Late last week, New York City’s “Panel for Educational Policy” rejected a plan that would have allowed the phenomenally successful Success Academies to open a charter school inside a half-empty Brooklyn middle school. Under the proposal, Success would have opened an elementary school in the building occupied by Andries Hudde Middle School. Success Academies, which serve mostly low-income students in high-poverty communities, still manages to boast a slew of the best-performing schools in the entire state of New York.
Success’s unyielding CEO Eva Moskowitz has been a thorn in the side of the de Blasio administration, given its hostility to charter schools and desire to make nice with the education bureaucracy. This time, however, the proposal was put forward by de Blasio’s team—only to be rejected by a panel on which eight of the 13 members are mayoral appointees.
The outcome raises the question of how sincere the mayor was about wanting to see Success get the go-ahead. After all, as Sarah Darville of Chalkbeat New York reported, some panel members complained about “the reputation Success Academy schools have for being bad neighbors and for the network’s policy of not filling seats that open up in its schools’ older grades.” Panel member Laura Zingmond said, “I know the head of Success Academy explained a few months ago that it’s not fair to take in older kids who are way behind” and that “really bothers me.”
The hurdles facing even highly successful charter schools can be staggering. Of course, opponents say they like charter schools just fine . . . so long as they look and act like traditional district schools. The thing is, there wouldn’t be an appetite for charters if those district schools were getting the job done. After all, New York City has hundreds of K-8 schools that take in children that are “way behind.” Few of them have also managed to post impressive academic results. The promise of charter schooling is that it allows schools like Success to craft a focused mission, vision, and culture. Allowing “older kids who are way behind” to enter midyear has been judged by Success to be incompatible with its ability to do enormous good for the students who show up in September. That seems reasonable to me. You’d think the Big Apple’s Panel for Education Policy might celebrate that kind of coherence—given the results it’s produced. Instead, last week, it chose to stand in the way of Success.
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