Voice of Revolution

Stand Firm for Public Control of Public Schools

Top Ten Reasons to Refuse Receivership

The Buffalo public has demanded:

1) Public control of public schools, where we the public, the parents, students, teachers, staff and community members, decide. We are the experts, we know what is needed, like smaller classes, music and physical education for all now.

2) Equal Right to Education for All. We reject the inequality and segregation of Buffalo schools and demand that the state take immediate action to fully fund all the schools based on their needs. It is the state that is failing, not our children and teachers.

3) Raising the quality of the public schools, by raising the quality of democracy. Concentrating power in the hands of appointed individuals, like the Education Commissioner and receiver, solves no problem. We need to enhance and expand the power of the public. Our Schools, We Decide!

For these reasons it is vital to firmly oppose state take over using receivership for 25 Buffalo public schools. Receivership is an undemocratic assault on elected governance, with the appointed state Education Commissioner given great powers over the local appointed receiver, who in turn has power over such matters as budget, curriculum, hiring and firing, discipline, class size, teaching conditions, assignments and qualifications, and more.

Refuse! And join the demonstration September 2, McKinley High School, 3:30pm

Top Ten Reasons to Refuse Receivership

1) Receivership will take power from the public (parents, students, staff, teachers). Receivership is an undemocratic state take over of the Buffalo public schools, that concentrates power in the hands of unelected individuals, accountable to the state, not the Buffalo public. It opens the way for privatizing public schools and using our public tax dollars to pay private companies.

2) Receivership does not address the great inequality in our schools and indeed is again increasing it. The law, passed as part of the budget, does not provide increased funding to meet the needs of all public schools. The schools being targeted for takeover are heavily minority and impoverished and again being forced to suffer the most.

3) Receivership will likely mean fewer teachers of color in our schools, as the receiver can hire and fire as he decides.

4) The receiver has power to fire all teachers and staff without cause, at each of the 25 schools. This causes anxiety and uncertainty now, especially for younger children, and great chaos and instability when it happens. There could be a revolving door of teachers and potentially use of individuals not certified in schools where stability and continuity are most needed.

We say organize now to reject firing without cause and take additional action if the receiver decides to fire teachers, staff and administrators at any one of the 25 schools!

5) Governance, collective bargaining, school leadership and staffing, parent and community engagement are not “barriers” to improving the schools. The state Education Commissioner put forward that all of these are “barriers” and the intent of receivership is to remove them. This makes clear that the intent is to attack rights and remove the public from governance. Public control of public schools that increases the role of the public in deciding is what is needed and it is the state that is the barrier.

6) The receiver and Commissioner can split up and divide our district by imposing separate “receiver agreements” at each school — even if teachers and staff have voted no. These agreements will mean worse working conditions for teachers, which mean worse learning conditions for children. It also separates these students, parents and teachers from the district and weakens the ability of all to raise the quality of their schools.

We say organize now to refuse separate "receiver agreements" and take additional action if the receiver and Commissioner decide to impose them!

7) Receivership will increase use of the Common Core state testing and evaluation regime and the narrow curriculum that goes with it. Hundreds of thousands of parents statewide have rejected the state testing as unfair, developmentally inappropriate and a form of child abuse. Receivership is a tool of the state to ignore this stand and impose the Common Core regime — as the receiver, not parents, students and teachers, decides all such matters, backed up by the state Commissioner.

8) The “measures for success” are rigged and unfair. The Commissioner decides what will constitute “demonstrable success,” with state test scores a main basis. She also has power to say a school did not succeed and must remain in receivership even if there is failure in only one of the “metrics” chosen. Schools have long experienced the unfair use of state tests, where the state arbitrarily changes scoring. Even with improvement in graduation and attendance rates, schools, like Lafayette, are still branded as failing. The data used is not reliable or accurate and diverts from the responsibility, and failure, of the state to guarantee the equal right to education for all.

9) Receivership was passed using bribes and blackmail. This legislation was passed quickly, as part of the budget, with Cuomo using the blackmail of withholding all state education funds, and then the bribe of $75 million for only 20 of the 144 schools statewide in receivership. Blackmail and bribes are the tools of gangsters.

10) Receivership aims to block resistance and public involvement. The Buffalo public has been engaged and active and fighting for rights and raising the quality of our schools and this is one reason we are being targeted. Apart from New York City, Buffalo has the most schools in receivership, almost half the district. Governor Cuomo said our public schools deserve the “death penalty,” and he is using blackmail and the force of receivership and to kill our public school district. We Refuse! We are the ones with solutions!

We say step up the organized resistance, and fight for district-wide unity of all! Our Schools, We Decide!

(Based on discussions with participants in the Refuse Receivership Committee and other parents, teachers and students)

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Chaos Cannot Bring Improved Schools

Education Commissioner Dictates Receivership for Twenty-five Buffalo Schools

On July 16, the New York State Education Commissioner dictated that 25 Buffalo Schools (close to half the district) are now under superintendent receivership. She is implementing Governor Cuomo’s attacks, passed as part of the budget. For what are now called “persistently struggling schools” — five for Buffalo — the superintendent has one year to show “demonstrable improvement,” and for the “struggling schools” two years. This means that Interim Superintendent Darren Brown must now make use of the powers given to receivers to show improvement in that short timeframe. Indeed, a main criteria the Commissioner will use for deciding if improvement has occurred is whether the receiver has utilized his powers. The superintendent is also now accountable to the Commissioner, not the public.

After the one or two-year period, the Commissioner can demand that the school board remove the superintendent as receiver and appoint an “independent” receiver, who can be an individual or a non-profit organization or another school district (likely the superintendent of another school district). The Commissioner must approve such an appointment, just as the Commissioner approves, or disapproves, of actions by the superintendent receiver. In this manner, power is concentrated in the hands of appointed individuals (the Commissioner primarily, and her receivers secondarily), who are not elected and not accountable to elected governance. Power over these 25 schools is removed from the elected school board. The receiver, for example, decides budget, curriculum, discipline, testing regimes, school day and year, and hiring and firing.

Commissioner Elia was not required to designate all twenty-five schools at once for receivership, but has nonetheless chosen to do so. This necessarily means utter chaos for the schools involved and the district as a whole. Among the powers given to the receiver, which he is expected to implement are:

1) Firing all the existing teachers, staff and principal of the given school and requiring them to re-apply for their jobs. He is then only required to re-hire 50 percent of those fired, while the hundreds of teachers and staff who remain fired cannot apply for other positions in the district.

This means each of the schools will likely have a new principal, half if its teachers and staff will be new and many of the more senior staff, especially those who have been opposing Governor Cuomo’s attacks on education, fired. If history is any judge, African American teachers will be fired at greater rates. Imagine the impact to elementary-age children to see their teachers fired for no reason, their principal replaced, staff gone, etc. Anyone striving to improve a school would not start by firing the teachers, staff and principal. It is a mechanism to further wreck public schools, not improve them.

2) Imposing a “receiver agreement” for each individual school. The superintendent may not chose such an action immediately, but he has the power to do so and will likely use it for at least some of the schools and perhaps all. The Commissioner also has the power to impose a final agreement, even against the vote of the teachers and staff involved.

These agreements serve to weaken the collective district-wide strength of teachers. Worse working conditions for teachers means worse learning conditions for students. It is also a means to weaken the collective strength of parents and students. Instead of being part of a single school district, now each targeted school will be forced to fend for itself against a receiver and Commissioner with greatly increased powers. Again, those concerned with improving the quality of the schools seek to increase the role of parents and students, to empower them that further weaken and divide them.

3) Changing curriculum, disciplinary measures, class size, length of school day and year, teaching conditions and assignments, etc. It is conceivable that such issues will be different for each of the 25 schools, as decided by the receiver and approved by the Commissioner. It is also conceivable that given the limited time, the Commissioner will dictate to the receiver her own “model improvement plan” for all the schools. How can the receiver possibly resolve all these issues in a positive way for all 25 schools by September?

Imposing receivership on all 25 schools is designed not only to make matters far more disruptive and chaotic for students most in need of a consistent, calm and experienced workforce. It also serves to disrupt and divert the emerging public and its stand, Our Schools, We Decide! While Buffalo is not the only place under attack, after New York City (62 schools) it is hardest hit, with more schools targeted than Rochester (14) or Syracuse (18). As the school board meetings have indicated, it is also where solutions are being put forward, such as funding music and physical education for all; full state funding based on needs; eliminating the Common Core testing and evaluation regime and enabling teachers, parents and students to develop one for the district; and more.

Most importantly, Buffalo stands out as the city demanding the right of the public to decide, demanding public control of public schools. And by public we mean teachers, staff, students and parents together deciding. Consulting is not enough, as the existing situation already shows. It is decision making that is decisive and it is decision making that the Buffalo public continues to fight for. Receivership will not stop this fight, only bring to the fore its urgent necessity!

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List of Twenty-Five Buffalo Schools Now Under Receivership

Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia announced July 16 the 25 schools that are now under receivership. According to the Commissioner, Buffalo has 5 “persistently struggling” schools and 20 “struggling schools.” The five schools have one year and the 20 have two years to show "improvement," as decided solely by the Commissioner. After that a different receiver could be appointed. All 25 are now under receivership, with the Commissioner and Interim Superintendent Darren Brown having broad powers to make decisions and impose them on the schools. Brown must also hold public hearings and notify parents of students at these schools that the school is under receivership. The list includes eight high schools.

“Persistently Struggling”

Burgard Vocational High School PS#301

South Park High School PS#206

Buffalo Elementary School of Technology PS#6

Marva J. Daniel Futures Prep School PS#37

West Hertel Elementary School PS#94

“Struggling”

Bennett High School PS#200

East High School PS#307

Lafayette High School PS#204

Mckinley Vocational High School PS#305

Riverside Institute of Technology PS#205

Bilingual Center PS#33

Build Academy PS#91

Dr Charles Drew Science Magnet PS#59

Dr. Lydia T. Wright School of Excellence PS#89

D'youville-Porter Campus PS#3

Early Childhood CenterPS#17

Frank A. Sedita School PS#30

Hamlin Park Elementary School PS#74

Harriet Ross Tubman Academy PS#31

Harvey Austin School PS#97

Herman Badillo Community School PS#76

Highgate Heights PS#80

Inter Prep School-Grover Cleveland PS#198

North Park Academy PS#66

Waterfront School PS#95

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