Mob's involvement in the school bus industry; Joel pushes charter schools; KIPP on Oprah next week

1) Quite a story about a sordid little corner of the education world: mob influence (control?) of the NYC school bus drivers union: http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0614,robbins,72743,15.html

The mob's involvement in the school bus industry has long been one of the city's worst-kept secrets. Back in 1978, journalist and Goodfellas author Nicholas Pileggi detailed in a New York magazine series the unsavory characters who had snuck into the bus business. The scandal led city officials in 1979 to try and open up the bus routes to outside bidders. But that sparked a 13-week strike, one that drivers who were around at the time recall as being pushed by union officials hand in hand with the employers. Even a 1995 effort by mob-buster turned mayor Rudy Giuliani to smoke out the bad guys in the business led to a stalemate. While Giuliani helped drive the mob out of the private carting industry and the Fulton Fish Market, the school bus wiseguys endured.

2) Good for Klein!

Joel pushes charter schools

BY ERIN EINHORN NY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Invoking race, class and his own impoverished childhood, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein took a swipe yesterday at well-to-do Manhattan parents who've howled over plans to put a charter school in the same building as a program for gifted students. "You don't see people putting charters in middle-class neighborhoods, and the reason is there's plenty of opportunity [already]," he said during an impassioned address to a roomful of parent leaders. "You're all parents. ... You care where your kid goes to school. I've got 1.1 million kids that I care about, and to say to me that you shouldn't be opening a charter school that admits kids for free based on a lottery in a high-needs community ..." he paused. "Almost 90% of kids in charters are African-American and Latino, and in this city, I think, for too long, those communities were denied choices," he said.

3) This is so amazing for KIPP! (forwarding an email from KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg)

Team and Family,

“The Oprah Winfrey Show” will be examining public education on back-to-back episodes airing April 11 and April 12.  KIPP will be profiled on the April 12 episode. 

KIPP co-founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin are interviewed on the program, and clips are shown of students from KIPP Academy Middle School in Houston, TX, and KIPP DC: KEY Academy in Washington, DC.

We encourage you to watch (or TiVo) both programs with family and friends and to forward this e-mail along to others.

With this e-mail, we have provided a list of network affiliates across the KIPP network of schools on which “The Oprah Winfrey Show” airs.

Thank you,

Mike Feinberg

KIPP Co-founder