In response to the comment about how lotteries make access to charter schools fair- students may indeed be admitted to charter schools by lottery , but the charter schools have lots of ways of pushing out more challenging and "less desirable" students. For example, some charters admit students, then test them after they are admitted, and if the student fails to pass the test, the student is not allowed to stay. Charters frequently put a lot of pressure on the parents of students they don't want to keep by calling parents over and over again, sometimes about minor infractions, and insisting that parents come to school. There is also a notorious procedure referred to as "counseling out", which involves telling parents that the school is not a good fit for the child, and sometimes even taking the parent to another school and strenuously encouraging the parent to transfer the child to the recommended school. As a teacher at a regular zoned elementary school I have heard about these tactics over and over. Students who formerly attended our school, then went to a charter school, and later returned to us are invariably high needs students, either for academic or behavioral reasons, and one way or another, the charter school found a way to eliminate these more difficult students from their registers. As a result, the population of our school has both shrunk and shifted to a predominantly high needs population. This of course, leaves us increasingly vulnerable to the possibility of colocation with a charter school in our building, competing for space and resources. The idea that admission by lottery results in fairness is a complete fallacy.

For next week's follow-up, how about formally interviewing NYC TEACHERS about education issues? Please treat teachers like the professionals we are and include us in the discussion as formal participants! Julie Cavanaugh and Brian Jones, who have started a new social justice caucus w/in the UFT (called the Movement of Rank and File Educators -- see morecaucusnyc.org or their Facebook page for more info and to contact them), would be great to have on, for starters.

Btw, next Weds., 09/26, teachers are off for Yom Kippur, so this would be an ideal day to do another education segment. Thanks.

I am a retired school social with experience in various grade levels in pre-K, middle-school and high school and find that there are many problems with charter schools ... more than this space will allow.

For starters, charter schools can not be discussed separately from the focus on standardized tests because low scoring students become children nobody wants if schools feel their survival will be jeopardized by the presence of these low scoring students. Schools with any choice about who they admit will feel pressure to find ways to not admit the low scoring students so the students who need the best will end up with the worse and those most helped are those who are already doing well.

A by-product of several small schools sharing a large building is problems with access to gyms and cafeterias; we know that there is a relationship between physical activity and academic success ... especially for boys. It is bad enough that, these hi-tech days, most kids only exercise their thumbs. Increasingly, kids have very limited access to gyms in such school settings.

I believe testing serves a positive function when used by the teacher and the school in understanding the needs of the students and the effectiveness of the curriculum but am strongly against the use of these tests to assess teachers and schools; not just students cheat; schools cheat. As I said, this is not separate from the issue of charter schools who usually have more control over their admission.

Even without the argument that charter schools open the door to privatization, charter schools take the focus off fixing the schools that are already there.

This is not to say that there are no charter schools committed to ALL students or even the low performing students but these are not the majority; it is only human to be concerned about survival ... which is why we have "teaching to the test" as schools do what they think they need to do to stay alive and developmentally inappropriate curriculum is introduced as low as pre-K because of pressure to have students ready by 3rd grade for the tests. Charter schools just add to this pressure without helping enough of the students who need more active support.

@sburgernutr: You make a great point. I just read an article (it was either NY Times or Newsweek) that made the case how charter schools are actually making the public schools more expensive and demographically worse. The article states the importance of maintaining a private education market. It was quite interesting.

@sunshar - It is a fact that the majority of public school teachers send their children to private schools. But the reason is because of the type of kids that go to Chicago public schools. I used to live in Chicago and I'm just being honest - the kids in Chicago public schools are horrible. There are good public schools there (i.e. Whitney Young HS), but unfortunately Chicago public schools suffer from wide spread gang issues and uninvolved parents.

The teachers union's historical stance against ANY part of teacher ratings/tenure/etc be based on student performance reminds me of Mitt Romney's statement that he wouldn't accept a budget deal of 90% expenditure cuts and 10% tax raises. It is out of whack. I have a few teacher friends in NJ and I know how difficult their jobs are- whether in a blue collar area, a highly immigrant area, and one of the wealthiest districts in NJ. Each has its own challenges. However, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some changes are necessary (and not just funding- That is NOT an issue in NJ especially with Abbott districts).

FACT CHECK PLEASE -- majority of Chicago Public School Teachers send their children to private schools. I don't think so. Not in my day, not with my friends. This cannot be true.

I am very happy we are blessed with a very good old fashioned normal public school, NOT a charter school. There is no evidence that charter schools are better -- they have completely mixed results.

The caller stating that lotteries prevent discrimination is completely incorrect. Lotteries do NOT prevent discrimination. They are merely random. Of course parents with higher incomes will jump on the lotteries a little more quickly. My son's former elementary school is a classic example. The Center for Immigrant Families lobbied for a lottery. Lo and behold, post lottery the number of immigrant families DECREASED. The reason was that fewer upper income parents sent their kids to private schools and more of them jumped onto the lottery system. It was mere chance. Prior to that, the school recruited lower income immigrant families into the school and the population was far more mixed than the mostly white population that exists in that school now.

Yeah, Mike in Joisey City KNOWS that most of the striking teachers in Chicago send their kids to private schools. Duh, who's making up stories now Mike!!

What happened to all that talk abot how lotteries were going to save schools with all its influx of money??? Are they just an opportunity for elected leaders to shift past funding into other places?

I do wonder about the privatization aspect of charter schools. However, the first teacher who called in and said that poorer families cannot "prepare" their kids to "get in" to chart schools is purely a lie. The lottery system mitigates against anything remotely like "preparing" the way parents might do for TAG programs, which I believe are disciminatory. Charter schools, whether you believe that any particular one is effective or not, are across the board not able to pick and choose kids or families

She's right, Charter = Private AND Corporate. Public education K-12 is and always has been a very good if not an excellent system. It's changed over the decades and unfortunately just hasn't adapted to changes and so, as always in this country, let's take the "easy" route to solve it, and so in this case let's privatize it and get it out of our hair. Let's destroy it instead of adapt and improve it.

This is so disappointing.
We already KNOW politicians make the same old connections, old saws that teachers' unions are the only entities that are suspicious of charters. Ignored are scholars, educators, parents, and any member of the public who is concerned with public education.
DO SOME ACTUAL REPORTING!
McNeil is just pushing the same lazy story "unions bad, charters good." That the same big corporate money behind these unproven 'reform' movements is the same making loads off of privatizing education is a tragedy.

Ask teachers and they will tell you, kids need to be in class until 5pm. These half days and 40 kids per class are just cost-cutting measures. And as my mom always said, you get what you pay for. As long as we don't want to pay for kids education, it ain't going to get any better no matter how many tests are given.

This is so disappointing.
We already KNOW politicians make the same old connections, old saws that teachers' unions are the only entities that are suspicious of charters. Ignored are scholars, educators, parents, and any member of the public who is concerned with public education.
DO SOME ACTUAL REPORTING!
McNeil is just pushing the same lazy story "unions bad, charters good." That the same big corporate money behind these unproven 'reform' movements is the same making loads off of privatizing education is a tragedy.

Is it a good time to be on the picket line?

There is no light between the Republican and Democratic presidential education agendas. Both parties have yielded to to the Gates-Walton-Broad neo-liberal privatization agenda. That agenda would like to see, 20-30 years from now, that EVERY school will be a charter school, privately managed by private "education management organizations" and private boards of directors, rather than by democratically elected school boards. All this, of course, is to be paid for by our tax dollars.

I have a friend who's a Third Grade teacher on Long Island. She recently told me that this year's NY State testing for her third graders will include questions or an essay on Tolstoy. This seems preposterous to me. Can your guest comment on the accuracy of this, and if true, thoughts on why such an advanced topic would be used for such young students and how that reflects on the teacher? Thank you.