UFT Struggles to Cover Up Potential Campaign Finance Rules Violation
The United Federation of Teachers recently paid $370,000 to a fabricated consulting group, drawing concerns that the union purposely seeks to work around campaign finance laws.
Now Crains New York Business reports that the connection between the UFT’s real consultant and the fabricated firm is clear. When sending invoices on behalf of the fake firm – Strategic Consultants, Inc. – the real firm left their logo on the invoice.
An open records request that came back on Tuesday from the City Campaign Finance Board offers fresh and somewhat amusing evidence of the connection between the two: Many of the invoices the agency received from Strategic Consultants have the Advance Group logo on them.
The payments listed as going to Strategic Consultants obscured that the Advance Group was being paid both to promote candidates for the United Federation of Teachers' independent political action committee, United For the Future, and to work as the main campaign consultant for several of those same candidates. UFT President Michael Mulgrew denied wrongdoing in an interview with WNYC last week, but could not explain the fake name of the firm.
de Blasio Stands By Policies That Will Hurt Charter Schools
In their march across the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday, charter school supporters demanded the next mayor of New York City keep Mayor Bloomberg's education policies in place that have helped charters thrive. These include allowing charters to co-locate inside public school buildings rent-free.
Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for mayor, has pledged to reverse these two policies, according to GothamSchools:
De Blasio doubled down on those pledges on Tuesday, saying through a spokesman that "believes that well-resourced charter networks should pay for the use of school space, as charter schools do across the country." He'd also stop co-locations, an arrangement that has afforded schools free space inside city-owned school buildings, "until we can better assess their impact."
Both changes would affect a majority of the city's charter school sector. Over 60 percent of the city's 183 charter schools are housed in city-owned buildings, and more than half of the city's 50 proposals for new schools and co-locations involve charter schools.
Lhota Embraces Charter Schools at Brooklyn Bridge March
On Tuesday, NYC's charter school supporters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to garner attention in the mayoral election. Bill de Blasio, the leading candidate for mayor, supports policies that takes funds away from the publicly-funded charter schools across the city.
The march garnered the attention of de Blasio's opponent Joe Lhota, a supporter of charter schools. But according to the New York Daily News, de Blasio was nowhere to be found:
Families there were more interested in sending a message to frontrunner Bill de Blasio, who has vowed if elected to reverse the city's policy of giving charters free space.
"We won't vote for de Blasio if he doesn't support charters," said Manhattan fashion worker Mohamed Ba, 47, whose daughter attends Harlem Success Academy 1. "If he crosses charter schools, he's making a big mistake."
Charter School Operators Prepare for Life Under de Blasio
Bill de Blasio, the leading candiate for New York City mayor, has clearly stated his positions on charter schools. He wants to charge rent for charter schools and stop the co-location of charter schools in public school buildings.
Charter school leaders, who marched across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday to raise awareness of their plight, are quietly preparing for life under a possible Mayor de Blasio. According to The New York Times, some concerns from the charter school community have been addressed with de Blasio, but many others are still outstanding:
Many charter school leaders remain uneasy about Mr. de Blasio's plans. Some have started preparing for a City Hall that is resistant to their efforts. They are seeking donations in case they are forced to pay rent, freezing hiring plans and prodding teachers and students to speak out.
Parents Transparency Project Founder Discusses the Importance of Protecting Students
Campbell Brown, a former journalist and CNN host, started the Parents Transparency Project to help expose sexual misconduct in NYC schools and those who tolerate it.
In an interview with Crain’s New York Business, Campbell describes what led her to found the organization:
It was about a year and a half ago, and the tabloids were going crazy with stories about teacher sex abuse and kids. The Daily News had done a huge feature about teachers who engaged in sexual misconduct with kids and then gotten a suspension or fine. And it had example after example after example. I thought, this can't be true. It was such an egregious thing. So I did all the research and got my own example of teachers and tracked down some of the parents of some of these kids that had been victimized. Talked to them—that'll kill you. Your heart breaks for what they're going through. And the degree that they feel the system has failed them. And I talked to a lot of teachers who were embarrassed that the union was taking the position it was.
Brown goes on to advocate for giving the City schools chancellor the power to fire teachers who engaged in sexualize misconduct. She says that in the past seven years, the NYC Department of Education has unsuccessfully attempted to fire teachers 128 times over sexual misconduct.
NYC Forced to Spend $29 Million Paying Educators Unfit for the Classroom
A system that makes it difficult to fire teachers is costing NYC a significant amount of money in 2013. As reported by the Daily News, NYC will spend $29 million on salaries and benefits for educators who have already been pulled from jobs in public school classrooms but cannot yet be fired.
According to the Daily News:
As of Friday, there were 326 city educators who have been reassigned away from the classroom yet were still collecting pay, a sharp rise from 2012, when 218 ousted teachers drained $22 million from city coffers, Education Department records show.
The teachers and school administrators are accused of abusing kids, breaking rules or just being lousy educators. But they're still collecting salaries because of a controversial firing process that makes it too difficult to terminate bad employees, education officials charge.
Charter Schools Advocates Are Ready to March
On Tuesday, an estimated 10,000 charter school teachers, students and parents will march across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan to demand an end to the war against the City's charter school networks.
With the general election less than a month away, Democrat Bill de Blasio and Republican Joe Lhota are at odds over how to improve NYC's public schools. de Blasio wants to end charter school co-location, which would effectively stop charter school growth and force a number of charter schools to close. Lhota wants to double the number of charter schools in NYC.
In an editorial, the New York Post says it is not surprising that charter school advocates are marching. New Yorkers support the schools, but de Blasio, the leading candidate for mayor, is threatening to halt their growth:
No wonder a new Siena/New York Times poll shows New Yorkers want more charters by a margin of 56 percent to 34 percent — and an even wider edge among African-Americans and the poor. The human faces behind this poll are the 50,000 kids on charter wait-lists.
Why One Charter School Parent Will Be Marching
Regina Dowdell is a charter school parent. She will march across the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday to support Girls Prep Brox, the school her daughter attends.
Dowdell likes Democrat Bill de Blasio, but she feels that he could not be more wrong when it comes to improving NYC's public school system. de Blasio's message about two New Yorks is accurate, she feels, but his education policies, and especially those affecting charter schools, will only bring these two New Yorks further apart on education.
In the New York Daily News, Dowdell writes:
All students deserve a school with high-quality teachers, one that graduates its students on time and prepares them to go on to college and careers. Until every public school in New York City provides that kind of quality education, we cannot afford to limit choices.
UFT Reportedly Broke Campaign Finance Rules
The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) most recent campaign finance filings appear to indicate that that the union broke campaign finance laws. The filings show that the union's super PAC paid $370,000 to consultants that are working directly with a number of UFT-endorsed candidates.
According to the New York Daily News:
Independent super PACs can advocate all they wish, but candidates who receive public financing are not supposed to coordinate with a PAC. The rule is intended to bar candidates from pretending to live under spending limits while having a fake outside group spend wildly on their behalf. The UFT surely looks to have done that, while also failing to report robocalls on behalf of Councilman Robert Jackson.
New York State Schools Chancellor Opposes Charging Rent for Charters
State Board of Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch is speaking up about the importance of charter schools in New York. Tisch is clearly concerned about NYC democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio’s call to charge charter schools rent. As reported by the New York Daily News, Tisch believes the unique approach of charter schools is helping New York students:
“The city’s best charter schools have been an important source of innovation and creativity,” Tisch said. “They’ve provided a quality education to thousands of students, many who were otherwise suffering in troubled schools.”
