De Blasio Caves To Eva - That didn't take long, did it? City education boss Carmen Fariña retreated in the charter schools fight on Friday, saying the city is now searching for spa...
Moskowitz Again Uses Children As Political Props and Tabloids Cheer - For the third time in as many years, Eva Moskowitz, czarina of the Success Academy charter school empire and heroine of the campaign to privatize our publi...
Leonie Haimson writes:
See Interview w/ Fariña below by Juan Gonzalez below where he writes: “She’s even studying the facts. In the case of PS 149, for example, the Education Department officially projected that the co-location of Success Academy would produce enrollment at 132% of capacity. What idiot bureaucrat plans for an overcrowded school?”Sorry to say 12 of the co-location proposals that she is allowing to go forward will push the school building to 100% utilization or more; which we know is an underestimate of the actual level of overcrowding, since the Blue Book utilization formula does not properly capture the need for smaller classes, art and music rooms, programming of lunch at reasonable hours, access to the gym, or the need for specialty rooms for mandated services to students with disabilities.See the PEP agenda for even more co-locations to be voted on in May.Under the “revised” co-location of American Dream charter into PS 30 in the Bronx, the building is projected to go to 123-141% capacity!She also says: “She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more high-paid supervisors to run them.”But most every new school she is approving require not just more space, but more administration, including high-paid principals, etc., wasting money on bureaucracy that could go to hiring teachers for smaller classes. We have seen a huge explosion of spending on out =of-classroom positions the last ten years, with a sharp decline in the number of teachers, causing ever-increasing class sizes.
Gonzalez: Mayor de Blasio is not being overly harsh on charters, he's just not letting charter administrators do whatever they want
In the battle with Eva Moskowitz over charter schools, Mayor de Blasio is only restricting Moskowitz's power and putting limits on her control over the interests of city school children.
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David Handschuh/New York Daily News
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said that under the Bloomberg administration, Eva Moskowitz could do 'whatever she wanted.' Not anymore.
Nothing personal, says Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, but there will be no more favored treatment for Eva Moskowitz and her Success Charter Network.
During an extensive interview Thursday, Fariña explained her decision on whether to move ahead with 45 new schools the Bloomberg administration had approved to open this September in public school buildings.
In the end, Fariña gave the green light to 36 of those co-locations, including 14 new charter schools — a number some public school advocates consider too high.
RELATED: CUOMO TURNS HIS BACK ON CITY KIDS
Fariña even approved five of eight new charter schools sponsored by Moskowitz’s Success Academy network.
In only one case did she deny a planned expansion of an existing school — killing Success Academy Harlem Central Middle School’s plan to move 194 middle school students into PS 149 on W. 117th St.
So the notion being bandied about by Moskowitz, and in newspaper ads and television commercials sponsored by the charter school lobby, that Mayor de Blasio is “axing” charter schools and denying parents the program of their choice is pure nonsense.
RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL RUMBLE: EVA MOSKOWITZ VS. MAYOR DE BLASIO
It’s just that Moskowitz doesn’t get to call the shots anymore. “She was allowed to do whatever she wanted” in the past, Fariña said, but the days of “favorite treatment” are over.
Our new chancellor is actually listening to all sides .
She’s even studying the facts. In the case of PS 149, for example, the Education Department officially projected that the co-location of Success Academy would produce enrollment at 132% of capacity.
RELATED: BILL’S ORPHANS
What idiot bureaucrat plans for an overcrowded school?
“The people who did these space assignments were not educators,” Fariña said.
From now on, she will apply four criteria in reviewing proposed co-locations. She won’t put elementary and high schools in the same building. She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more high-paid supervisors to run them. She won’t approve co-locations that require expensive renovations of school properties.
RELATED: MAYOR DE BLASIO IS JUST LIVING UP TO CAMPAIGN PROMISES
And, most importantly, she won’t allow reduced services or seats for special education students.
“These are the most vulnerable and highest needs kids in our system,” Fariña said, but “they were the first kids to lose space or be moved” under the prior administration.
No one is happier about her policy change than the parents and staff at the Mickey Mantle school, a program for autistic and emotionally disturbed children that was slated to lose space and seats to the proposed expansion of Success Academy.
RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL FAMILIES LEFT SEARCHING
“Our school already lost a music, a theater arts and an art room the past few years,” said Barry Daub, principal at Mickey Mantle. Those losses happened to make room for Harlem Success 1, launched in the same building in 2006.
Mickey Mantle would have lost enrollment and even more space if Fariña had approved the Success Academy expansion.
“We would be doing physical and occupational therapy in the halls,” Daub said.
Yvette Santana, whose grandson Aaron Cruz is a fourth-grader at Mickey Mantle, is furious at the way parents and children are being pitted against each other.
“We don’t want to throw anybody out, but it’s not right to take away the programs our children have,” Santana said.
Fariña’s people say the four middle schools in the 22-school charter network Moskowitz already operates have enough empty seats to absorb the 194 students from Success Academy.
No child is being denied an education. It’s just that one charter network is no longer getting everything it demands.
During an extensive interview Thursday, Fariña explained her decision on whether to move ahead with 45 new schools the Bloomberg administration had approved to open this September in public school buildings.
In the end, Fariña gave the green light to 36 of those co-locations, including 14 new charter schools — a number some public school advocates consider too high.
RELATED: CUOMO TURNS HIS BACK ON CITY KIDS
Fariña even approved five of eight new charter schools sponsored by Moskowitz’s Success Academy network.
In only one case did she deny a planned expansion of an existing school — killing Success Academy Harlem Central Middle School’s plan to move 194 middle school students into PS 149 on W. 117th St.
So the notion being bandied about by Moskowitz, and in newspaper ads and television commercials sponsored by the charter school lobby, that Mayor de Blasio is “axing” charter schools and denying parents the program of their choice is pure nonsense.
RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL RUMBLE: EVA MOSKOWITZ VS. MAYOR DE BLASIO
It’s just that Moskowitz doesn’t get to call the shots anymore. “She was allowed to do whatever she wanted” in the past, Fariña said, but the days of “favorite treatment” are over.
Our new chancellor is actually listening to all sides .
She’s even studying the facts. In the case of PS 149, for example, the Education Department officially projected that the co-location of Success Academy would produce enrollment at 132% of capacity.
RELATED: BILL’S ORPHANS
What idiot bureaucrat plans for an overcrowded school?
“The people who did these space assignments were not educators,” Fariña said.
From now on, she will apply four criteria in reviewing proposed co-locations. She won’t put elementary and high schools in the same building. She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more high-paid supervisors to run them. She won’t approve co-locations that require expensive renovations of school properties.
RELATED: MAYOR DE BLASIO IS JUST LIVING UP TO CAMPAIGN PROMISES
And, most importantly, she won’t allow reduced services or seats for special education students.
“These are the most vulnerable and highest needs kids in our system,” Fariña said, but “they were the first kids to lose space or be moved” under the prior administration.
No one is happier about her policy change than the parents and staff at the Mickey Mantle school, a program for autistic and emotionally disturbed children that was slated to lose space and seats to the proposed expansion of Success Academy.
RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL FAMILIES LEFT SEARCHING
“Our school already lost a music, a theater arts and an art room the past few years,” said Barry Daub, principal at Mickey Mantle. Those losses happened to make room for Harlem Success 1, launched in the same building in 2006.
Mickey Mantle would have lost enrollment and even more space if Fariña had approved the Success Academy expansion.
“We would be doing physical and occupational therapy in the halls,” Daub said.
Yvette Santana, whose grandson Aaron Cruz is a fourth-grader at Mickey Mantle, is furious at the way parents and children are being pitted against each other.
“We don’t want to throw anybody out, but it’s not right to take away the programs our children have,” Santana said.
Fariña’s people say the four middle schools in the 22-school charter network Moskowitz already operates have enough empty seats to absorb the 194 students from Success Academy.
No child is being denied an education. It’s just that one charter network is no longer getting everything it demands.
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