DeBlasio recently boasted at the NEA candidates’ panel about his courageous resistance to the charter industry. It is true that he started his first term in office in 2014 determined to stop the charter zillionaires’ efforts to grab money and the students they wanted from the public schools.
When he did not grant Eva Moskowitz all the new charters she wanted, her backers launched a PR blitz against DeBlasio, spending $6 million on emotional appeals on TV.
Eva bused parents and students to Albany, where Governor Cuomo pledged his loyalty to the charter cause. The legislature passed a bill requiring NYC to let the charters expand at will, to give charters any public space they wanted at no cost, and to pay their rent if they couldn’t find suitable public space.
At that point, DeBlasio stopped fighting the charter industry.
Currently, the New York City Department of Education gives the charter industry its lists of students’ names and addresses for recruitment purposes.
Parents have protested this misuse of their children’s private information. This practice of releasing personally identifiable student information is illegal under state law.
Recently Chancellor Carranza pledged to end the practice. But as Leonie Haimson reported, DeBlasio reversed the decision and promised to reach his own decision. He has not made any decision and the charter industry continues to bombard public school parents with recruitment letters.
So much for those mythical long waiting lists!
Speaking of mythical waiting lists, Leonie Haimson also reported on an exciting new development at Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain:
More recently, Moskowitz created what is described as a “full service, brand strategy, marketing, and creative division within Success Academy” called the “The Success Academy Creative Agency” according to the LinkedIn profile of its Managing Director, Meredith Levin.
In an earlier version of her profile, Levin described this internal marketing division of Success as a “group of over 30 creative directors, designers, copywriters, strategists, e-learning architects & project managers to develop, execute and optimize campaigns to recruit 1,000+ teachers, enroll families, donors, influencers, and cultivate community engagement.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s a good thing public schools can also afford to have “internal marketing divisions” with “over 30 creative directors, designers, copywriters, strategists, e-learning architects & project managers to develop, execute and optimize campaigns to recruit 1,000+ teachers, enroll families, donors, influencers, and cultivate community engagement”.
Oh, wait….
Let’s say each of those thirty people are paid an average of $100,000/year (not unreasonable for New York professionals). That’s $3 million/year for marketing alone. I doubt the entire budget for the high school I graduated from is $3 million.
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an essential understanding of the game: it is NOT about the kids…
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I came for the inevitable full-throated defense of De Blasio in the comment section. I’ll check back later.
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I’m waiting for the full-throated defense of Moskowitz in the comment section! I’ll check back later.
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^^But as far as I know, Eva Moskowitz doesn’t post here, so she can’t “defend” Bill de Blasio by explaining why he is public enemy #1 to her.
Probably the best evidence about how successfully de Blasio has thwarted the charter movement is Eva Moskowitz’ hatred of him and her non-stop attacks on him as public enemy #1 against the charter movement.
Is there another politician who is the subject of such wrath by Eva Moskowitz? The woman adores Betsy DeVos and she has defended Donald Trump as a politician who needed to be given a chance (I guess she missed his racist and xenophobic campaign) and she places on her board the racist white billionaires who give lots of money to right wing Republicans. But she still hates de Blasio as if he is public enemy #1 against the charter movement.
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With 100,000 NYC students in charter schools that pay no rent and get public subsidy if they go into private space, it is hard to find any evidence of DeBlasio’s “success” against charters.
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So why does Eva Moskowitz hate de Blasio so much? Apparently he is the best thing that could happen because he does her bidding, right?
I found that de Blasio was the most anti-charter NYC politician I have encountered. And I have certainly tried to find others.
Actually, I should say that de Blasio is the most anti-charter politician I have encountered, period.
Has there been even one criticism of Eva Moskowitz by any progressive politician in or out of NYC?
I’m looking for pro-public school politicians to support and de Blasio is one of the few I have encountered. I’m reserving judging on Bernie because his Thurgood Marshall Plan left a lot of wiggle room for non-profit charters and did not actually directly criticize any of them!
Read the article in the Jacobin Magazine about how Bernie didn’t really address non-profit charters run by the likes of Eva Moskowitz (who Bernie has never criticized as far as I can tell).
I guess I like having one politician in the primary who actually stands up for public schools and cares about public schools.
I guess we can focus on what he didn’t do instead of what he has done. But given that what he has done is 1000x more than any candidate in the primary or any other politician I know, I guess I will keep defending him so people can’t just dismiss everything he says and the other candidates can continue their support of “non-profit” charters and not make any of their powerful funders unhappy by directly criticizing them or their CEOs.
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Just checked back. Yep, like clockwork.
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Diane Ravitch,
I hope you will warn FLERP! about these gratuitous remarks. They usually are directed at me whenever I criticize Eva Moskowitz, or defend Eva Moskowitz’ greatest enemy, Mayor de Blasio.
What did these two gratuitous remarks add to the conversation?
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I can’t find the comments that you find objectionable.
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The marketing campaign reaches across the country. I’ve been getting Facebook ads for Success Academy for months now. And I live in California. I don’t quite know how that’s going to work for us. Maybe they will fly my kid out to NY each day, or set up a Success Academy boarding school. They seem to have the budget for it. What a wise use of funds.
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Success Academy has more money than it can spend.
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It’s all about the children.
You have to spend money to make money, oops I mean to serve the kids. . .
For dinner that is.
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I write more about de Blasio’s refusal to halt the practice of letting charter schools use DOE mailing lists without parental consent in a blog post I wrote last November 2018 here: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/11/will-mayor-and-chancellor-halt-practice.html
One update/correction to the above: The internal ad & marketing division at Success is not new but has existed at least since 2017. Checking in now at Meredith Levin’s linked in profile, she describes starting the “in-house marketing and creative agency” of Success Academy with 30+ members in March 2017.
Among her responsibilities: “SuccessAcademies.org/EdInstitute (launched in over 50 countries)” whatever that means. She left Success in April 2019 and is now freelancing. See https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithlevin/
Senior Managing Director, The Success Academy Creative Agency
Dates Employed Mar 2017 – Present
Employment Duration 2 yrs 5 mos
Location Greater New York City Area
Founder of the in-house marketing and creative agency designed to advance the mission of Success Academy and support scaling. Responsible for the brand architecture, positioning, strategy, and integrated marketing campaigns and content to recruit families, donors, influencers, and teachers, while also cultivating community engagement. Currently managing team of 30+ creative directors, designers, copywriters, strategists, e-learning architects, and project managers.
Notable Achievements:
• Restructured for increased efficiency. Consolidated vendors, clarified staff roles, improved the organizational structure, increased output, and improved employee retention as people gained greater insight into how their functions directly influenced the organization and the community.
• Further articulated the organization’s multi-faceted value proposition to reinforce the benefits of Success Academy while also clarifying the direction of future marketing efforts.
• Increased average monthly page views across digital properties by utilizing content analytics, SEO, and tracking tools. Includes virtual schools, SuccessAcademies.org, and SuccessAcademies.org/EdInstitute (launched in over 50 countries).
• Manages digital team and native content for social properties
• Develops the most senior employees of the creative team to be highly capable leaders.
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Leonie,
Since de Blasio will be gone soon, which progressive NYC politician do you recommend as someone who is standing up with you on this issue and demanding that the DOE must stop giving any student information to mailing companies so charters can’t do their mailings?
Which NYC politicians have gone on record criticizing something Moskowitz has done — even once — or opposing something she wants (like the mailing lists, or free rent or her anger at not being able to make her own rules about how to treat her pre-k students)?
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Robert Jackson is one.
Letitia James is another.
He is a State Senator.
She is State Attorney General.
That’s just off the top of my head.
Leonie will know more.
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I would be thrilled if Leticia James turns out to be willing to go up against charters. I supported Zephyr Teachout because she had the strongest position by far on charters.
Plus I was a little worried because Leticia James was the handpicked choice of Andrew Cuomo to be Attorney General.
But I would be thrilled if Leticia James has been using her office and prominent position over the last 7 months to stand up strongly against charters. What has she done so far?
I assume that as Attorney General that Leticia James came out publicly to state in no uncertain terms that it was illegal for the DOE to provide names to charters and she threatened de Blasio with an investigation if he did not follow the law.
If not, why hasn’t she already done this very simple thing?
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That is the Mayor’s decision to make.
It is hardly a major state issue.
It is an issue for NYC parents.
And DeBlasio continues to ignore them and protect the ability of the charter industry to obtain the private information of students for recruitment purposes.
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^^^But reading about Robert Jackson, I really like his positions! I hope there are more like him.
It was the election of Robert Jackson and other progressive Democrats to Albany that are the only reason that there will not be 100,000 more students in NYC charters in the next few years.
The fact that they did not allow the charter cap to expand has really limited them. But they were not able to repeal the law that forces de Blasio to give charters free space or pay their rent.
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The progressive Democrats in the State Senate passed a bill to support students who opt out but the Assembly failed to pass it. NYSUT and the UFT are not supportive of outputs. And they do not oppose high-stakes testing.
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^Funny my first post is being held up, so this continuation seems a bit odd.
Leticia James was handpicked by Andrew Cuomo. She has been Attorney General for 7 months so has she publicly told de Blasio to stop breaking the law and giving these names to charters?
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Cuomo was wise to choose Tish James.
She is a great campaigner and she won both the primary and the general election.
She is now hot on the trail of Trump’s corruption.
She has been consistently anti-charter.
I can’t say whether the issue of the charter violation of state law has risen to a level where she would order the Mayor to take action.
Don’t you think DeBlasio would have the brains and the nerve to do it without an order from the State Attorney General?
What is he afraid of?
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It is a very simple thing for Tish James to say “giving those names to vendors is illegal and you must stop.” She is the NY State Attorney General!!! That is her job.
She can easily fight Trump and spend one minute writing a press release that says just that.
I don’t understand why Tish James would be given a pass when she could easily do what de Blasio refuses to do.
She has had 7 months and as far as I can tell, she has done nothing about charters and has been the good soldier that Andrew Cuomo knew he was getting when he endorsed her.
And I’d love to be proven wrong on this and have someone say “I told you so” when James steps up does her elected job and tells de Blasio that his actions are against the law. Or does anything that the charters don’t like.
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NO, it is NOT Tish James’ job to pursue every violation of the law in NY state.
It is Bill DeBlasio’s job as Mayor of New York City and as the person with complete control of the NYC Department of Education, to stop giving the names and addresses of public school students to the charter industry for recruitment purposes.
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“NO, it is NOT Tish James’ job to pursue every violation of the law in NY state.”
Right, she only has to pursue the violations she thinks are important or that won’t get her into hot water with Cuomo.
All I can say is that I feel certain that if Zephyr Teachout, who was not endorsed by Andrew Cuomo, had won the election, and Zephyr was Attorney General, she would have taken action against charters and their secret enablers like de Blasio already.
Especially when Teachout knew it would take one minute to issue a warning to de Blasio to follow the law.
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NYC Public school Parent – whoever you are – not only are Robert Jackson and Tish james far more consistently courageous in standing up against abusive practices of charter schools than de Blasio, but so do many other progressive legislators and City Council Members.
As just one example, four Council Members wrote a letter urging de Blasio to stop the practice of giving charters access to DOE mailing lists nearly a year ago: Dromm, Treyger, Levin and Lander. The letter, which I posted on my blog is here: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/11/will-mayor-and-chancellor-halt-practice.html and separately here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gIx5dzTjw9jeXgefXFf7QVdYX9RWrPqW/view
In addition, during the last legislative session, RJ submitted S3334, https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2019/S3334A in the State Senate, co-sponsored by Biaggi, to require stricter rules and oversight to prevent charter school abuses. Senator Brad Hoylman proposed a different bill , S4237, which in other ways would significantly strengthen charter accountability and oversight and also restrict their ability to get preferential treatment and free space at the city expense. The RJ bill was also submitted in the Assembly by AM Bichotte as the prime sponsor, and many AMs signed on, including Abinanti, Dinowitz, and Deborah Glick. We are urging Hoylman and RJ to merge their bills and next year we will be lobbying in a more organized fashion for the legislature to pass them.
De Blasio hasn’t said a word about either bill, by the way, nor has he publicly criticized the abusive practices of charters in quite some time, as far as I know. His first public words in years against charters were when he spoke at the NEA convention,. And even though Carranza told parents he wanted to stop the practice of providing access to DOE mailing lists, de Blasio overruled him. This is a practice which NO other district in the country does voluntarily, by the way, even charter-friendly districts. This is why Diane is completely right in calling him a hypocrite.
Ever since Eva’s deep-pocketed financiers ran some TV ads against de Blasio when he rejected the plan to co-locate three of her schools in buildings where they would have deprived D75 special ed students of critical space, while letting lots of other Success co-locations go through, he has been running scared and has given her and other charter schools nearly everything they ask for. The fact that she yells and screams continually anyway is just the way Eva is.
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NYC Public school Parent – whoever you are – not only are Robert Jackson and Tish james far more consistently courageous in standing up against abusive practices of charter schools than de Blasio, but so do many other progressive legislators and City Council Members.
As just one example, four Council Members wrote a letter urging de Blasio to stop the practice of giving charters access to DOE mailing lists nearly a year ago: Dromm, Treyger, Levin and Lander. The letter, which I posted on my blog is here: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/11/will-mayor-and-chancellor-halt-practice.html and separately here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gIx5dzTjw9jeXgefXFf7QVdYX9RWrPqW/view
In addition, during the last legislative session, RJ submitted S3334, https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2019/S3334A in the State Senate, co-sponsored by Biaggi, to require stricter rules and oversight to prevent charter school abuses. Senator Brad Hoylman proposed a different bill , S4237, which in other ways would significantly strengthen charter accountability and oversight and also restrict their ability to get preferential treatment and free space at the city expense. The RJ bill was also submitted in the Assembly by AM Bichotte as the prime sponsor, and many AMs signed on, including Abinanti, Dinowitz, and Deborah Glick. We are urging Hoylman and RJ to merge their bills and next year we will be lobbying in a more organized fashion for the legislature to pass them.
De Blasio hasn’t said a word about either bill, by the way, nor has he publicly criticized the abusive practices of charters in quite some time, as far as I know. His first public words in years against charters were when he spoke at the NEA convention,. And even though Carranza told parents he wanted to stop the practice of providing access to DOE mailing lists, de Blasio overruled him. This is a practice which NO other district in the country does voluntarily, by the way, even charter-friendly districts. This is why Diane is completely right in calling him a hypocrite.
Ever since Eva’s deep-pocketed financiers ran some TV ads against de Blasio when he rejected the plan to co-locate three of her schools in buildings where they would have deprived D75 special ed students of critical space, while letting lots of other Success co-locations go through, he has been running scared and has given her and other charter schools nearly everything they ask for. The fact that she yells and screams continually anyway is just the way Eva is.
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Leonie,
Thank you, I am certainly glad to see a list of politicians willing to speak out. I know that when I voted for de Blasio for Mayor it was because not a single one of the other candidates in the primary would. I still believe that Zephyr Teachout would have been far more willing to put herself on the line to speak out against bad practices by charters. Andrew Cuomo has never been willing to go against charters – Cuomo is far worse than de Blasio as I hope you know. To me, the likelihood of Cuomo endorsing someone who would speak out against the charters whose bidding he does are about zero. I will have to believe you that it is true and hope that Leticia James proves it by standing up for this issue that she could easily solve with a very short press release announcing that this practice is illegal and saying de Blasio should obey the law.
But I find it odd that you would say that de Blasio hasn’t done anything since he tried to stop Moskowitz from displacing severely handicapped kids way back in early 2014.
Why are you ignoring the long fight de Blasio had with Moskowitz trying to limit the punishments she can give 4 year olds in universal pre-k (she refused to have any oversight by the DOE) – which de Blasio fought all the way until Nov. 2018 when a court ruled against him?
I happen to think that fight was more important than mailing lists.
To say that Moskowitz just rants against de Blasio for no reason seems disingenuous of you and I don’t expect that from you. Moskowitz is ranting because de Blasio’s DOE slow-walked co-locations that she wanted and she kept threatening and threatening him for not meeting “deadlines” (that she invented). She ranted because he wasn’t giving in to her demands for pre-k and she had to fight it in the courts.
Moskowitz doesn’t just “rant” — she “rants” against people who don’t do what she wants, just like Trump does. She “rants” against people who say “mean” things about her or criticize her, just like Trump does.
Being “ranted” against by Moskowitz is like being ranted against by Trump. It should be considered a badge of honor by progressives because it means someone stood up to them and it’s someone they thinks is dangerous to them.
I will be pleased to have de Blasio replaced by someone even more willing to call out charter CEOs and thwart their desires. I don’t expect them to do everything I want. de Blasio has done some very good things that have garnered the wrath of the right wing. I hope the next Mayor is as brave.
I am offended by your gratuitous remark “whoever you are”, directed at me, which seems to be some innuendo that I am not exactly what the name I use implies — a public school parent in NYC. I even assume that some people (including Moskowitz’ minions) have figured out who I am). I don’t feel like using my real name as many people on here do not. But I never lie. And I never pretend to be someone I am not. I don’t expect an apology from you as I respect the work you do and I’m sure you are far too busy to care whether your innuendo is true. But I want to set the record straight and maybe you won’t be so unkind to the next person who doesn’t embrace your belief that de Blasio is completely a tool of the charter movement and has been unwilling to do anything that they don’t approve of for the last 5 years.
That just doesn’t correspond with the reality I see.
I thank you for your good work. Just because I disagree with you on this issue does not mean that I don’t respect the work you do and your dedication to public schools.
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Everything de Blasio does is situational. Here’s a modest (mostly tongue-in-cheek) proposal to solve the Charter School Problem.
It was inspired by the confusing solutions the Mayor and Chancellor have spun out to give minorities greater representation (= equity) at NYC’s best selective high schools. These are aimed at the top of the pyramid and emphasize equity–a very progressive word.
Apply that concept to the charter schools, where 90% of the students are of color. Certainly not fair to whites. But there are no testing requirements for admission. Could Moskowitz and her comrades object since they are always looking for expansion of real estate, resources and more kids?
Pass local laws and state legislation supporting the changes, lifting the cap on charters, but making it contingent on them to be transparent with publicly auditable budgets, enrollments, test scores, attrition, etc.
Since NYC already must provide free space, site new integrated charters in each district in existing public schools. Discourage white flight. Don’t know where this all leaves children classified as Asian. (And we must account for ELLs and children with special needs.)
Bus white kids to these integrated charters so they could have the advantages that accrue to the Success Academies. Study what the overall impact would be on cheese wagon runs.
Devil remains in a few details: How can smaller class sizes be leveraged out of this? What happens to other public schools during this transition and how does gentrification play into it? Will citywide test scores go up?
Convince de Blasio his new vague visionary plan will play well on the campaign trail.
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There are already white students at Success Academy charters.
But they attend Success Academy charter schools that have a significantly higher percentage of white students than the NYC average and have an extraordinarily high percentage of middle class and affluent students of all backgrounds. There are relatively few low income students and even fewer at-risk students compared to their overall percentage in NYC public schools.
There are more Success Academy charter elementary schools in the very richest Manhattan district — and they insist that students who live in the district get priority — than there are Success Academy charters in any of the very poorest districts in the Bronx.
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Thank you.
I was using 2018 summary data from the NYC Charter School Center that indicated: 53% Black and 38% Hispanic enrollment in 235 charter schools; and 7% ELLs.
I took the gross numbers to mean there was an under-representation of Whites.
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Yes, white students are underrepresented overall, but the gross numbers hide the fact that many Success Academy schools have almost no white students and then there are the other ones located in affluent neighborhoods like the three elementary schools in Manhattan’s District 2 that have disproportionately low numbers of economically disadvantaged students where the white students are overrepresented.
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50% of the students accepted to Success Academy charter schools choose not to enroll.
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“When he did not grant Eva Moskowitz all the new charters she wanted, her backers launched a PR blitz against DeBlasio, spending $6 million on emotional appeals on TV.”
And no progressive politician came to his defense. Many of them jumped on the bandwagon to say that de Blasio “should have known” that if he took something away from charters that Mayor Bloomberg had given him, he would simply be helping charters by turning them into sympathetic victims.
Which of course would also happen if he stopped another Bloomberg policy.
It’s funny that it is progressives who believe de Blasio has “stopped fighting the charter industry” while the charter industry itself still considers de Blasio one of the most dangerous politicians and have continued non-stop to do everything they could to undermine him. There have been constant protests at City Hall because they aren’t getting what they want (including space they want because although he is now legally obligated to give them space, it does’t have to be the prime space Bloomberg did).
There have been lawsuits because de Blasio wouldn’t let charters run pre-k without the right to suspend as many 4 year olds as they wanted and they demanded the public money to run pre-k any way they wanted. There have been non-stop articles and op eds from pro-charter voices attacking de Blasio that have continued from 2014 to now.
To me, the real hypocrites are the progressive politicians who said that it was all de Blasio’s fault for caring about severely handicapped children being evicted from their schools so charters could take them over and trying to stop it. It was the wrong battle to fight, they said. He was politically inept, they said, for cancelling a Bloomberg program. He should have known this would backfire and give charters lots of sympathy.
To me, the real hypocrites are the so-called pro-public school progressives who campaign to elect a DFER Democrat to turn Virginia into a completely charter friendly state or sit with Andrew Cuomo praising him for his great his education policies.
Not the very few politicians like de Blasio who put themselves on the line and become the object of severe criticism by fighting for education policies that are best for the most at-risk students.
And a fight to stop Bloomberg’s policy to give names to charters is not going to give very much to poor kids. But fighting to limit the amount of space that charters can take over their schools will. Fighting to make sure charter pre-ks can’t suspend those kids will. Fighting to establish renewal schools and give massive amounts of money to them will. Fighting for integration policies will. None of those policies is popular and de Blasio didn’t win those battles but unlike most Democrats, he tried to fight them.
I always find it odd that progressives attack their own for what they don’t do instead of recognizing the many good things the progressive politician does do. I find it odd when progressives attack a politician for not doing something and then when they do something and it backfires, attack the politician for being inept and in hindsight insist that the politician should have known not to fight the battle that way.
I am positive that if de Blasio tries to end this Bloomberg era program, there will be lawsuits and propaganda. I think he eventually will end it, but not at a time when charters are in one of their worst possible positions with the public finally starting to recognize that they have exaggerating their claims and are hurting students in public schools. The gain that would come with giving charters a lot of sympathy is very small. Maybe I temporarily (until charters win their lawsuit) won’t be getting any more mailings from charters along with the other junk mail I toss every day. But the cost for not getting those mailings we all ignore is that charters will once again get lots of public sympathy and de Blasio will lose his political capital to work on more important issues like stopping the expansion of charters altogether and integration.
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So what if there are lawsuits?
DeBlasio has legal counsel.
Your ranting defenses make me more convinced than ever that he is afraid of the charter lobby and is not willing to tell them they are not entitled to private student data.
He is a weasel.
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Can’t resist, this is the sound of deformerism:
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Really? I did not realize I was “ranting”.
I just believe in offering the full facts.
A direct bulk-mailing firm, Vanguard Direct, is given student names, grade levels and addresses and Vanguard Direct is forbidden to share that data with anyone. But charters can then pay Vanguard to send mailings to those names and addresses on their behalf.
This policy started under Bloomberg and not one state or local official said it was illegal.
In fact, NY state officials have known about the for years and say they are still trying to determine if it is a violation of FERPA or not. How long does that take? There should have been a clear decision years ago.
I was merely trying to offer what I suspected was the reason that de Blasio hasn’t taken action on an issue that happens to be of less importance to many parents than other issues that he has taken action on and has gone up against charters.
It just seems silly to accuse de Blasio – who is the one politician who has actually stood up to charters again and again – of “being afraid of the charter lobby”! If he was afraid, why was he the only politician at the NEA willing to actually call them out?
If de Blasio was afraid, why did he have a big fight with the charter industry who were demanding public money for pre-k but insisting that they didn’t have to follow the same rules and if they wanted to suspend lots of 4 year old children they should be free to do so without any telling them couldn’t?
The only thing de Blasio is afraid of is giving charters a new propaganda tool that makes them look like victims because he knows that every progressive politician will say he was stupid to pick that fight and make charters sympathetic when public sympathy is currently against them.
I think de Blasio has been very smart lately in thwarting giving charters only the minimum necessary and not providing them with a boogey man who is out to get them. That’s why public sympathy is not with charters right now because they can’t pretend to be victimized by the mean charter-hating Mayor. And I have read numerous countless op eds and articles painting de Blasio just that way every single month and often every week. It has no traction because de Blasio didn’t “take away” something from poor kids.
I bet if the court rules it is illegal to give charters these names, de Blasio would comply but if he does not, and spends DOE resources to fight a court decision that it violates rights, then I would agree with you that is cowardly.
And I’m sorry you believe my explanation for why it seems odd to attack the one politician who has shown over and over again that he is one of the only NYC politicians willing to stand up to charters at all is “ranting”.
We shall have to agree to disagree and when the next Mayor comes into office I am sure they will be one of the myriad of progressive NYC politicians who have stood up against charters. Too bad I can’t think of a single name right now.
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Diane, I apologize as I realize my post above left out something important:
I totally support you and Leonie and the parents who don’t believe that the DOE should allow Vanguard to send out mailings on behalf of charter schools. You should absolutely be holding de Blasio’s feet to the fire on this issue.
The only thing I was objecting to are when de Blasio’s decisions to support or not support something are characterized as being a hypocrite or being secretly pro-charter or being totally afraid of doing anything that the charter movement doesn’t want him to do. That just does not correspond with the reality I see. de Blasio is far from perfect, but his stance on charters has been one of the best of any progressive politician, period. That doesn’t mean he has been perfect on the issue, but given how fast the other progressive politicians in NYC have run away from doing anything that charters won’t like, I found it very refreshing that de Blasio was willing to stand up to them and speak out against them and fight them on occasion by not giving them what they wanted. Even when it cost him politically (and it did) and no other progressive politicians had his back or stepped up to defend him when his decisions were mis-characterized as “hurting poor children”. de Blasio is one of the few politicians who does not seem to be a coward. That’s why Cuomo hates him so much.
That doesn’t mean he has been perfect, as he has not been. But I can’t think of another progressive politician who has stood up to charters as much as de Blasio, and while I’m glad Bernie does seem to have joined him, he is a latecomer to this. And the other progressives seem quite cowardly. I haven’t seen any progressive NYC politicians joining Leonie and demanding a halt to this practice but maybe I missed that.
When de Blasio stands up for public schools at democratic debates and forums and minces no words about charters, he is doing a great service for those who support public education. When he is called a hypocrite and a fraud, it simply gives permission for the other candidates to ignore the important points he is making and continue the same meaningless platitudes that Carol Burris called out.
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Nycpsp, I agree with you that the issue of giving charters pupils’ private info to use for marketing is small potatoes compared to allowing charters to co-locate in pubsch spaces, or to allow them to suspend as many 4-yo’s as they see fit (& that’s just 2 of many serious issues). But regardless of how many times DeBlasio may have spoken out on the serious issues, he has caved– no doubt due to the political realities that have kept others, in other cities, silent.
So maybe just focus on this one baby step– it seems like a good bet since as you say, NYC sticks out like a sore thumb here. The disappointment progressives express re: DeBlasio on charters is not ad hominem, I don’t think– it is just the hopelessness one feels when even those who grasp the realities & speak out can’t get any traction in this political system.
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No one here (me) is asking DeBlasio to run a full-face campaign against charters.
I am asking simply to state that the NYC Department of Education, which he fully controls, will no longer give personal student data to charter marketing firms.
How hard is that? The charter industry can’t and won’t fight back because the issue is so small.
Since they do not have waiting lists, they need to market and recruit.
Let them do it on their own dime.
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“The charter industry can’t and won’t fight back because the issue is so small.”
What? When this was even mentioned in passing by Carranza the op eds and pro-charter reporters in major NYC newspapers started writing about it and positioning this as de Blasio – for no reason except to hurt poor children — was ending a perfectly legal Bloomberg program that had been in existence for many years that allowed poor parents to learn about the different school choices their kids had.
Do you really think people would be on de Blasio’s side? It would make charters look like victims again. I really do object to your saying that it would be so easy. It would give charters a huge PR boost because de Blasio was “taking away” something from poor kids.
This is not a “small” issue to charters and they have the deep pocket books to make it a huge issue.
If it was so easy, where are the other progressive politicians standing up with Leonie demanding de Blasio stop it? Those progressive NYC politicians are certainly are standing up demanding de Blasio stop trying to integrate specialized high schools and criticizing Carranza for something or other. So where are the progressive politicians on this?
I understand when politicians decide to pick their battles. de Blasio is not ready to pick this battle right now but there is absolutely no reason that he won’t pick it in the future. But he has other battles to fight right now that have more importance – at least to me – and the notion that he could just do this without having a huge battle that will impact his ability to fight those other battles is just not true.
Why does de Blasio not deciding to fight a minor battle when he is fighting far more major battles against charters have to get such a negative response?
I’d love to have de Blasio kicked out of office roight now and replaced with a Mayor who will “stand up” to charters. Can you please give me the name of a progressive politician who is standing up with Leonie or has stood up with de Blasio in the past when he did go up against the charter powers? I cannot find anyone.
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DeBlasio is term limited. He will be gone soon. What does he have to lose by stopping the privilege extended to the charter industry of having full access to the names and addresses of every child enrolled in public schools? Do you think this is appropriate? Why should Macy’s help Gimbel’s? How is it competition if the public schools help the charter schools recruit public school students? Don’t they have “waiting lists”?
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bethree5,
I think it is a completely false characterization to say that de Blasio “caved” on stopping a Bloomberg era program. He just decided not to have that political fight right now because he knew it would give charters lots of sympathy and give them things they do not have now instead of gaining anything for public schools.
Why would anyone not understand why de Blasio doesn’t want to give new ammunition to charters when they are now back on their heels?
That isn’t cowardice. de Blasio has stood up for more controversial progressive issues than any politician I can think of and as Mayor, he actually did it – which always leads to more attacks since nothing works perfectly. Ending stop and frisk. His reaction to the ebola “crisis”. Not continuing Bloomberg’s policies of giving charters free space. Not giving charters the right to have their own rules running pre-k. Trying to limit suspensions of the very youngest children in elementary school. Integrating schools.
Why is this issue so important that some people insist that de Blasio is a hypocrite or coward because he chose not to use his limited political capital to fight a major battle about whether a mailing house can continue to do mailings for charters instead of using his limited political capital to fight for things that won’t make charters look like victims and give them lots of sympathy and public support?
I don’t expect to get 100% of what I want from politicians. I waiting for years for Bernie to criticize two of the most powerful charter promoters — Eva Moskowitz or Andrew Cuomo — and never got it. That doesn’t mean Bernie is a coward.
Bernie just didn’t see any point in going up against Andrew Cuomo when Bernie had other battles to fight. I don’t hear progressives attacking Bernie as a hypocrite and saying that it would have been very easy to open his mouth and say “Andrew Cuomo is not a good Governor and should be defeated”. Cynthia Nixon wasn’t afraid to say it, but Bernie did not.
Defining Bernie by his single political decision not to go up against Cuomo would be wrong. Bernie wasn’t a “coward” or a “hypocrite”. He merely decided he had more important battles to fight.
I don’t understand why one of the few progressive politicians actually trying to do something to make this country better is mischaracterized based on the few things he isn’t doing when the whole of what he has done is so clearly in service to the progressive causes I thought we all supported.
No matter which progressive politician wins the primary, if they win the election they aren’t going to be perfect on every issue. I don’t think that means they are hypocrites or cowards if they are still continuing to fight some of the important battles that we need to fight.
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This is incoherent and bizarre. I don’t know pro-public school progressive advocates or parents who “sit with Andrew Cuomo praising him for his great education policies.” He is widely excoriated on education policies by progressives, far more than de Blasio is. What do you possibly mean?
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I was talking about Bernie Sanders sitting next to Andrew Cuomo in a staged event to announce Cuomo’s flawed “free college” program and praising his education policy. Cuomo got a lot of progressive credibility from all Bernie Sanders’ praise for him that day. And then Sanders refused to endorse Cynthia Nixon against Cuomo. I get that those were legitimate political calculations and that doesn’t mean that Sanders is pro-Cuomo. He just made a choice one time not to stand up against Cuomo when he had the opportunity to endorse a real progressive like Cynthia Nixon. And Andrew Cuomo has done more for the charter industry than Corey Booker has ever dreamed of. If anyone deserves to have his progressive opponent endorsed by Bernie Sanders, it is Andrew Cuomo.
That’s what I mean.
I’m sorry that I wrote the comment in an incoherent way. I was trying to explain that every progressive politician makes choices about what political battles to fight and just because Bernie chose not to endorse Cynthia Nixon against the awful Cuomo does not mean that Bernie is afraid of Cuomo or is a hypocrite. It just means he didn’t choose to fight that battle. Politicians can’t fight every battle. If they choose not to fight some progressive battles, that is disappointing but it isn’t grounds to call them a hypocrite if they have fought those battles in the past and continue to fight them.
I’m only pointing this out in the hopes that if you are willing to understand why Bernie didn’t want to pick a fight with Cuomo and endorse Cynthia Nixon, the real progressive, then you might understand why other politicians don’t fight every single battle even if we wish they would.
I look at the good things de Blasio has done — which are numerous, especially ending stop and frisk when any rise in the murder rate would have been the end of his political career. I see him willing to take on integration — he gets criticized both for not doing enough and doing anything at all, but he is certainly willing to take the criticism and try. I see him willing to try the Renewal program which I believe was absolutely the right thing to do and did some good things and the fact that it wasn’t perfect or didn’t turn every kid into a scholar doesn’t mean that he didn’t do the right thing by trying. I see him doing his best – given what Albany has forced on him – to limit Eva Moskowitz from getting everything she demands. Of course he could do better, but so could every politician.
I commend you for staying on his case and the good work you do. I don’t object to criticism of de Blasio when he isn’t acting fast enough. I just think that any characterization of him being scared of the charter movement when he is one of the politicians most hated by the charter movement is not accurate.
I was glad de Blasio was in the race for one reason only. Because I believed that if he did what I suspected he might do — made strong strong and clear statements against the privatization movement — including “non-profit” charters that other candidates tiptoe around criticizing — that it would lead to a very important discussion that is long past due.
de Blasio did exactly what I hoped he would do at the NEA. And it undermines the message when he is just dismissed as a hypocrite who is really deeply scared of not doing everything that charters demand of him. And de Blasio is no more scared of Eva Moskowitz than Bernie Sanders is scared of Andrew Cuomo. Just because they don’t stand up to them every single time does not mean that they kowtow to what they want.
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De Blasio is scared of Eva and her hedge fund supporters. There is no other rational reason why he should have reversed Carranza’s decision to stop sharing the DOE mailing list with charters after Carranza had told parents about he would.
And the Renewal program was an utter failure in large part b/c they refused to reduce class size in many of these schools as they had promised the state to do.
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2019/02/requiem-for-renewal-schools-what-sad.html
De Blasio himself has no vision for education that goes beyond age four; and Carmen was a lousy Chancellor.
Leonie Haimson Class Size Matters/ Parent Coalition for Student Privacy http://www.classizematters.org http://www.studentprivacymatters.org leoniehaimson@gmail.com
Follow me at @leoniehaimson
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You may be right that de Blasio doesn’t have “a vision” for education beyond early years. I would never argue with that very reasonable statement. And I can understand why you may believe that Carmen was a lousy chancellor and I can understand why other people believe she was one of the better chancellors and Carranza is the lousy chancellor.
But I don’t agree that de Blasio’s decision not to stop a Bloomberg policy had anything to do with him being afraid of Moskowitz. Just like I don’t think Bernie’s adamant refusal to endorse Cynthia Nixon had anything to do with Bernie being afraid of Andrew Cuomo. Both de Blasio and Bernie both made political calculations that taking that action would make things worse and not better. They both may have been wrong but both decisions were – to me at least – understandable even if I wish they would have acted differently. Boy do I wish Bernie would have stood up against the right wing Andrew Cuomo and endorsed the progressive Cynthia Nixon. But he didn’t. I knew Bernie wasn’t afraid of Cuomo. I knew that Bernie made the best decision he could under the circumstances. Just like I understand that de Blasio is trying to make the best decision not for him but for what he believes will lead to a better outcome. Given the outcry and op eds and editorials and protests within one day of Carranza even mentioning ending Mayor Bloomberg’s program to give names to charters, I know that ended it would have caused a big PR headache. There was already a competing “protest” by “charter parents” to talk about how awful it was that the poorest children were being deprived of the knowledge of their “choices” by the mean old DOE who hate poor kids and just wants to help the union. So there is no question that would be plenty of rallies about how de Blasio was “taking away” something from poor kids. To me, getting more junk mail I can throw away from charters is much better than having them look like victims and having Albany give them a bunch more boondoggles.
That’s why I wish that Tish James would “order” de Blasio to “stop breaking the law”. If the state attorney general says in no uncertain terms that giving names to charters is breaking the law, de Blasio would stop, but the charters would not be able to play victim. They can no longer say de Blasio is victimizing them because he is simply following the law. No traction to charters’ efforts to play victim just like they couldn’t get any traction when they tried to play victim when de Blasio didn’t give them all the space they wanted but offered them space they rejected.
That being said, I am so very grateful that you are fighting to put pressure on de Blasio to make that change. I think he eventually will. And I am so very grateful for all your hard work supporting public schools. Thank you very much.
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From the evolving Jeffrey Epstein stories, we learn that NY and Boston politicians, business people, academicians,… don’t draw lines when taking money. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reported recently that the non-profit of the wife of Larry Summers (former Harvard President and current CAP Distinguished Visiting Scholar) took a gift from Epstein in 2016 to popularize poetry. And, the same year, Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 got a gift from Epstein.
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Breaking News: Acosta resigned!!!
Power of the people, & good riddance to one who couldn’t even stoop to being an apologist (he stood his ground in Epstein’s {uber scumbag’s} defense…& his own).
Yay!!! This in no small way makes up for what happened to these young girls, but my guess is that, now, further details about others will be revealed.
(&, BTW, Epstein’s lawyer just asked for “house arrest”…yeah, right, he’s not a flee risk.)
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If Larry Summers’ gets tarnished in the Epstein scandal, it will be interesting to see CAP’s response. It must not bother CAP Board member, Stacy Abrams, that Summers is on the TFA and Broad Foundation boards.
Is Summers as much a villain as Duncan and Coleman?
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It does make one wonder how DeBlasio thinks he can be president when he can’t even stand up to Eva.
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Gosh, yes, GregB.!
But, as w/Cory (of the later Cory, Cary & Curry post), looks like his %age points are too low for him to get very far, so IMO, there’s naught to worry about, methinks.
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You just eliminated every single candidate in the Democratic primary!
None of whom have stood up to Eva. Only de Blasio has, on more than one occasion.
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Thank goodness for independent schools. The big public education monopoly factory schools aren’t the right fit for everyone. We moved to an independent school and the changes have been nothing short of amazing. Kids are more important than teachers union jobs.
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It is okay to choose an independent school or a religious school so long as you don’t expect the public to pay for your private choice.
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Matt,
Kids are not more important than independent private school administrators’ jobs. As you know, independent schools regularly get rid of – or simply don’t accept — students they don’t want to teach.
What happens when the independent school decides your kids are no longer the right fit and no other independent school wants them? What if you don’t have $50,000/year anymore to spend and the school wants to give financial aid to students who are more popular than your kids?
Uh oh. Then you will learn how “important” your kid is. And your kid’s favorite teacher — not in a union – certainly doesn’t want to stand up for your kid and lose her job.
Your kids will end up at the only schools that really care about ALL kids — those “education monopoly” public schools.
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