Jonathan
Pelto, a former legislator and now Connecticut’s premier education blogger, warns that a money
grab for charters is on the horizon, while the state’s
neediest schools are ignored.
This
Wednesday, February 18, 2015, Governor Malloy will play his hand as to whether
he will insert taxpayer funds into next year’s state budget in order to fund
Steve Perry’s dream of opening a privately-owned, but publicly-funded charter
school in Bridgeport.
An out-of-state company is also counting on Malloy to
come through with the cash needed to expand their charter school chain into
Stamford, Connecticut.
Both
charter school applications were vehemently opposed by the Bridgeport and
Stamford Boards of Education.
However,
despite that opposition from the local officials responsible for education
policy and despite the fact that Connecticut doesn’t even fund its existing
public schools adequately and the fact that the State of Connecticut is facing
a massive $1.4 billion projected budget deficit next year, Governor Malloy’s
former Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor [now Rhode Island's Commerce Department director - ed.], and Malloy’s political
appointees on the State Board of Education approved four new charter school
proposals last spring.
Now
the charter school industry is counting on Malloy to divert even more scarce
public funds away from the state’s public schools so that Steve Perry can start
pulling in a $2.5 million management fee from a charter school in Bridgeport
and the out-of-state company can open up a revenue stream from a new charter
school in Stamford.
While
most public education advocates are focused on the Malloy administration’s
ongoing attempt to privatize public education via policies at the state level,
the politically connected Achievement First Inc. Charter School chain is using
a completely different approach as it seeks to pull off a deal in New Haven
that would shift existing funds away from New Haven’s public schools and into
the coffers of the Achievement First operation.
Of
course, Achievement First Inc. is the charter school chain founded by Stefan Pryor,
Malloy’s former commissioner of education.
Achievement
First Inc. is also the charter school chain that gets the lion’s share of the
$100 million in public funds that are already diverted to charter schools in
Connecticut.
New
Haven is the only district in the state with a mayoral controlled board.
The
New Haven Board of Education is not democratically elected by the citizens of
New Haven. It is one of the only boards of education in Connecticut to be
appointed by the mayor of the community.
In
this case, the New Haven Board of Education is appointed by Mayor Toni Harp –
who, thanks to an earlier sweetheart deal – happens to sit on the Achievement
First Inc. Board of Directors for the Amistad Academy schools.