That's State Senator John Sampson standing up for just that. You can just feel the excitement all the people around him have. You can't really see it--The man on the left looks bored out of his gourd, while the woman on the right seems absolutely fixated on Mr. Sampson's choice of jacket. Nonetheless, he wore it for the occasion of his announcement that he wanted to raise the charter school cap.I've read elsewhere that Mr. Sampson wants to make charters more accountable, but these reservations don't seem to have stopped him in asking the cap be raised. First things first. Right now, he wants more charters whether or not they're regulated, and he was quite clear about why he wanted to raise the cap.
"My philosophy is you have to be in it to win it," Sampson told reporters yesterday. "So I think we need to put ourselves in a position to take advantage of ... moneys that can come from the federal government."
There's nothing all that confusing about Sampson's statement. We're doing it for money, pure and simple. It's refreshing, actually, to see a pol who will let it all hang out like that. None of this nonsense about doing what's best for kids. That's neither here nor there. Who cares if there are fewer union jobs and more "at-will" jobs where you can be fired for a bad haircut? Not John Sampson, evidently.
If you work at a charter school, you can be fired for telling your colleagues how much UFT teachers make. You can also be fired for insisting IEPs be followed. In fact, I've met ex-charter teachers who were fired for just those things.
It certainly appears those are the kind of jobs Mr. Sampson is willing to accept for our kids. With friends like him, who needs Republicans?
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