Charter Consequences

NJ, there is a laboratory you should be looking at to the determine the real implications of charter schools. And it's right across the Hudson:

The Community Board, the Community Education Council, the elected officials and parents all stand united against the co-location of Upper West Success charter in the Brandeis HS building. 

Teachers and parents from other public schools that share space with Harlem Success Academies, the other charter schools in this chain run by Eva Moskowitz, explain how their kids have lost preK, art and music, as well as space for special services, with their children pushed into rooms in the basement.

This is a serious consequence of charters: they take resources and space from neighborhood schools just at the time when those schools are getting squeezed. Further, they set up unworkable and inappropriate co-location schemes to make way for charters that have questionable records at best.

I don't link to Leonie Haimson's blog nearly enough. NYC is a cautionary tale for NJ, and Leonie has been doing a superlative job documenting the problems of the "reform" movement in Gotham.

This is the future Chris Christie wants for us, NJ - do we want it for ourselves?

ADDING: Go to 9:15. Unidentified man says how the community board voted 40-0 against this co-location, and all the politicians are against co-location, yet the charter is going into the neighborhood school. The man asks, "What troubles me is, where is democracy?"

Over the applause for this line, someone in the crowd yells out, "It's on Wall Street!"

Bingo.