. Then I went to their beautiful website to see who runs the joint. The Board Chairperson was a man named Chris Jacobs who is a wealthy Buffalo Republican who held several political positions. He was an undersecretary with HUD under Jack Kemp and was Secretary of State in the Pataki administration during his last year. Presently, he runs a network of charters in Buffalo. Next, was Treasurer William Morris who was a retired executive for J.D. Morgan/Chase. Then we have trustee Joe Williams, Executive Director of Democrats for Educational Reform. There were several more, but you got the gist. Their Board of Trustees is a who’s who representing the one percent.
Here we have an AstroTurf non-profit asking for contributions from ill informed, but sympathetic citizens. I know some people may fall for this sob story of how these poor children are being deprived of an education by our evil Mayor. One wonders who is paying this organization to run such a campaign of lies and misinformation. If you look at the Trustees of this organization alone, one knows that their pockets are deep. In addition, they are playing dirty by making believe they are a grassroots organization of parents whose children are being deprived of an education. Last I heard, public education is still compulsory and there is always a place (unlike our charter friends). Well, I think we should play dirty too. Folks, in case you are interested, the number that called me from the Northeast Charter School Network is 518 712-4492. We should all call that number and leave them a nice message in order to call out their lies. You might even get Bianca’s mom and ask her about her daughter’s school commute from Albany to New York City.
The Public Educator 
Well done, Arthur and by the way, I find it very curious that parents who claim that charter school are the magic wand for their child have not considered the following: 1-Attending every single parents meeting at a public school to have their voices heard. 2-Insisting on a discipline code with teeth at their children’s public school and insisting that their children follow it. Many public school students and parents do not, yet blame public educators for infractions, everything from cell phone use to coming in high on marijuana. 3- Checking notebooks and notes against the program followed by their children as well as the school calendar and website. Many of us post powerpoint lessons and notes online.Students are often told to review the lesson online or on their smart phones at home for extra help. 4- Responding to phone calls or calling their children’s teachers. How many times have teachers had to go through several phone numbers in order to get a parent on the phone?! Many high schoolers I have taught over the past few years have remarked that “My mother isn’t going to call ‘YOU!’ ” or have changed numbers more often than socks and not informed us. One child who wound up in a local hospital for a medical emergency did not have a working number and wound up the ward of the authorities until someone showed up three days later when she did not come home. We are and should be a team. If parents in public schools would be as such, if basic rules were adhered to with consequences, if parents did the same homework as they claim to do for charter schools, we might have a working system.
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