In yesterday's Daily News, the School Reform Commission reported that it would not approve new charter applications, but instead intended to ask charter applicants to take on the city's 70 failing schools listed as being in corrective action 2 status. These include most of the comprehensive high schools as well as dozens of schools throughout the city.

In addition, the School District has said it will open up all the 70 schools to Education Management Organizations (EMOs). Edison Schools Inc. has already said it intends to apply to all 70 schools.

What's wrong with this picture?

We know EMOs, overall, have done miserably for the $110 million investment we've made over the past six years. At least five academic studies have shown they perform no better academically than District managed schools, and plenty perform worse. Staff and parents there complain about lack of respect for leadership, and lack of curriculum knowledge. The majority of parents at EMO schools, according to a District study, feel that their schools are the same or worse than before. In addition, there has been a shocking lack of accountability at the schools. A previous contract paid some EMOs a guaranteed enrollment, gave others a large management fee, and exempted them from service provisions for special needs populations. In particular, ELL/bilingual support has faltered. EMOs took over a number of schools with bilingual programs, Potter Thomas and Stetson, for example, whose services declined under EMO management.

Similarly, charters have been faulted for not academically outperforming district schools overall (though some do), and for the cost burden the place upon the District. However, charters do have one advantage over both district schools and EMOs. They are formed by varying entities that rely on their own expertise to build unique, creative institutions. The District kills this clear advantage of charters by asking them to take over failing schools. Many charters are created by people fleeing failing schools. They have neither the resources nor, largely the expertise for assuming this task.

Meanwhile, the 70 school are waiting for and entitled to reform. They've been asking for years for more money for quality teachers, a dynamic academic principal leader, more professional development time, more aides and support staff to quell violence, tutoring and mentoring programs in the schools to show youth that they are loved, and more options for students struggling with emotional and behavioral problems.

They are still waiting without answers.

There's no additional money in privatization/charters. EMOs collect a management fee but are under no obligation to put it back into schools. Their money isn't even publicly reported. Charters get the same per pupil allotment as the rest of the district, and hope to raise supplemental funds are their own.

Privatization and public school choice has not been about what's really at stake -- the fact that we underfund our public schools to the breaking point. It's been about passing the buck when we can't or won't make something work. Charters and EMOs have been around for 15 years or so. And what we've found is that there simply isn't a replacement for government services. After all these years, there is not a charter or EMO that's out there turning around large urban high schools like Germantown or King on a large scale. Turning around high schools like these is about an infusion of money, resources and creativity. It's about unions willing to be flexible on the old hard and fast rules of seniority or time -- within reason of course -- in an effort to make something happen here. It's about bringing in and developing creative leadership and building new staff. It's not about putting it on community based charter applicants or private outfits to deal with the dysfunctional failures of this system.

Forcing failing schools out of the system is a rotten move for the 70 struggling schools, a charter movement trying to hang onto its creativity, and an EMO outfit that's run its course. More than that it's a rotten move by a society that won't fund its schools and a school system that's looking for a cheap fix for its ills.

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