NYSUT's ad campaign is built on myths about charter schools that some state legislators buy into. The question is how many?

NYSUT claims charter school budgets and funding are basically secret, and that charters don't want audits. Can anyone working in a charter school, with all the statutory, regulatory and bureaucratic requirements possibly believe this? Of course not, but NYSUT is counting on legislators to believe it.

The fact is charter schools are transparent and highly accountable:

Disclosure: All charter schools are subject to Open Meeting and the Freedom of Information laws, which means all their budgets must be approved in public and available to the public. The authorizers--NYC DOE, the Regents and SUNY--also have all such information which is subject to FOIL. In addition, all charter schools, like district schools, have state promulgated "School Report Cards" with academic and fiscal information which must be included in a mandatory Annual Report -- again, all publicly available, including on-line at the charter school authorizers websites. If more information should be disclosed of charters, then it also should apply equally to school districts.

Audits: Every charter school must have an annual fiscal audit by an independent certified public accountant, as do school districts. The Regents and the charter authorizer also are empowered to conduct their own audits, including financial control audits which the State Comptroller conducts of school districts. The state Court of Appeals ruled last summer that the Comptroller's auditing power is limited by the state Constitution. This is a non-issue.

Special Ed/ELL students: There are reasonable steps that can be done for charter schools that are workable and legal. The NYSUT quota idea is neither. Proposals allowing charter schools to form special education consortia, authorizing BOCES contracts, allowing admission preference for such students, and other ideas should be considered.

Charter "Corporate": This may be the biggest joke on NYSUT's agenda, considering the size and location of its own headquarters, whose space needs were too large to fit in downtown Albany and had to be in a suburb near an exit off the Interstate. The UFT's headquarters is located at 52 Broadway in lower Manhattan, at the heart of Wall Street, near the old offices of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Make no mistake -- the teacher unions are de facto for-profit corporations, seeking to maximize profits. This isn't a criticism, but a reality that reveals its hypocrisy toward charter schools.

I don't care where the unions reside, and I trust their lease payments are reasonable. But they should stop the hypocrisy of attacking charter schools for working with for-profit and non-profit companies which manage many of the state's highest achieving charter schools, and raise private-sector philanthropy for public education. That's the rub. NYSUT loathes this successful competition and wants it strangled.

Focus Focus Focus
The legislature needs to focus on what matters, and not be distracted by NYSUT's expensive ad campaign. New York needs every education dollar it can find, even if the teacher unions don't.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard