De Blasio and Operator of Charter School Empire Do Battle

[theworldismine13]

De Blasio and Operator of Charter School Empire Do Battle
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/n...-charter-school-empire-do-battle.html?hp&_r=0

She was a darling of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration, given free space to expand her charter schools from a single one in Harlem into a network larger than many New York State school districts. Along the way, her Success Academy empire became a beacon of the country’s charter school movement, its seats coveted by thousands of families as chronicled in the film “Waiting for ‘Superman.’ ”

But eight years into her crusade, Eva S. Moskowitz is locked in combat with a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, who repeatedly singled her out on the campaign trail as the embodiment of what he saw was wrong in schooling, and who last week followed his word with deed, canceling plans for three of her schools in New York City while leaving virtually all other charter proposals untouched.

Never was their battle more clear than in Albany on Tuesday, where each took part in simultaneous rallies — which each insisted had nothing to do with the other, but which felt like a duel nonetheless.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio was also in Albany on Tuesday to press for his plan for universal prekindergarten. Credit Mike Groll/Associated Press
Most dramatically, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo lent his backing to the charter school rally, standing before cheering crowds outside the State Capitol and saying he would defend charter schools, praising Ms. Moskowitz and implicitly attacking the mayor. “We are here today to tell you that we stand with you,” Mr. Cuomo said. “You are not alone. We will save charter schools.”

The rallies, which took place on a Lobby Day, one of the days when unions, businesses and other groups descend on Albany to push their agenda for the year, highlighted not only the rivalry between the mayor and Ms. Moskowitz, but also his deepening disagreements with the governor on education.

Mr. Cuomo was aligned with Mr. Bloomberg on most school issues and in his budget has offered to help charter schools win more state money. While Mayor de Blasio wants a tax on high-earning city residents to pay for expanded preschool and after-school programs, the focus of his rally on Tuesday, the governor has proposed to pay for preschool without a tax, a plan the mayor calls unreliable and inadequate.

The mayor and governor talked privately after the rallies, a meeting Mr. de Blasio later described as cordial but achieving no breakthroughs. He also said he did not think the governor’s appearance at the charter rally was tantamount to a protest of the mayor.

“We had a big strong rally here of folks who believe in our pre-K and after-school plan who then went out and lobbied legislators for the rest of the day,” he said, referring to his own event. “I’m very comfortable that we took another step forward.”

While she did not speak at the charter rally, the star was clearly Ms. Moskowitz, well-financed and voluble, who once compared a space fight in a Harlem school to a “Middle East war.”

Photo

Sixth-grade students at Success Academy Middle School in Harlem, one of the schools operated by Ms. Moskowitz. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times
In the crowd, Ms. Moskowitz, who turned 50 on Tuesday, mingled with thousands of people from over 100 charters around the state. Many were from her own 22 schools, which she let out for the day so the pupils and their parents could be bused to the capital. The advocacy group that organized the rally, Families for Excellent Schools, recently started a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign praising charter schools and calling on the mayor not to hold them back.

 

[theworldismine13]

Ms. Moskowitz’s history of aggressive tactics has led several other charter operators to keep a wide berth. More than 30 charter school leaders, still hoping for better relations with the new mayor, boycotted the rally.

“Is that how you start out the conversation, with a punch in the face?” said one of those leaders, Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot Public Schools. “I think that comes later, if he’s an unwilling partner.”


In his campaign last year, Mr. de Blasio took aim at charter schools, saying they had a “destructive impact” on traditional schools. He has promised to charge rent to well-financed charter schools, which are privately run but publicly financed, for using public school buildings, and he has placed a moratorium on future requests for classroom space inside traditional district schools.

But the face he repeatedly linked to his criticism of Mr. Bloomberg’s charter school policies was one in particular. “And another thing that has to change starting January is that Eva Moskowitz cannot continue to have the run of the place,” Mr. de Blasio said to thundering applause at a candidates’ forum last year. “Unfortunately, in my case, I have had a lot of contact with Eva over the years and this is documented. She was giving the orders and chancellors were bowing down, and agreed. That’s not acceptable.”

Ms. Moskowitz said she feared her clash with the mayor could scare off financial contributors anxious about the viability of charters. But she was unapologetic about her defense of her schools and attempts to keep adding more of them.

Photo

Eva S. Moskowitz, the founder of Success Academy charter schools, was joined by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at her rally. Mayor de Blasio has criticized her movement. Credit Tina Fineberg for The New York Times
Ms. Moskowitz’s schools, which serve 6,700 students, 90 percent of them black or Hispanic, have consistently outscored traditional public schools on state tests. Last year, after new, tougher tests were rolled out, the distinction was striking: 82 percent of Success Academy pupils passed the math exams, compared with 30 percent citywide. They also outperformed the city in reading, 58 percent to 26 percent.

“Everyone’s trying to do a ‘Gotcha; there’s some catch,’ ” she said. “What we’re doing is building schools around two things — critical thinking and the whole child.”

At her schools, the school day is longer, stretching to 4:30 p.m. or later. Teachers regularly host after-school or weekend tutorials and, parents say, give out their cellphone numbers for daily contact.

Inside her classrooms, children sit in blue and orange uniforms, usually with their hands folded, their feet flat on the floor, listening to teachers — most just out of college — barking out orders, sometimes in startling tones. State statistics suggest that the teachers, who are nonunionized, tend to quit their jobs more frequently than in other schools; Ms. Moskowitz disputes the numbers, but wrote to her teachers a couple of years ago complaining about those who had left midyear and telling them, “This is not a ‘gig.’ ”

Her critics say her expansions can feel like hostile takeovers.
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De Blasio on Eva Moskowitz
Long before he was elected mayor, Bill de Blasio made it clear that he had little time for Eva S. Moskowitz, the leader of a charter school network.

“They moved in aggressively,” Ms. Scott said. “And they did not notify us they were coming in here and that they were moving into the classrooms that they wanted to move into.”

Ms. Moskowitz was one of the first charter school operators to branch out into better-off neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Williamsburg. In such areas, she met significant community opposition, including from Carmen Fariña, now the schools chancellor, when Ms. Moskowitz opened a school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

According to Ms. Moskowitz, she ran into Mr. de Blasio during the mayoral campaign outside that school.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Mr. de Blasio said.

“I’ve been in the neighborhood,” Ms. Moskowitz replied.

Other critics note that her schools tend to serve fewer special education students and nonnative English speakers than surrounding neighborhood schools. Chancellor Fariña said on Tuesday that while some charter schools “do great work” in helping children with special needs, or those with limited English proficiency, Ms. Moskowitz “makes it clear these are kids she cannot help, necessarily, because she doesn’t have the resources for them.”

She has also attracted notice for her salary, $475,000, partly paid by donors, and roughly double what the chancellor earns. “The irony of what is going on is, here is a woman who makes quite a substantial living on the ability to create schools by pushing thousands of children out of their school buildings, and now she is upset that someone is pushing back on her,” said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city teachers’ union.

The mayor’s office noted that while it canceled plans for three Success charter schools last week, it allowed five more to open as planned. It said that it withdrew space from the three not out of animus toward Ms. Moskowitz, but because those schools would have placed elementary school students with high school students or cut programs for students with disabilities.

Ms. Moskowitz saw another motive at play: “I think the problem is that we now have a mayor and a chancellor who don’t seem to want to learn from what we can do,” she said.

 

[The Real]

Moskowitz needs to be careful. A lot of people have dirt on her and her schools, and there's also a documented history of scandals and other craziness at several of her academies. There are some issues with Black students in particular that they need to work on.

 

[88m3]

Moskowitz needs to be careful. A lot of people have dirt on her and her schools, and there's also a documented history of scandals and other craziness at several of her academies. There are some issues with Black students in particular that they need to work on.

They were picking and choosing students, they can't do that.
I hope they are sued and their lives are ruined.
Prison time is also appropriate I feel.

 

[theworldismine13]

Success Academy charter school families have no place for children to go after de Blasio cut co-locations
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...ool-families-left-searching-article-1.1712379

They're Mayor de Blasio’s educational orphans.

As Hizzoner battles Gov. Cuomo over prekindergarten and charter schools, nearly 200 kids whose Harlem charter de Blasio booted don’t know where they’ll go to class in September.

The distraught families, their lives now thrown into turmoil, feel they have nowhere to turn.

“I wanted the best for my daughter,” said Rakim Smith, 40, a cable technician from Harlem whose daughter Dymond is a sixth-grader at Success Academy Harlem Central Middle School. “Now they’re trying to take it away.”

Smith and Dymond, 11, spent years building a path to a better life with a focus on education and hard work.

Dymond’s beloved Success Academy was her life. “My daughter loves this school more than anything. It’s everything to her,” said Smith. “It’s her future. It all starts here. We’ve got to hold on to it.”

Since Dymond and her dad learned de Blasio booted their school from its classrooms last week, the little girl has been worried about what will happen next.

More than simply lessons and classrooms, the school is where she has her best friends, her mentors and her favorite teachers. It’s where she succeeds, and it’s the first step on a road to college.

“It’s going to be a tragedy if this is all taken away,” Dymond said. “We love our school. They’re taking away what is rightfully ours.”

RELATED: GOV. CUOMO AIRS SUPPORT FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

James Keivom/New York Daily News
Mayor de Blasio targeted charters run by political foe Eva Moskowitz.
The thought of the school closing is so awful to Dymond that she refuses to consider it’s a real possibility.

She’s convinced that somehow the mayor will change his mind.

“I’m worried but I don’t think they will close our school — they can’t,” said Dymond. “Bill de Blasio picked the wrong school to mess with.”

But the future of Dymond’s school is far from certain.

Last week, de Blasio dropped the ax on a trio of planned Success Academy charter schools run by fiery former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, his sworn political foe. The mayor said they wouldn’t be able to share space with public schools.

The school Dymond attends is already holding classes in borrowed space it will lose in June.

Then, who knows? There are no easy answers.

“I don’t know where else I can send my son so that he can have the same level education,” said Fatoumata Kebe of the Bronx. Her 11-year-old son, Ousmane, is a fifth-grader at Harlem Central.

The charter school was set to move to a nearby public school building in July, but de Blasio revoked the offer.

RELATED: LOVETT: CUOMO OUTMANEUVERED DE BLASIO WITH CHARTER SCHOOL VOW NEAR PRE-K RALLY

Ken Murray/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Kalima Gilkes, with daughter Kayla, 10, says she’d get a second job rather than send Kayla to a struggling public school.
City officials say they don’t have another space for the school, which is one of the highest-performing in the state, and charter school officials say they were counting on the space from the city and have nowhere for the kids to go.

“They’re charter schools. They’re on their own now,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said Wednesday. “That’s part of what they do. They’re an independent structure, and that’s how they function.”

“There are other Success Academies in that same neighborhood, much the same way that public schools have feeder schools they can choose from,” she said.

Parents of Success Academy students say that just won’t work.

Those struggling schools aren’t acceptable choices for their kids.

They want their kids in high-performing schools.

“Those other places aren’t an option,” said Kalima Gilkes of Harlem, whose daughter Kayla is a fifth-grader at Success Academy. “I’d get a second job and send my daughter to private school rather than send her there.

“I think a lot of parents feel that way,” Gilkes added.

Her 10-year-old daughter doesn’t know what the future will hold without her precious school.

RELATED: PUBLIC ADVOCATE TO MEET WITH PARENTS OVER CHARTER CO-LOCATION SUIT

Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News
Rakim Smith says of his kid, 11-year-old Harlem charter student Dymond: 'I wanted the best for my daughter. Now they’re trying to take it away.'
“I will be extremely gloomy if Mayor de Blasio shuts down my school,” Kayla said. “He’ll be prohibiting me from getting a great education, and I’m pretty sure a great education got Mayor de Blasio to become a mayor. I want my chance so that I can succeed and go to college.”

The two-year-old Success Academy boasts some of the best test scores in the city.

In 2013, 96% of its fifth-graders passed state math exams, the highest rate in the state.

Many nearby district-run schools can’t measure up.

Just 3% of students at Frederick Douglass Academy II Middle School could do math at grade level in 2013.

Likewise for middle-school students at Public School 149.

Charter officials say there’s no room in their other schools, which are already above capacity with 30 kids per class.

“These kids are being evicted from their school,” said Success Academy spokeswoman Kerri Lyon. “We weren’t expecting the mayor to throw them out on the street like that.”

Success Academy’s school is still growing and currently enrolls 194 kids in fifth and sixth grade.

RELATED: TAKE THAT, BILL

Barry Williams for New York Daily News
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña tells the charters: Tough.
At full size it would serve nearly 300 students up to eighth grade.

City education officials have no special plans for placing the charter kids in other schools, but they will be eligible to apply for seats in regular district schools.

Success Academy officials insist their other schools are overfull already, but education officials contend the charters can accommodate their students.

Moskowitz, whose 22 charter schools outperform many traditional schools, said de Blasio seems to be waging a war against the city’s neediest students.

“We have a mayor in the City of New York who says he’s a progressive on the one hand, but wants to deny poor kids in Harlem an opportunity, a shot at life,” Moskowitz said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Moskowitz, who’s taken criticism for paying herself a salary of more then $475,000 a year, said the mayor is trying to “disenfranchise poor minority kids who want a shot at the American Dream.”

“I was never expecting in my wildest dreams that the mayor of the City of New York — a so-called progressive — would throw children in Harlem out in the street,” she said on MSNBC. And she rejects calls that she can afford to rent space for her students. She believes her schools are entitled to public space.

“Nobody will teach my son like Eva’s schools,” Kebe said.“Eva gave him the ambition to go to college.”

If Harlem Central Middle School is closed, she said she will send her son back to the family’s native West African country of Mali.

“Bill de Blasio is not concerned with the future of the children,” she said. “If New York City schools are struggling, he should be happy to have Eva running schools.”


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...eft-searching-article-1.1712379#ixzz2vLstSE3b

 

[The Real]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/city-displaced-harlem-charter-students-article-1.1713921

 

[theworldismine13]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/city-displaced-harlem-charter-students-article-1.1713921

how nice of her

 

[Kritic]

Moskowitz needs to be careful. A lot of people have dirt on her and her schools, and there's also a documented history of scandals and other craziness at several of her academies. There are some issues with Black students in particular that they need to work on.

black students in that school are doing great but they don't want successful black students is not what's in their agenda so the school has to be shut down.

that's white liberals fo ya...

 

[88m3]

black students in that school are doing great but they don't want successful black students is not what's in their agenda so the school has to be shut down.

that's white liberals fo ya...

you/re such a plant

 

[theworldismine13]

black students in that school are doing great but they don't want successful black students is not what's in their agenda so the school has to be shut down.

that's white liberals fo ya...

the liberal lies about charter schools are getting exposed more and more

 

[Trip]

deblasio's backing the wrong horse on this

 

[88m3]

deblasio's backing the wrong horse on this

why?

Their schools were taking city funds and picking who could and couldn't attend classes they should be fined and imprisoned.

 

[Trip]

why?

Their schools were taking city funds and picking who could and couldn't attend classes they should be fined and imprisoned.

I was thinking electric chair actually.

 

[88m3]

I was thinking electric chair actually.

If you think nothing is wrong with discriminating against children and then holding yourself up as a model because you were able to get those high test scores through your discrimination, all while pocketing government money is somehow acceptable you're wrong.

 

[Trip]

If you think nothing is wrong with discriminating against children and then holding yourself up as a model because you were able to get those high test scores through your discrimination, all while pocketing government money is somehow acceptable you're wrong.

Too bad it's not even remotely about this. It's about one thing- the UFT feeling threatened.