Educational activists and unions had a week filled with retorts to Success Charter School Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz.
Last week, the pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools held a rally in lower Manhattan that included a performance from Jennifer Hudson and politicians and parents calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to show more public support for charter schools. One significant advocate included Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.
“The public school system is your system,” said Diaz at the rally. “Charter schools are a part of that system. All we want from you, Mr. Mayor, is to treat them equitably.”
The rally rubbed some educational activists the wrong way, who saw the festivities as another excuse to attack the mayor.
“This rally is part of an intricate scheme to politically attack Mayor de Blasio and his commitment to fairly fund the neediest public schools,” said Zakiyah Ansari of the Alliance for Quality Education. “We’ve witnessed this in their distasteful attack ad, race-baiting parents to denounce de Blasio and his initiatives for more equitable schools. Both the ad and this rally were financed by a handful of hedge fund billionaires who want a new mayor, and may want Eva Moskowitz as their candidate.”
“The hypocrisy of this rally is appalling,” added New York Communities for Change Executive Director Jonathan Westin. “If Families for Excellent Schools cares all about equality, they should prove it by advocating for all children. Instead, they continue to run a political campaign focused solely on bashing Mayor de Blasio and giving his opponents a platform. Parents and children have a right to know how much dirty hedge fund money is being spent to trash public education and harm communities of color.”
Ansari and Westin weren’t the only two people who felt the event was more of an anti-de Blasio extravaganza. Bill Lipton, New York director of the Working Families Party, echoed similar sentiments.
“We all agree that high-quality education should be available to all students, regardless of where they live. But these attacks against Mayor de Blasio do nothing to improve education or help kids. They are counter-productive and, frankly, a waste of time. Our entire city deserves a serious and substantive debate about the future of public education. We’ve challenged Families for Excellent Schools to have that debate with us. But they have yet to respond,” said Lipton.
Several days after the rally, Moskowitz announced that she wouldn’t run for mayor of New York City in 2017.
“I am not running for mayor in 2017,” said Moskowitz while standing on the steps of City Hall. “My decision is not based on my estimation of winnability. Politics is a pretty unpredictable thing. This kind of transformational change may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I believe our kids are worth it.”
Moskowitz, who served on the New York City Council for two terms, said she wouldn’t rule out a 2021 bid.
But that meant nothing to Alliance for Quality Education Director Bill Easton, who said the announcement didn’t need to be made.
“Today, Eva Moskowitz summoned every reporter to City Hall in order to make an announcement that she was doing nothing different than she is already doing. There is no news here,” said Easton in a statement. “We can expect more of the same from Eva Moskowitz and a small cabal of hedge fund billionaires that are financing the political agenda of race-baiting and attacking public schools. These hedge funders will continue to fight to undermine Mayor de Blasio’s investments and improvements in New York City’s neediest schools. “
Easoton concluded, “When Bloomberg was mayor and systematically neglected many schools in poor communities, Eva Moskowitz and her allies were stone cold silent.”
