A new company created by Joe Klein, chair of Klein Steel and former board member of True North Rochester Preparatory Charter School, is recruiting specialized organizations to open and manage charter schools in Rochester.
By recruiting well-known and tested charter management organizations, E3 Rochester could potentially change the education landscape in the city by adding more schools much quicker than individual charter school creators. But Klein says quality is more important than just adding schools.
E3 is working with PUC Schools, an organization that operates 13 charter schools in Los Angeles, to open a middle school in Rochester, Klein says. And E3 is working with the Noble Network of Charter Schools, operators of the Pritzker College Preparatory High School in Chicago, to open a charter high school, he says.
Applications to the State Education Department for the two new charters have been sent out, Klein says, and the plan is to open the schools in 2014. Each school would probably launch with a single grade and grow out, Klein says. And 100 percent of the students would be chosen by lottery, he says.
Klein says he is an avid supporter of public schools, but that the problems with the Rochester school district are nearly intractable for reasons that are beyond the control of the superintendent.
Opponents of charters argue that the schools siphon money and students away from the host district. And Rochester Superintendent Bolgen Vargas says the district has lost more than 3,000 students to charters.
But advocates say Rochester is a ripe market for more charters because so many city schools are failing and parents want other options.
Eleven charter schools are operating in Rochester, according to the New York State Education Department’s website, and more are planned in addition to E3 Rochester’s.
By recruiting well-known and tested charter management organizations, E3 Rochester could potentially change the education landscape in the city by adding more schools much quicker than individual charter school creators.
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2013.
I think Mr. Klein is “supportive” of public schools in the same way Jean Claude Brizard was. Specifically, Brizard introduced a strategic plan in which the Parthenon Group (a capital investment firm specializing in opening up opportunities to generate investor profits in the public pK-12 “market.” ) was the primary citation and basis for his discredited branding-style , charter-expanding portfolio approach to school choice. The article below demonstrates how Parthenon profers advice to investors that has nothing to do with improving education and everything to do with profits. The solutions to the crisis in education involve more democracy and less privatization, not the reverse. Democratization and powerful movements for local control of public education would minimize the perversions of profiteering “investors,” but more importantly we would finally see learning focused on meeting our children’s needs according to high community standards. Parthenon Group analysis of potential profit centers based on state funding (more is better) and anticipated test performance (lower is better): http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplace…
Indeed Joe Klein helped bring former RCSD Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard to Rochester. Joe had a plan then. He has one now (although in my humble, but informed view, it’s a very, very bad plan, and even dangerous in some ways), at least he has a one, which raises the critically important question: WHAT IS THE ROCHESTER BOARD OF EDUCATION AND THE CURRENT SUPERINTENDENT’S PLAN? They don’t appear to have one, which is a big part of the reason why people like Joe Klein can so easily implement theirs. Bold, courageous, unbought, unbossed, committed leadership is clearly a big part of what’s missing in the Rochester City School District.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/change1…