Karen Magee has a problem with Eva Moskowitz. The leader of the New York State United Teachers lit into the head of our state’s most successful charter schools for her plans to put her kids on a bus Wednesday for a rally in Albany.
“Should Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc., as taxpayer-funded public schools, be permitted to close their doors and transport students, parents and staff to Albany for a rally?”
Magee just wrote Cuomo and the state Board of Regents.
Magee didn’t mention that, with a longer school year and school day, the average Success Academy kid has the equivalent of about 50 extra in-class instruction days than his district-school peers.
Besides, as a Post reporter noted last year, Success students don’t just nap on the trip. They’re drilled on math and science along the way.
But we understand Magee’s pain. She knows more and more people are seeing what insiders know: The wheels are coming off New York’s public-education monopoly.
Last year, Moskowitz and her reform-minded allies made the trip to frigid Albany because Mayor de Blasio was threatening the Success Academy schools by taking away their space. Gov. Cuomo sided with the kids, the Legislature backed him — and the mayor took a thumping.
But there’s much left for Albany to do. So with a mantra of “Don’t Steal Possible,” Wednesday’s rally will shine a light on the culture of failure and call for a rise in the charter cap and passage of a tax credit.
It’s a solid agenda. And we entirely understand why a teachers-union chief doesn’t like the idea of Albany’s pols getting a good look at kids who are learning at public schools that actually work.
Might give them more ideas.