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Friday, October 16, 2015

Eva Moskowtiz is Out of Control | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.

Eva Moskowtiz is Out of Control | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

Eva Moskowtiz is Out of Control






Fresh off their rally with charter school parents and students on October 7th, “Families” For Excellent Schools has announced that they will hold another rally on Wednesday the 21st of October.   This rally, which will be held in Manhattan’s Foley Square, will reportedly feature nearly 1,000 charter school teacherspredominantly from Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network.  While some teachers from Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and KIPP are expected to be present, Ms. Moskowitz’s workforce will be the primary participants, and the network just so happens to have a scheduled half school day so that teachers can show up to the rally for the purpose of pressuring law makers into allowing more charter schools in the city.  Chew on that for a moment: a scheduled half day of school.  A political rally.  The teachers in attendance.
I don’t know about you, but when my children’s unionized public school teachers take a half day, it is because they are in professional development workshops and related activities.  They certainly are not being taken from their schools to a rally organized by a lobbying group funded specifically to increase their influence with lawmakers in City Hall and in Albany.  In fact, try to imagine this scenario: Chancellor Farina organizes a half day of work for all city schools and then coordinates a rally for public schools with the UFT on the same day and 1000s of public school teachers, rather than using the half day for professional development, show up near city hall to provide the optics.  If you can pretend for one second that Governor Cuomo would not be demanding that the Assembly and Senate hold hearings and seek potential Eva Moskowtiz is Out of Control | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.: