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Critics attack mayor on schools

Ohanian Comment: I can remember the days when public education for the common good was a given.

You can read more about Achievement First here and here. If that doesn't scare you enough, know that Joel Klein is a fan.

By Maria Armental

CRANSTON — Critics of Mayor Allan W. Fung's proposal to open five charter schools in Cranston said at a hearing Tuesday that the plan was the latest attack on the public school system, one intended to siphon scarce public resources from the local schools to serve a select few picked by lottery.

The application, they say, comes at a time when, according to a financial analysis ordered by Fung, the Cranston public schools are underfunded to the tune of $3.9 million. And, it comes when all Providence teachers were fired and five neighborhood schools closed.

Taking another 900 students -- the projected number of Providence students that the mayoral academies would serve at capacity -- would mean two to three more schools closed, said Anna Kuperman, a teacher at Classical High School in Providence and a member of the Coalition to Defend Public Education, a group founded after the Providence’s firings and school closures.

Fellow coalition member Brian Chidester, who teaches in Bristol, questioned at the hearing before state education officials why Achievement First, the nonprofit group that would manage the schools, turned to municipal mayors rather than education officials to discuss changes to the educational system.

"Could it be that you don't want the accountability that comes with working with a public body?" he asked.

Michael Magee, executive director of the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, responded: "It is very challenging for the traditional system to create new options within the system. There is a significant amount of resistance."

As for the nonprofit status, Chidester said, the corporation that runs the Providence Place mall is a nonprofit, too.
"Let's be honest," he said, "it means a tax shelter for your wealthy supporters."

"If the mayor is serious about this newfound commitment to education, he can start by funding our schools," said Andrea M. Iannazzi, chairwoman of the Cranston School Committee.

The schools would be overseen by a board of directors, initially chaired by Fung, and managed by Achievement First.

Students would be picked by lottery, with preference given to low-income students and, eventually, to those with siblings already attending the schools.

In the first year, proposed for fall 2012, there would be an elementary school serving 176 kindergarten and first-grade students.

The state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education is expected to take up the application Thursday and vote on it on June 16.

A third public hearing will be held in Providence prior to the board’s final vote. A date has not yet been set.

If approved, it would be the second such academy in the state. Democracy Prep Blackstone Valley, now Blackstone Valley Prep, opened in 2009, sponsored by Cumberland Mayor Daniel J. McKee. That school serves students from Cumberland, Lincoln, Pawtucket and Central Falls.

Charter schools may be the cure to some educational illnesses, said Daniel Wall, a Cranston resident.

But it's a "cure for a disease that the Cranston School Department doesn't have" a medicine that residents don't want to take, and one that would have serious side effects for a long time, Wall said.

— Maria Armental
Providence Journal
2011-06-01
http://www.projo.com/ri/cranston/content/CRANSTON_MAYORAL_ACADEMY_HEARI.1_06-01-11_3OO_v6.304073f.html

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