June 01--If you follow New York's bare-knuckle politics, you know about Eva Moskowitz. She's the former City Council member who created and runs Success Academy Charter Schools. She may challenge charter-phobic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's re-election in 2017.
Success Academy has built a phenomenal track record in a short time, growing from one school with 165 children in 2006 to a system that will have 34 schools with 11,000 children in the next school year.
Last year, 64 percent of Success students passed state reading tests, compared to 29 percent of students at all New York City public schools; 94 percent of Success students passed math tests, compared to 35 percent of all schools.
A New York Times reporter recently spent time inside the Success schools and found "a system driven by relentless pursuit of better results, one that can be exhilarating for teachers and students who keep up with its demands and agonizing for those who do not. Rules are explicit and expectations precise. Students must sit with hands clasped and eyes following the speaker; reading passages must be neatly annotated with a main idea. Incentives are offered, such as candy for good behavior, and Nerf guns and basketballs for high scores on practice tests. For those deemed not trying hard enough, there is 'effort academy,' which is part detention, part study hall."
Yet de Blasio has tried to choke the Success schools by denying them space in public buildings and seeking to charge them rent for buildings they do occupy. Moskowitz "has to stop being tolerated, enabled, supported," de Blasio said in 2013.
His administration has dragged its feet on payments that are due to Success, Moskowitz told us during a recent visit to the Tribune. The teachers union has sued Success 19 times. They've blockaded the entrance of our school building," Moskowitz said.
We bring this up because the temperature has been rising in Chicago. There's more antipathy here to charter schools. We heard that often during the campaigns around the city for aldermanic seats.
Yet many charter schools here are outstanding, and there is huge demand for them. That includes the top-rated schools in the Noble Network of Charter Schools and the Chicago International Charter Schools network.
The Chicago Board of Education last week shelved a proposal from the Noble Network to take over part of the former Immaculata Sisters High School at Irving Park Road and Lake Shore Drive. The board came under intense pressure from aldermen and local high school officials, who say Noble would drain students and resources from neighborhood high schools.
We fundamentally believe that denying students and parents the widest choice of schools denies them the best opportunity to learn. It creates an incentive for parents to flee Chicago for the suburbs. This is a war that has to end. It does not serve children.
Charters could help this by making a better argument that they do indeed serve local children. But mostly, this is about protecting the education status quo.
There's a glimmer of good news: The Chicago school board is easing the ill-advised pledge by then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett (who resigned over the weekend) not to allow charter schools to move into any of the school buildings that were closed in 2013. The school board this week cleared Northwestern University Settlement Association to create a middle school facility in a building previously used by Peabody Elementary.
Say one thing for the charter fight in Chicago -- it hasn't been quite as bitter and intense as the fight in New York. But it could get there, particularly as CPS struggles to deal with its looming financial disaster. That would be a terrible turn for this city.
