Eva Moskowitz on Bill de Blasio

Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of the Success Academy Charter Schools, with an op ed in the NY Post that takes issue with mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, who is currently leading in the polls (the latest Quinnipiac poll has him at 43%):

Imagine for a moment if the mayor made the school de Blasio’s son attends take more than a half million dollars per year from its operating budget to pay rent, resulting in cuts in special-education services, books and supplies and increased class size. De Blasio would be the first one to chain himself to the front door.

But that is exactly what de Blasio wants to do to the families who chose charters even though those schools serve a more needy population than the school de Blasio’s son attends.

At his school, only 1 percent of students have learning disabilities and only one tenth of one percent are English Language Learners. Most charters have 10 times as many students with disabilities and a 100 times as many English Language Learners.

Yet de Blasio thinks that charter-school support should be gutted while the funding for the high-performing school his son attends increases.

He’s also calling for a moratorium on all placements of charter schools in public-school facilities. He purports to be responding to community concerns. However, what about the concerns of the tens of thousands of parents whose children are on wait lists for charter schools and want more of them? In Bill de Blasio’s view, those parents don’t count.

No mayor can erase all financial inequality, but he can at least try to treat city residents equitably. De Blasio has already told us he won’t do that, that he will run a City of Two Tales. His message to parents who make the same choice he made: I’ll help you. His message to parents who make another choice: Drop dead.

We need a mayor who will support all of our city’s families. Bill de Blasio has already told us that’s not the type of mayor he intends to be.

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