Why East Could not become a Good School
After years of declining enrollment and a total lack of meaningful academic instruction, East Middle School in D11 was closed by the labor union owned school board. The Cesar Chavez Charter School, which got its start in Pueblo, offered to move into the building to provide a quality education for the middle school students residing in the neighborhoods surrounding the East school building. Cesar Chavez is one of the highest performing public schools in the state of Colorado despite having a higher free and reduced lunch student population than almost all of the D11 schools. This benchmark is used by educrats to excuse poor performing schools. Cesar Chavez is very troubling to traditional school bureaucrats because of its successes.
The current D11 school board would not even consider allowing Cesar Chavez to utilize the East building. The issue was not whether Cesar Chavez could succeed in that neighborhood; everyone knew that it would succeed. That, in fact, was the problem.
Along with the list of National Education Association (NEA) resolutions that were adopted this year at the labor union's "Anything but Education" summit was resolution A.11. This resolution states: A-11. Use of Closed Public School Buildings. The Association believes that closed public school buildings should be sold or leased only to those organizations that do not provide direct educational services to students and/or are not in direct competition with public schools.
The Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA) labor union is the local affiliate for the national labor union. By labor union arrangement, local affiliates cannot buck the wishes of the national mommy union. The NEA gives each local affiliate Uniserve grants. This is "behave yourself" money. The CSEA would lose its grants from national if it did not show active support for "national program priorities." In other words, despite the local labor union's claim to be independent from its national master, it has no independence whatsoever.
Each of the current D11 school board members had his or her seat purchased by the labor union, with the exception of Willie Breazell. The financial support of the labor union comes with the requirement that these board members do the labor union's bidding. The labor union informed the board members that they were not allowed to even consider having a charter school in the East building because it would be in direct competition with the labor union schools. In other words, the D11 school board, which is supposed to represent the interests of the D11 tax payers, had to make a decision based on the wishes of Reg Weaver and the NEA.
Cesar Chavez is a proven school with a track record that would have put D11 to shame. The Cesar Chavez staff would have taken East and made it into a model on how to run a middle school in D11. The hundreds of middle school age kids who live within the East boundaries would have had a neighborhood school that would have provided them with an education for a change. But the labor union won't allow competition. It won't allow competition because its leadership realizes that it would lose that competition. Cesar Chavez, through its success, would have destroyed all of the excuses that D11 apologists love to make for poor performance. What is even more appalling to labor union leaders is that Cesar Chavez would have achieved its success with teachers who were not members of the labor union.
Are the parents who live around East better off sending their kids to distant middle schools than they were sending them to East? No doubt, yes. East had long ago become something that had no resemblance to an educational institution. However, those parents would have been much better off had Cesar Chavez been allowed to take over that building and offer the same education that it is providing in other middle schools within the state.
Once again, a victory for the labor union equates to a loss for educational opportunity in D11.
The current D11 school board would not even consider allowing Cesar Chavez to utilize the East building. The issue was not whether Cesar Chavez could succeed in that neighborhood; everyone knew that it would succeed. That, in fact, was the problem.
Along with the list of National Education Association (NEA) resolutions that were adopted this year at the labor union's "Anything but Education" summit was resolution A.11. This resolution states: A-11. Use of Closed Public School Buildings. The Association believes that closed public school buildings should be sold or leased only to those organizations that do not provide direct educational services to students and/or are not in direct competition with public schools.
The Colorado Springs Education Association (CSEA) labor union is the local affiliate for the national labor union. By labor union arrangement, local affiliates cannot buck the wishes of the national mommy union. The NEA gives each local affiliate Uniserve grants. This is "behave yourself" money. The CSEA would lose its grants from national if it did not show active support for "national program priorities." In other words, despite the local labor union's claim to be independent from its national master, it has no independence whatsoever.
Each of the current D11 school board members had his or her seat purchased by the labor union, with the exception of Willie Breazell. The financial support of the labor union comes with the requirement that these board members do the labor union's bidding. The labor union informed the board members that they were not allowed to even consider having a charter school in the East building because it would be in direct competition with the labor union schools. In other words, the D11 school board, which is supposed to represent the interests of the D11 tax payers, had to make a decision based on the wishes of Reg Weaver and the NEA.
Cesar Chavez is a proven school with a track record that would have put D11 to shame. The Cesar Chavez staff would have taken East and made it into a model on how to run a middle school in D11. The hundreds of middle school age kids who live within the East boundaries would have had a neighborhood school that would have provided them with an education for a change. But the labor union won't allow competition. It won't allow competition because its leadership realizes that it would lose that competition. Cesar Chavez, through its success, would have destroyed all of the excuses that D11 apologists love to make for poor performance. What is even more appalling to labor union leaders is that Cesar Chavez would have achieved its success with teachers who were not members of the labor union.
Are the parents who live around East better off sending their kids to distant middle schools than they were sending them to East? No doubt, yes. East had long ago become something that had no resemblance to an educational institution. However, those parents would have been much better off had Cesar Chavez been allowed to take over that building and offer the same education that it is providing in other middle schools within the state.
Once again, a victory for the labor union equates to a loss for educational opportunity in D11.
posted by Craig Cox | 9:22 PM
3 Comments:
Help me out here. I seem to remember a newspaper article in the Gazette back when East was being closed, where Charlie Bobbitt was quoted as saying he'd allow a charter school in the East building "over his dead body." Am I remembering this correctly? He's willing to turn away a Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy, The Classical Academies, or Cesar Chavez because.....WHY? Because they have a proven track record of teaching kids? I guess he knows who he's supposed to represent, and it sure ain't the kids.
When East was closed, the administration at Colorado Springs Charter Academy considered applying to use the facility. When we heard that Cesar Chavez was considering the same facility, we chose not to compete with them, surmising that they'd have enough to handle without other charter schools nipping at their heels. We welcome Cesar Chavez into the Springs and into D11, giving more students more chances for academic excellence.
And yet even with allies ceding the opportunity to Cesar Chavez, it turns out they still have no chance in East. This is a loss for the whole community.
Glenn, you are one of the people who understand that competition is good for education, regardless of the provider. The exception, of course, is those schools that do not believe that they are able to keep up with the schools that are actually delivering quality education services. Your school is doing well and is not threatened by another good school. The D11 administration has no idea how to put together a school like CSCA or Cesar Chavez. Yes, it is a sad day for the community when these anti-parent forces, including the labor union, get to prevent quality schools from operating in neighborhoods that desperately need them.
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