Charter school teachers in Philadelphia are speaking out against their employer taking over another school while ignoring teachers at existing schools.
Instead of supporting management’s expansion plans, they’re making common cause with parents at the targeted school, Luis Muñoz-Marín Elementary. The teachers want to unionize in the charter teacher local of the AFT.
Aspira charter chain teachers rallied in the pouring rain at the company’s Philadelphia headquarters on Wednesday. For over a year they have been clashing with the chain, seeking union recognition and a role in school decisions.
“I just feel like they are not in a position to grow,” said Hanako Franz, a teacher at Aspira’s Olney High School. The teachers have been phone banking Marín parents to discuss concerns that Aspira schools leave parents and teachers out of decisions.
Teachers have filed four unfair labor practices against Aspira, including one against the chain for barring teachers from criticizing their school online. Aspira got rid of that policy as a result of the charge.
Teachers are asking management not to interfere with the union drive and for union recognition if a majority sign up. This is similar to what teachers at charter chain UNO won in Chicago last year.
Delayed Vote
The state-appointed School Reform Commission closed 23 schools last year, and cut school funding in remaining schools despite protests from teachers, parents and community groups. Meanwhile nine new charters opened. Marín is one of two conversions announced this year.
In response to the protests, the Reform Commission offered parents a vote: let Aspira run your school and get added funding from the district, or get no extra funding for what the Commission calls an “underperforming” school.
“It’s a false choice, especially when budgets are so crunched,” Franz said.
After parent opposition increased, the Commission informed parents their vote would only be advisory, and then put off balloting until June. Activists expect Aspira to use the extra time to wear down parents and get them to accept the takeover.
“We have so many parents are so upset about this,” said Maria Cruz, a Marín parent and president of the local school advisory council. She said she’s worried the charter won’t work with Marín’s special needs students, since charter schools often don’t.
She’s also concerned about the effect on students when teachers are replaced. (If the charter takes over, all teachers must reapply for their positions.) And she said Aspira makes parents pay extra fees for uniforms and other materials.
Teachers denounced the chain for leaving them out of decisions. “Having things run by people who aren’t teachers or parents is not going well,” teacher Sarah Apt said. Apt joined Aspira three years ago, excited to teach at a school that had an emphasis on bilingual education. But it’s not clear who’s making policy at Aspira schools, she said, and they are not listening to feedback from teachers. “Our students get constantly moved around” she said, describing disruptive changes each year in how students are divided up and how class time is structured.
Resisting the union and stifling free speech go against the organization’s stated mission, Franz said. Aspira started as a community organization, founded by Puerto Rican bilingual education activist Antonia Pantoja, to decrease the dropout rate among Puerto Rican and Latino youth. Now it runs five schools in Pennsylvania and more in New York and Illinois.
The advisory vote is June 5. Cruz and other parents who are opposed to the takeover want to vote sooner to send a message to the school district. Meanwhile, they are petitioning to oppose the takeover.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.