Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Daily News: How Dare State Comptroller Hold Charter Schools Accountable?

The accountability mavens at the Daily News are very sad that state comptroller Tom Di Napoli wants to audit Eva Muoskowitz's charter school conglomerate and hold her accountable for the public funds she receives to run her schools.

They say Di Napoli is on a witch hunt against charter schools because he is anti-charter and pro-union.

They say it's unfair and unjust that charter schools be subject to audit by the state, that the results charters get with test scores and graduation rates speak for themselves and no other accountability measures are needed.

The accountability mavens at the DN say only public schools and public school teachers need accountability measures.

This is why only public school teachers are required by law to be evaluated using the APPR system while charter school teachers do not have to be evaluated with it.

This is why public school teachers can no longer grade their Regents exams in house while charter school teachers can.

And this is why only public schools should be subject to scrutiny from the state while charter schools should not.

This is all jive, of course, and a political rigging by both the charter pom pom crowd at the DN and Moskowitz herself to avoid scrutiny and accountability.

I wrote earlier this week that her lawsuit to stop the comptroller auditing raises questions like, what is she hiding from the state?

Is she funking with the money?

Is she stealing money?

Is she funking with the student demographics data?

Is she lying about attrition rates or graduate rates?

Is she doing all of these things?

She has to be hiding something.

The question is, what?

Why is she afraid to submit to an audit of public funds by an independent auditor from the state?

We know why the DN accountability mavens are shilling for her.

They're afraid she will be caught funking with the numbers or the student data or the attrition rates or the money and that will be used as a weapon against the charter sector as a whole and Moskowitz in particular.

There's a name for it when you push accountability for one group of people while doing everything you can to help another group - a more favored group - avoid it.

It's called hypocrisy.

And that, in the end, is what the Daily News is engaging in with this piece of propaganda.

3 comments:

  1. Charter schools ARE public schools. Charter school teachers ARE public school teachers.

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    1. Nope - charter schools are private schools run with public money. We are constantly reminded of that fact whenever the public wants some scrutiny of the charters. That's when the charter operators tell us about the autonomy they have from the public school system rules.

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  2. They use public funds but hire CEO's and their own Boards and Trustees. The only thing public about them is the funds they grab. End of story. Next we'll hear their famous Non Profit meme.

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