Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Families For Excellent Schools To Hold Charter School Teacher Rally

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

Families for Excellent Schools, the charter school advocacy group, will hold a rally of charter teachers next week in an attempt to undermine the United Federation of Teachers' representation of public school teachers, according to several people with knowledge of the event.

Wednesday's rally is intended to challenge the notion the UFT speaks for New York City teachers. More than 1,000 charter school teachers are expected to attend the rally to declare their support for charters, which typically are not unionized.

FES' messaging surrounding the rally does not refer directly to the UFT or to teachers unions. Instead, it alludes only to "special interest groups" that prioritize benefits for adults over education for students.

As is typical for FES events, the rally will be attended largely by teachers from Success Academy, New York City's largest and most controversial charter network.

FES is going to get a 1,000 charter school teachers to rally for the wonders of charter schools?

I dunno, seems like a bit of a comedown from the 15,000 they had at the last rally, no?

Not to mention that this is the kind of rally that allows charter critics to point out the brutal attrition rates at charters - especially Success Academies - and ask just how sustainable this kind of model would be for the system at large.

I'm no political strategist, but I don't exactly see that much upside to this idea.

Looks to me like Families for Excellent Schools, with money to burn, just wants to keep churning out the propaganda, but just as with the race-baiting ad they pulled out a couple of weeks ago, I'm not sure this one helps them that much.

What say you out there?

Is this a good idea from FES?

6 comments:

  1. Fifty bucks says that the Success teachers will be FORCED to attend this rally. (Any Success teacher that does not show up will be terminated the following day)

    ReplyDelete
  2. SA is flailing angrily. Their brand got decimated by that PBS Merrow piece. Loeb will realize it, and axe Moskowitz, or, start funding a different chain. I think Moskowitz is out, and they organize a rebrand. Maybe merge with HVA.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think HVA's brand is less offensive to black community, yet, offers the same anti-labor punch that Loeb loves about SA.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The more FES does the better it is for us. But in fact the UFT neglects to rep whole swaths of NYC teachers. Is FES capitalizing on the disaffection in the union? E4E has also been active on that front. E4e won't have the cajones to actually put themselves up against Unity in the election to put to a test whether their message has any support.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They don't need to. Unity and E4E are aligned on the topics. E4E reps have told me that Unity is "...the only group that matters."

      Delete