NYC Educator, aka high school teacher Arthur Goldstein, opines on the plight of Eva Moskowitz, the charter chain CEO who is paid $782,000 a year to get high test scores and show that it is easy if you are willing to weed out the slackers.
Back in the good old days (for her) of the Bloomberg-Klein years, she called the tune. Klein gave her anything she wanted. He would kick kids out of their public school and give Eva the space; he would kick kids with disabilities out of their home school and give the space to Eva.
It is harder now. The schools are overcrowded. De Blasio is afraid to get into a fight with her, because she and her billionaire buddies kicked him senseless when he tried that.
Space is tight, so tight that in 2016, Eva spent $68 million to buy a condo for 2 new schools in prime Manhattan real estate.
The next time Ivanka Trump or Campbell Brown comes to visit her model schools, she needs a beautiful space in which to show her achievements. Who knows when Betsy DeVos herself might show up?
But NYC Educator sheds no tears for her.
No compassion for the privileged, Arthur?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I disagree with the notion that De Blasio backed down backed down because he was kicked senseless. I believe he backed down because he has or had national ambitions and did not want to alienate the billionaire-boys-club. After all De Blasio won with over 80% of the vote. He surely could have gone forward with a strong attack on Moskowitz and her funders if he really wanted to do it.
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Can you please just look at the facts instead of bashing a progressive democrat who is actually doing some good in this city?
Moskowitz is not being given what she wants. That’s why there has been non-stop articles in the NY Daily News (which is her personal PR press release arm) bashing de Blasio. de Blasio has to follow the law that was created after he took the smallest action that would have meant Moskowitz got 80% of the boondoggle Mayor Bloomberg gave her instead of 100% of the boondoggle Bloomberg gave her.
What the Mayor is doing now is actually brilliant. Instead of giving Moskowitz ammunition by saying any words against her, he is following the law but not giving her all the special privileges that she expects as her right. The problem is that the law doesn’t say that Moskowitz should get special privileges, so unless Cuomo arranges to write that into the law, she is stuck. de Blasio is giving her the minimum that he is obligated to do — and not giving her the run of the DOE as she believes is her right.
Do you know who could really do an attack? NYC controller Scott Stringer. If anyone has been complicit, it is him. He won’t rock the boat because he has ambitions himself. He should be publicly demanding to know what the attrition numbers are of students who come in for Kindergarten and disappear. Stringer should demand to know how much NYC tax money is spent because Moskowitz fails huge numbers of students in the hopes that their parents will eventually pull them from the school when they realize they are going to be years over age for their grade.
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If getting only 80% instead of 100% is not being “given what she wants” then I can’t debate with you in a serious manner. I will say this however: De Blasio personally called the billionaires funding the attacks on him to make peace rather than use his bully pulpit to publicly chastise them and even Cuomo for their attacks on public education. De Blasio could’ve publicized the unconscionable amount of money Moskowitz is making with such a small number of students. If the Chancellor of the NYC DOE was paid per child what Moskowitz makes he would be paid about 40 million. Would the public stand for that? I doubt it.
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The “80%” was because the corrupt Mayor Bloomberg (who I assume you believe is far more corrupt and evil than de Blasio, right?) had already granted those schools. The Mayor tried to reverse the decisions by Bloomberg that would cause the MOST HARM to real children. Because at that point I’m sure his main concern was real children and not some PR stunt that would have done nothing
I’m sure he was thrown by that mild decision getting such flack. The one valid criticism of de Blasio you could make is that when he first came to office, he did not realize how very deep the corruption of Andrew Cuomo ran and it ran very, very deep. You can definitely fault the Mayor for not realizing that Andrew Cuomo was one of the most corrupt democrats ever. Mayor de Blasio erroneously believed Cuomo had a soul, but in fact, Cuomo had sold that long ago and no longer had any shred of decency. Cuomo is Trump on the left and every action he takes — even if it turns out to be progressive — is all about Andrew Cuomo and what is best for him. And Mayor de Blasio was stupid enough to think Cuomo was not the democrats version of Trump.
If you can’t look at the entirety of Mayor de Blasio’s policies with regards to public schools — and even Eva Moskowitz — and keep insisting that one actions proves some evil, then you are a hypocrite if you don’t do the same to Leonie Haimson. Is she also a sell out because she absolutely refuses to endorse Nixon over Cuomo?
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I have friends who are still teaching in NYC public schools. They favor De Blasio only slightly over Bloomberg because De Blasio is not actively attacking teachers. I am a retired teacher and saw first hand what Bloomberg did. That said I can tell you that current teachers aren’t too enamored with De Blasio either. I doubt any of them would describe De Blasio’s actions as brilliant when it comes to education.
I must admit that I do agree with his efforts to tax the wealthy more to fund early childhood education.
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“They favor De Blasio only slightly over Bloomberg because De Blasio is not actively attacking teachers…
If you are correct the teachers in NYC think the only difference between de Blasio and Bloomberg is that de Blasio is not “actively attacking teachers” then I hope they get what they desire most in the next Mayor.
No doubt Christine Quinn or Scott Stringer or Hakeem Jeffries will profess support for “public” schools and define them as including lots more taxpayer funded privately operated non-union charters that can get rid of students at will. Seems like that would make the teachers you know much happier than having a Mayor trying to fight against Cuomo and his hedge fund privatizers.
I am tired of sticking up for teachers that don’t seem to want what I assume they do. Honestly, if they believe that Bloomberg was barely different than de Blasio, then I hope the teachers get exactly what they deserve — Bloomberg’s policies enacted wholesale except for “not attacking teachers”. Sounds fine to me if that is what you think teachers want. I won’t bother to fight for anything else since that seems to be all they care about.
The other thing I find is that some teachers don’t like de Blasio’s integration efforts and they don’t like any changes to the SHSAT because Stuy is working perfectly fine with virtually no African-American students and why should that be changed anyway? I’m sure the next Mayor will happily abandon any efforts to integrate the schools if that’s what the teachers prefer. I’m sure teachers who believe Bloomberg’s policies were fine – except for attacking teachers — can vote for a Mayor offering more Bloomberg policies who won’t attack them. If that’s what they want, I hope that’s exactly what they get.
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Wow. Well I was a teacher and have several friends who are still teaching. I dare say teachers know better than anyone else about what is going on in the system. It sounds to me you really support De Blasio because of his efforts to increase enrollments of minorities in selective schools such as Stuyvesant. That’s a different issue and is not connected to the treatment of teachers by administrators. You also come across as quite hostile so I won’t respond to any more of you posts to me.
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I’m sorry — I absolutely admit that I do not judge the Mayor on how administrators at the DOE treat teachers.
I judge the Mayor on his education policies. And whether they seem designed to prioritize helping students or helping the teachers’ union or helping charter CEOs who have the backing of billionaires who want to privatize public education. Obviously, I care most about helping students and less so about the union teachers (but I do believe their concerns are often valid and respect them.)
That’s why – to me – the notion that de Blasio was barely different than Bloomberg (except for not denigrating teachers as much) seemed so ridiculous. I certainly acknowledge that if you are only judging from a union teacher’s perspective, your view would be different.
From a parents’ perspective, I think it goes both ways. I am sympathetic to teachers having to bear the brunt of new policies and the pressure from administrators to perform. But I also see some administrators unwilling — either too lazy or too scared — to challenge some teachers who should have been forced to be better teachers long ago.
I don’t think any Mayor can wave a magic wand and make things better for everyone. It is about choices. The ed reformers offer a system in which it is very possible that 50% or even more of the students may be better off but the trade off is abandoning the other 50% or perhaps only 30% or 25%. Just stop caring about them.
I support de Blasio because he has never given up on that bottom 25%. Even though they have little political power and their parents — if they are even citizens – aren’t the most likely to vote. Even though he can spend millions on them and it still is unlikely to turn most of those students into high performing test-takers.
It would certainly be easy to give up on them as Bloomberg did. Just copy the model of charter schools and pretend they don’t exist and spend that money making the parents of the other students happy. After all, it’s the other students who have parents more likely to vote or raise a ruckus. Not those at the bottom. But still de Blasio is trying. And if a politician ceases to try and abandons those students, then they may be able to please a lot more people — including teachers.
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I’m not sure how we measure being kicked senseless.However, de Blasio made good on a campaign promise to deny Eva space. Shortly thereafter, Eva’s BFF in Albany, Andrew Cuomo, along with our famously Heavy Hearted Assembly, passed a bill saying NYC would have to pay rent for charters he rejected. Basically, whatever Eva wants, Eva gets.
That said, I have no idea why he bothered fighting for mayoral control. Mayoral control only applies if you’re sufficiently reformy to give Eva whatever she wants.
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The Alt-Right Deep State’s billionaire boys club … Not all of the billionaires and millionaires belong to this club.
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It seems likely that he got that 80% vote because constituents fully expected him to go forward with a strong attack on Moskowitz and her funders.
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Totally agree.
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And he did.
And as a result, NYC school children now subsidize Eva Moskowitz and her cherry-picked students with the money that is allocated to public schools.
Mayor de Blasio had nothing to do with the SUNY Charter Institute flaunting every rule in order to force NYC and Mayor de Blasio to give Moskowitz more space for free AND to allow Moskowitz to hire whatever untrained teachers she wants.
It’s odd to see know-nothings fighting their friends and giving succor to their enemies.
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I wonder how far that $68 million would have gone if Moskowitz had looked for space somewhere other than prime Manhattan in the very richest school district in all of New York City.
What if Moskowitz had purchased a space in the poorest neighborhoods of the Bronx or East New York or Canarsie or Queens (and I don’t mean Forest Hills or Astoria)? How far would that money have gone? (By the way, I’m not sure if Moskowitz bought the property or just leased it long term.)
Moskowitz is desperate to expand, but not have to serve more than a tiny % of all the at-risk students in NYC. That means spending a lot of money marketing to affluent parents and purchasing prime real estate — even if it cuts into money that could be spent teaching at-risk students. What is the point of undermining the public schools for the poorest NYC students if so many middle class and affluent students are still crowding into their public schools?
Any charter school that is not serving at least 71% economically disadvantaged students — the same % of economically disadvantaged students as are in the NYC public school system — is not following the law which requires charters to focus on at-risk students.
I hope someone does an audit of a “foundation” whose sole “charitable purpose” is a single rich donor giving Eva Moskowitz half a million dollars, when she is already earning nearly $200,000/year and has no need of “charity.” It sounds more like a payment with other expectations. Like perhaps working to make sure Betsy DeVos is confirmed by the Senate?
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Diane, do you know why Leonie Haimson will not endorse Cynthia Nixon? She endorsed other candidates but said that she “decided not to endorse” Nixon over Cuomo.
And her full explanation of this decision not to endorse Nixon over Cuomo?
She called Nixon’s answers to a survey “disappointing”. Nixon has the right position on pretty much every public school issue that Leonie supports, and yet we get the “disappointing”?
That’s ridiculous. Mayor de Blasio may be “disappointing” to Haimson, but he has done all sorts of very good things with regards to public schools in NYC. Without recognizing that — by saying that just because a candidate is ‘disappointing’ for some reason you consider them no better than Cuomo – the man who pretty much stands against everything Leonie claims to support — she loses a lot of credibility. A lot. If “disappointing” is her only explanation for why she refuses to support a candidate for Governor who could do so much good for public schools over a Governor who has done so much harm, then it seems as if she is just looking a reason for some other agenda.
Very disappointing.
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Her response to the KIDS PAC survey said that the governor should not interfere with Regents’ decisions.
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The Regents make some incredibly poor decisions. For me, an ESL teacher, exhibit number one is their rewrite of CR Part 154. The students I serve have seen their directly English instruction cut by a factor of 33-100%. The Regents maintain that the purpose of direct English instruction is to support progress in core courses, like math and social studies.
It must be great to sit around in some office in Albany and proclaim that our children no longer need basic communication skills as long as they can pass a standardized test.
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But that is a loaded question and it seems like an incredibly weak reason not to endorse Nixon. Because of a single answer that means Nixon is no better than Cuomo?
The reason that is loaded is because Nixon probably knows that politicians have interfered with Regents’ decisions to benefit charters and she likely assumed that was the thrust of the question. To say that one “wrong” answer and a belief in policies that promote public schools outweighs 8 years of policies that have been harmful to public schools seems a bit disingenuous.
Do you believe it? Because it looks to me as if they are afraid the Cuomo has too large of a lead and are unwilling to go against him. And that seems cowardly. They won’t endorse the candidate that agrees with them on almost every policy over a candidate who has used his office to promote charters because of one question?
I’m sorry, but it reminds me of people saying there is no difference between Trump and Hillary. Leonie should be better than that.
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There were several such answers that troubled the committee. That’s what I heard.
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It would be useful for Leonie to share those “troubling” answers with parents rather than expecting us to take her word that Nixon is no better than Cuomo when it comes to public schools. (As I type those words I really wonder how that can be the position of anyone who claims to support public education.)
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I did see Nixon’s answer on-line at Leonie’s website: (I appreciate Leonie providing the responses and I notice that Cuomo could not even be bothered to reply.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3i9wiacg401b1prRHdPT21BY2JIbEd2YVRtY09aX1hBeDFv/view
I would like to understand what Leonie feels is so awful about Nixon’s responses because I thought they were quite good and thoughtful — sometimes refusing to simply answer yes or no but explaining her position or the complexities.
Nixon says: “We need to refocus education, including our standards, so that it is more student focused. However, I think we need to be careful to avoid gubernatorial overreach. There is a sound reason for why the Board of Regents and the State Education Department are an independent agency not controlled by the governor. If SED and the Regents were currently under gubernatorial control then the over emphasis on testing, under the current governor, would even greater than it already is. Likewise the influence of hedge fund managers over charter school policies would be even greater. While I may not agree with everything the Regents and SED do I think the principle that they set education policy is important. I would not want to see the state legislate standards as I would be concerned where this will lead to in
the future.”
How would that reply make one think Nixon is no better than Cuomo? Who didn’t seem to even bother to reply.
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I agree with you, NYC public school parent, that Nixon’s response seemed well reasoned and sound. Leonie Haimson should provide a well reasoned response as well. Not that my opinion matters in the least since I am not a NY resident, but Cuomo does not seem like the better choice.
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Awwww! Poor Eva.
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Boy was this an epic courtroom exchange in the fight to keep open one of the highest performing traditional public schools in NYC!
Eva Moskowitz wants Mayor DiBlasio to close it, then disperse all of its students to the surrounding schools, so she can move in one of her yet-to-be-opened Success Academy charter schools.
However, public school parents filed suit to stop to keep the public school open, and that their kids’ public be allowed to continue operating out of the school building that Eva is demanding for her own school.
The court hearing is riveting: (from Leonie Haimson’s site)
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/06/part-ii-of-ps-25-saga-eva-moskowitz.html
Under pressure from Eva, DiBlasio, the DOE, and the DOE’s lawyer are carrying out her bidding in this hearing before a judge, and are attempting to get Eva what she wants.
Once again, an exceptional public school has lower than average class sizes. The DOE wants to close it, and even the D.O.E.’s lawyer concedes that this pre-existing school indeed “is doing well.” and that after it closes, the D.O.E. cannot provide those students with seats at a school that is anywhere near comparable to their own, should it close.
That sets up this exchange from the transcript:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Judge Levine: “Would you concede that maybe one of the reason this (pre-existing public) school is doing so well is because it has small class sizes?”
D.O.E.’s Caroline Kruk: “I can’t speak to that.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
It’s interesting to witness Eva’s topsy-turvy take on the situation on …
“Who is evicting Who?”
The D.O.E. had made an illegal secret side deal — and did not go through the right process and protocol — so that the DOE, doing Eva’s bidding, could boot out the pre-existing public school (again, one of NYC’s highest-performing school, one that is serving a low-income, minority student body), and then give the building over to Eva. If Eva got her way, the public school students would then be scattered to other schools that are lower performing than their current school, with much higher class sizes.
Mind you, the Success Academy school in question CURRENTLY DOES NOT YET EXIST, and therefore has never occupied the building which Eva covets.
At the same time, the public school has occupied the disputed building for decades, and currently still occupies the school.
Possession, as they say, is 9/10ths of the law.
Thankfully, the judge ruled in favor of the parents in the public school, and — for the 2018-2019 school year at least (and perhaps beyond) — their children will be having school in that same building, and — contrary to Eva’s wishes — that public school will not be dissolved, and the kids will not be scattered to other, lesser-performing, surrounding public schools.
Now, here’s where Eva starts sounding bat-sh#% crazy.
Eva is now blathering to the media that is her students (???!!!), not the public school students currently occcupying the building, who are being “evicted”(???!!!) from “their school building”(???!!!) and that Mayor DiBlasio is “throwing them out onto the street,”(???!!!) thanks to Di Blasio and that evil judge who made the ruling.
In actuality, the now-craven DiBlasio was all for Eva seizing the building and destroying the education of the public school kids currently occupying the building, but as much as he wants to please Eva — and more importantly, her powerful allies — even the mayor of NYC cannot and will not defy a court order to do so.
Eva even vomited up this drivel: “The de Blasio administration is throwing kids out onto the street? Does this sound familiar? But this might be a new low for the mayor. Can you imagine how the mayor would react if this was his own kids?”
No, Eva, you unhinged harridan. You can’t get evicted from a building that you’ve yet to occupy, or that you’ve never occupied. Besides, your school — the one in question — has never even existed yet, as the Fall 2018 semester will be the school’s inaugural semester.
Now, the pro-Eva DOE, after losing in court, offered perfectly suitable alternate sites for Eva’s new school, but Eva was adamant that NO, NO, NO, she DID NOT WANT those other sites. She wants THIS BUILDING, she wants the pre-existing school closed, she wants the current students scattered, so the the building will be empty for her school to occupy …
… and she wants it NOW!!! I tell you, NOW!!!!
On that point, she’s much like Veruca Salt from WILLY WONKA: (ahhh … childhood memories … watch the whole song. It’s great!)
However, as with Willy Wonka, Judge Levine wasn’t having it.
Indeed, he did something that Eva and DiBlasio did not; she actually gave a sh%# about the public school kids involved, the ones whose education would be irreparably if Eva got what she wanted.
Eva’s response to the court hearing / judge’s order is even more bat-sh%# crazy.
She claims that the Mayor, if he chooses, can execute “a simple and easy solution”, and invoke Education Law §2590-h(2-a) (f), which would circumvent the Judge Levine’s adverse-to-Eva court order, and allow him to close P.S. 25, scatter P.S. 25’s kids, and empty out the building for Eva’s use.
This is truly bat-sh%# crazy because that law only applies only to — and can only used in response to — major disasters such as hurricanes and 9/11-level catastrophes where such Biblical-sized destruction “leaves schools un-habitable.”
I suppose that, in her deranged mind, Eva not getting the exact school building that she wants qualifies. She insists: “Officials could fix this problem with the stroke of a pen(i.e. invoke Education Law §2590-h(2-a) (f) ), yet they’ve refused to do so for purely political reasons.”
Yeah, what-ever.
Here’s more from the hearing (a summary with quotes from Leonie Haimson at the link BELOW):
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/06/part-ii-of-ps-25-saga-eva-moskowitz.html
x x x x x x x x x x x x x
LEONIE HAIMSON:
When (the judge) asked (the pro-Eva DOE attorney Kruk) what the downside would be if the school remained open for another year, Kruk replied that 3,000 students from all the schools DOE had proposed closing could not be re-assigned to different schools, which Judge Levine said was “ridiculous.” Only those students who currently attended PS 25 and whose parents wanted to remain there would be affected.
Judge Levine went on to ask.
JUDGE LEVINE: “The worst that happens if I keep the stay on [to keep the school open] is that the kids will have the benefit of this school for another year. Now what are you going to tell me? That financially, it helps the DOE if I close it? What is the argument other than the fact that you think this school should be closed? Forget about 3,000, we’re (only) talking about 100. What is the downside?”
Kruk had no real answer to that pivotal question.
D.O.E. Attorney KRUK:“It’s simply … (at the public school, there’s) a low demand, there’s low attendance and … there is a lack of resources, you know, information – “
(btw, “low demand … low attendance” are Eva’s euphemisms for the current low class sizes at the public school, the same low class sizes that are a key factor in the schools’ success, which of course, would permanently cease to exist for these students if Eva got her way, and the school was closed so she could seize the building for her own school.)
JUDGE LEVINE: “No. I’m not hearing – do you have anything in your papers that says this school really stinks, and there is no ‘resources’ for this school, so poor kids are suffering? What ‘resources’ are lacking? They are learning and they are doing well.”
D.O.E. Attorney KRUK: ““Okay, understood, and your Honor, I would stress even if the equities don’t weigh in the Department of Education’s favor—”*
JUDGE LEVINE: “They don’t.”
(Interesting choice of words. In attorney Kruk’s mind, hundreds of public school kids getting screwed over and their education destroyed TRANSLATES TO “equities don’t weigh in the Department of Education’s favor.”)
The Judge then asked if the DOE would agree to promise that if the school closed, its students would be able to attend a better school than PS 25. Kruk said no, that would not be possible.
D.O.E. Attorney KRUK: “… because of the ranking of the school, it has a high ranking, its simply unrealistic to supply all the students with better schools.”
Because the city could not explain what damage would be done by keeping the school open for another year, and the DOE could not promise that they would attend a better school (indeed there are only three in the entire city, and none have been offered) the Judge ordered that the school stay open at least another year.
Over that time, she would carefully untangle the complicated legal issues involved, including whether a vote of the Community Education Council (CEC) was required to close this zoned school.
Since any changes in zoning lines have to be approved by the local CEC, according to NY Education law 2590-E, this was one of the plaintiffs strongest arguments, as no CEC vote has yet occurred. The city’s attorney unconvincingly argued in response that the zoning lines “haven’t been amended. They are currently in existence, there is just no school within it.”
In the end, what was evident from the city’s arguments that apart from the illegality of closing a zoned school without the approval of the CEC, the DOE has no justification for closing PS 25, at least none that they were willing to make public at this time.
Soon, however, Eva Moskowitz went on the warpath.
On June 11, she sent out a press advisory, announcing she would hold a rally in front of City Hall the next day, to protest that the DOE was denying space to “Success Academy Lafayette Middle School” in the building, a school, which by the way, did not yet exist.
She claimed that the Mayor was waging “bureaucratic trench warfare against Success — the latest episode of a long-running political vendetta,” by denying middle school seats to the fourth graders about to graduate from the Success Cobble Hill elementary school, and that the city had reneged on a promise that they would be given space in the PS 25 building:
“70 kids are set to begin fifth grade at the school, located in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, in just 10 weeks. In a complete about-face, City Hall is now threatening to prevent the school from opening — and leave the building with 900 empty seats — due to a bureaucratic paperwork issue.”
I had known that a Success elementary school, Success Bed Stuy 3, had moved into the PS 25 building in the fall of 2016. PS 25 was originally a K-8 school, but several DOE’s decisions had contributed to its enrollment shrinking over time. As of 2004-2005 school year, PS 25 had 773 students throughout grades K-8.
In the fall of 2006, the upper grades of PS 25 were separated from the elementary school, creating the Upper School at PS 25 (IS 534), leaving PS 25 to serve only grades K-5. Then in 2016, the same year that Success Bed Stuy 3 moved into the building. IS 534 was moved half a mile away and merged with PS 308 Clara Cardwell, a far less successful school with an impact rating of .30. Most likely these two decisions were linked.
I had heard murmurings something about a Success middle school, as Eva Moskowitz had been insistent that DOE had to provide her with more middle school seats, but I hadn’t paid this issue much attention as the DOE had had said that it had no plans for the space that PS 25 would vacate. This was only mention of the future use of the building in the EIS proposing PS 25’s closure, dated January 5, 2018:
“Pursuant to Chancellor’s Regulation A-190, the NYCDOE may issue an EIS for the future use of space in K025, if applicable.”
Chancellor’s regulation A-190 in accordance with NY education law Section 2590-h requires that any change in the utilization of a public school building must follow a certain legal process, including the posting of an EIS at least six months ahead of the next school year, followed by public hearings and a vote of the Panel for Educational Policy.
At the the Success rally in front of City Hall on July 12, Eva Moskowitz excoriated the mayor:
“The de Blasio administration throwing kids out onto the street? Does this sound familiar? But this might be a new low for the mayor. Can you imagine how the mayor would react if this was his own kids?”
The day of the rally, she put out a press release, claiming that the school was being “evicted” and that the de Blasio administration was “employing a bureaucratic paperwork loophole to block the school from opening. …. Officials could fix this problem with the stroke of a pen, yet they’ve refused to do so for purely political reasons.”
Note that word “evicted”, though these students had never been in the building in the first place. The press release went on to argue:
“How did it come to this? Earlier this year, the city Department of Education agreed to let Success open four additional middle schools across the city, including Success Academy Lafayette in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. SA Lafayette was a stopgap solution because the city claimed to need more time to find a location in District 15 for Cobble Hill and Williamsburg families, who have been waiting for a permanent middle school location for nearly four years. Out of necessity, Success proposed converting an existing elementary school (SA Bed-Stuy 3) into a middle school and transferring the elementary school students to two nearby Success schools. The city agreed to this plan. [emphasis mine].”
However, whether adding a middle school into the building or converting Success Bed Stuy 3 into middle school and moving its current students elsewhere would entail a change in school utilization, and would legally require the process described above. An EIS would have had to be posted no later than March 5, given the six-month waiting period outlined in state law and Chancellor’s regs. This never occurred, and it would be too late to happen now, at the end of the school year.
Eva Moskowitz tried to dispute that an EIS would be necessary, but then conceded, “However, even if DOE were correct that an EIS were now required, there is a simple and easy solution.” She proposed that the chancellor skip the required six-month process, by latching on to an exception in the law:
“In the event that the chancellor determines that …. significant change in school utilization is immediately necessary for the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare, the chancellor may temporarily…. adopt a significant change in the school’s utilization on an emergency basis. —Education Law §2590-h(2-a) (f)”.
Yet this section in the law is supposed to be contemplated only in the cases of actual unexpected emergencies, like hurricanes or other disasters rendering school buildings uninhabitable, so that entire classes of students would have to attend school in other buildings. It would surely be illegal to cite this exception to allow a charter school to move into the PS 25 building at the last minute, with no such rationale.
The day before, Deputy Chancellor Elizabeth Rose had responded to Eva Moskowitz’s press advisory, with a letter released to the press, that laid out alternatives for space that could be provided to her middle school class of 70 students.
These alternatives included a list of facilities that Success already occupies in Brooklyn, or would occupy starting next fall, all within .7 to 3.7 miles of PS 25 and totaling more than three thousand available seats, arrayed in four DOE-owned buildings and two stand-alone buildings.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
For those wanting and even deeper dive into this, here’s a pdf transcript of the entirety of the hearing that was quoted above:
Click to access Transcript-of-PS-25-Hearing-5.24.18.pdf
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Wow! What a weird, unbelievable saga!
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It really mystifies me how the mischaracterization of Mayor de Blasio as doing Moskowitz’ bidding came about. If he wanted to do her bidding, there are plenty of things he could have done!
First of all, it is clear from anyone paying attention that the reason the DOE chose that location was because — when forced into a choice of two bad options — they chose the one that seemed to do the least harm.
The main reason the DOE chose PS 25 is because it was steadily losing students and I think some of the grades were only 18 students total. The Mayor was being forced to provide Moskowitz with space somewhere and probably thought that displacing a very few students was better than other options — ALL of which were bad.
By the way, I hope the cynics notice that once the court decision was made, de Blasio absolutely tried to do no favors for Moskowitz. Moskowitz was already in that space and the DOE could have still accommodated them along with the very small DOE school, but they did not.
Frankly, watching Leonie refusing to endorse Nixon over Cuomo based on very questionable reasons makes me distrust a lot of what she is saying now. If you can’t stick up for public school students over Cuomo and instead spend your time bashing de Blasio and finding nonsensical reasons to decide Nixon is just as bad as Cuomo, then you are no longer in it for the kids anymore.
I do not trust any organization claiming to be pro-public school that won’t endorse Nixon over Cuomo. That is just plain wrong.
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^^also, Moskowitz’ use of the word “evicted” is similar to her lies when Bloomberg evicted a public school serving severely disabled students because she demanded it and Moskowitz threw a hissy fit because Mayor de Blasio reversed that (while allowing Moskowitz to have most of the other free boondoggles that Bloomberg’s DOE had awarded her in their very last weeks in power).
Moskowitz – in her Trump-like manner — insisted that it was her school being evicted because de Blasio didn’t honor the giveaway and eviction of another school that was already there. Talk about a ridiculous lie — Moskowitz wanted to evict a school of severely disabled children and when she could not, she claimed that it was her students being evicted.
It’s like having a verbal agreement to buy an apartment and the seller changes his mind, and you run to the judge and claim that you were “evicted” from your home and thrown on the street by an evil person.
Nope, when you have a verbal agreement that doesn’t work out, you can’t pretend you are evicted. You can LIE and say that you were, but it is nothing less than that — an outright lie said in order to gain sympathy when people would think you were an appalling and spoiled selfish brat if they knew all the facts. As in the agreement didn’t work out because severely handicapped children or disadvantaged students would be the ones evicted. Demanding sympathy because you can’t evict children so your students can get more freebies that you should not have in the first place is atrocious.
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I don’t know. Is there something I’m missing?
Kruk is the D.O.E.’s lawyer, who is ultimately under the direction of DiBlasio. Am I right? DO.E. Attorney Kruk, acting on DiBlasio’s direction — who was, in turn, acting on Eva’s direction— was in court pulling out all the stops to kick out and dissolve PS 25., but ultimately failed to so so.
And after the court went against her, DiBlasio and the D.O.E. offered her a few suitable alternatives, and Eva said, “Hell now. I don’t want any o’ THOSE buildings. I want THIS ONE! (i.e. the one housing PS 25)!”
As for Leonie not backing Cynthia … yeah .. that’s disappointing. I didn’t know that until I just read it.
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Jack,
That is a good question. I agree that de Blasio made the wrong choice to offer PS 25 to Success, but all his choices were bad. I find it really odd when people impugn his motives and claiming he was doing it because he was trying to please a billionaire boys club so he’d have their support for his national ambitions. The idea of that boys club ever supporting de Blasio is ridiculous.
The Mayor – thanks to that boys’ club and Cuomo – has to come up with space. The PS 25 location had fewer than 110 public school students in the entire school (with some of those graduating). I suspect displacing the remaining 80 or so students seemed better than displacing a school of 500 students. Not for Moskowitz — for the public school system overall. Just because it was a wrong decision doesn’t mean that the motives behind it were evil.
And the way that I know that the motives were not to please Moskowitz is that nothing the DOE has done before or afterward was about pleasing her. One thing I like about de Blasio is he isn’t trying to spite Moskowitz for the sole purpose of spiting her out of revenge. He is acting like a grown-up who has to make the best decision for the school system as a whole. He believed (wrongly) that turning over a building housing a tiny and shrinking public school would harm the least number of public school students. When the courts corrected that bad decision, the Mayor returned to making decisions based on what is best for all NYC public school students, not what is best for Moskowitz. I find that refreshing after years of Mayor Bloomberg making decisions based on what was best for Moskowitz, without any concern whatsoever with the harm he was causing other students.
Leonie Haimson made a poor decision not to endorse Nixon over Cuomo. I don’t like that decision and I’m critical of it. But I would never attack Leonie by saying that she made the decision because she hoped some billionaire funders of Cuomo’s would donate to her group. I would never attack Leonie by saying she made that decision to do Cuomo’s bidding to undermine the Nixon campaign because Leonie knew it would please the rich people she is only interested in pleasing and hurt the most vulnerable students.
Leonie made that decision because she obviously thought it was the best of two difficult decisions. Sometimes you are between a rock and a hard place and you try to choose the decision you think is better in the long run. But I will judge Leonie on the ENTIRETY of her work and not pretend that this wrong-headed decision to undermine the Nixon campaign was because she corruptly covets donations from the billionaires who support Cuomo and would happily sell out public schools in exchange for those donations – or some other nasty and dishonest attack. Overall, Leonie supports public schools and does good work. One bad decision does not change that.
I just wish Leonie and others would do the same with Mayor de Blasio. It is absolutely fine to be critical of some of his wrong decisions. It is absolutely wrong to impugn their character and claim that the decision was made for corrupt reasons because the person just pretended to support public schools but would sell them out in a minute.
I give Leonie the benefit of the doubt because of the entirety of her career and what she has done for public schools. She should do the same when it comes to de Blasio. She can criticize his decisions and fight them as she has. But stop impugning his motives.
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Re-reading the transcript from the PS 25 hearing is illuminating:
Click to access Transcript-of-PS-25-Hearing-5.24.18.pdf
First off, the pro-Eva forces got the worst possible judge — a mom with kids who’s had to go through the process of finding a good school for her own kids. As such, one can tell from reading her responses, Judge Levine has put herself into the shoes of the PS 25 parents, and all that they’ve been going through, which, in part, is why she ultimately came down on the side of those parents.
Pro-Eva Attorney Kruk put her foot in her mouth a couple of times
(In the transcript, Judge Levine is referred to as “The Court”, but I’m going with “Judge Levine”, the parents’ attorney is “Ms. Barbieri” — sister of O.J.’s former girlfriend Paula Barbieri … just kidding about that last part, that’s my Los Angeles-ness coming through)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
p. 27 —- “abstract parents” VS. “real parents.”
ATTORNEY KRUK: “Here, we are talking about … petitioners (public school parents) in the abstract.”
JUDGE LEVINE: “No, they are not ‘abstract.’ They are actual parents.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
That’s not a good sign when the judge, correcting Kruk, leaps to the defense of the the petitioners, or the side Kruk was trying to defeat. Kruk was trying to to reduce those parents to abstractions, dehumanize them, so that JUDGE LEVINE could more easily rule against them.
Boy, did that backfire! Kruk shows an appalling disregard for the education and well-being of the public school students not attending Success Academy schools — much like Eva does.
Kruk’s and Eva’s attitude is:
“Oh, so your kids are all gonna get screwed, and your kids’ education will be irreparably harmed by what we’re going? Tough luck, suckers! We don’t give a sh%# about your kids or their education. We can legally get away with doing this, so we are! Nah nah-nah nah-nah nahhhhhh!”
Or so they thought.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
p. 11 — JUDGE LEVINE waxing about her own struggles to find a good school for her kids — much like the public school parent petitioners:
ATTORNEY KRUK: “I know that when I was looking (for schools) for my own kids, you know, you want to know what the reading scores are, you want to know the attendance rates, you obviously want it above the city average.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
This is not someone who sounds pre-disposed to screw over the public school kids of the public school parent petitioners.
There’s more good stuff in there to be excerpted, but I have to go meet some people.
Again, you can read it here:
Click to access Transcript-of-PS-25-Hearing-5.24.18.pdf
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I read the link and I agree with you that it was illuminating, but I got something very different from it.
The DOE attorney explained that there were under 100 students in grades K-5 (fewer than 20 per grade). But was most astonishing is how many came from other places! There were kids coming from Staten Island and the lawyer for the school was claiming that the school was necessary to serve students who lived in the zone. But it appeared not only were there not many students in the school, but there were even fewer zoned students.
The other thing that I thought was telling is the school’s attorney’s claim that PS 25 was superior based on their test scores — something Eva Moskowitz herself would approve of! And like Eva Moskowitz’ claims of superiority due to her school’s test scores, the claims of PS 25 are not really that valid.
I actually looked at PS 25’s state test scores for 2017. It turns out that in 3 grades — 3rd, 4th and 5th, a total of 24 students (8 in each grade) — were proficient in ELA. There is something patently unfair about a school that is so small that having 8 proficient students per grade allows them to claim their superiority to public schools with more students where a lot more than 8 students per grade are proficient. It is the kind of false boasting that Eva Moskowitz does, however, so I guess it is appropriate for a public school to defend itself as superior to other public schools based on the same criteria that Moskowitz uses.
I’m glad the judge sided with PS 25 and I don’t think the DOE attorney put up much of a fight, honestly. The court argument was NOT about the judge agreeing that PS 25 was a superior school to every other public school in District 16 because they had 8 proficient students per grade. It was about the timing of the decision and how it would affect the students.
I certainly hope that PS 25 can get more students to enroll. It still mystifies me why they cannot. But maybe it is because those other neighborhood public schools that they claim they are superior to are actually quite good, even if their passing rates on state tests aren’t as high. It’s hard for me to believe that anyone who supports the NYC teachers’ union would agree with the PS 25 argument that all those other District 16 public schools are awful because while more students overall pass state tests, the % of students who pass them is lower than PS 25 where only 16 students per grade are even taking those state tests.
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