Separate and Unequal Schools in NYC: Rally at PS 123 on First Day of School

This the first in a series, with a focus on the tactics of Eva Moskowitz and her Harlem Success Academy machine.

Join our Protest!
Eva Moskowitz and Her Charter School Must Go!
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
6:30am in the Morning! (and at 3:30PM)
West 141st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (8th Avenue)
For more information please contact William Hargraves (718) 812-1102.

Click to enlarge. Pdf available on request.


Here is an email from Mark Torres of the Coalition for Public Education:

Support on the struggle being waged by students, parents, staff, administrators and community of P.S. 123 in Harlem. they have been fighting theft of space and many other injustices perpetrated by Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship.

The P.S. 123 community has worked hard, for over a year, to reach out and resolve problems forced upon them by the charter school invasion of their building. However, Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship have not resolved any problems and are only concerned about pushing more and more private charter schools into public school buildings.

P.S. 123 is now ready to stand up for all public schools in our city and they need our help.

Please support P.S. 123 and defend our public school system.

Charter School War at PS 160, Co-op City

Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) members Angel Gonzalez and Pam Garrison went up to Co-op City to support the parents and teachers at PS 160 who are fighting off the imposition of a charter school in their building. The original application for the charter was for District 11, which does not have as much of a middle class population to draw from as District 12 with Co-op City. So they are trying to switch horses in midstream. Talk about creaming.

Equality Charter School at P.S. 160, Bronx

by Pam Garrison
June 11, 2009-- A Equality Charter School revision meeting took place at P.S. 160 in District 11 - Bronx where changes to its charter proposal for its placement at this Co-op City zoned elementary school were to be discussed. Equality Charter School plans to open with 132 sixth graders and eventually would become a 6th-12th grade secondary school with a total population of 414 students. Instead of a discussion on the proposed revisions, the meeting, with close to 100 people including young students, generated a raucous and sometimes hostile exchange over whether this Charter Middle School should be placed at PS 160 at all.
The announcement of the placement of the Equality Charter at PS 160 caught many off guard and has divided the community as well as the PS 160 PTA. Its co-president, Mona Davids, who now also heads a newly created Citywide Pro-Charters Parent Association, rallied speakers in favor and an audience who displayed pro-Equality Charter signs whenever opposition voices spoke. Co-president Sebastian Ulanga, has organized against this siting of this Equality Charter here and spoke along with others against the lack proper consultation, misinformation (Equality had been processed for District 12), the negative impacts of middle school youth on PS 160 younger elementary and the special education students. While the pro-charter speakers voiced excitement about the expected higher attention, resources, and smaller class sizes with the Equality Charter there, opposition speakers expressed anger that the projected benefits would not be for the entire school population and create disparity.

Grassroots Education Movement member, Angel Gonzalez, spoke about the need to fix instead of privatizing our schools with charters. “We need to support quality and democratic processes for all public schools. Charter schools, such as Equality Charter, split communities and sow inequality instead. They ‘cream the best students’ and evidence shows that charters service fewer percentages of the neediest of students such English Language Learners, Special Education and the poorest of the poor. We need to organize a citywide fight-back against the mayor’s undemocratic imposition of these charters that take away resources from public schools. Charters union-bust and undermine the necessary unity parents and teachers against government’s failure to properly provide for all public schools.”

Jeffrey Litt, the Superintendent of this Carl Icahn Network of Charter Schools (which includes Equality Charter), expressed his support for the placement of Equality Charter at PS 160 while simultaneously engaging in a tense verbal exchange with an audience member who opposed the charter and Mr. Litt’s assertions. Mr. Litt claimed that Icahn schools do service the poor and are not exclusive, but PTA’s Mr. Ulanga interjected that any entry-lottery process for selecting students are exclusive.

Revisions to Equality’s Charter were presented at the beginning of the meeting. These included some administrative and staffing changes along with its placement now in District 11 instead of District 12. At the end of the meeting, many audience members were unable to determine the actual revisions that were being proposed – they were never restated for many who had arrived late. The meeting, which was adjourned in a particularly abrupt manner, appeared to do little to alleviate the fears, concerns and questions of many audience members. The rift, that this Equality Charter School has spawned, left many confused with many unanswered questions.

PS 160 Protest vs. Charter School - Co-op City, Bronx - May 29- Video

May 29, 2009 - AFG Press

PS 160 of Co-op City, The Bronx, NY protested the dictatorial imposition of a charter school by Mayor Bloomberg & Chancellor Klein. Over 100 students, parents, residents, & teachers protested the inappropriate placement of a middle school "Equality" Charter in their elementary school. As customary with mayoral control, again the community was not consulted. This Equality Charter will encroach on the already limited space needed for their special needs students, to reduce class size and for its specialized classes. The parents are organizing against this outrage and have filed a grievance against the City.

Rather than promote "Equality" [a misnomer for any charter], these privatized charters in public schools only serve to divide and generate tensions. Charters provide disparate, unequal and preferential treatment with reduced class sizes, more resources and monies. These monies should be targetted for the benefit of all public schools. Julie Woodward of ICE/UFT said, "It is government that causes public schools ‘to do poorly’ by failing to provide the necessary resources, monies, and supports! Charters and school closings are not the answer."

Not surprisingly, UFT officials were absent from this important protest. The UFT can not represent its members against these charter intrusions and union-busting maneuvers of the City because the UFT has shamefully supported charters and the disastrous mayoral control of schools. GEM seeks to reverse such negative policies of the UFT/AFT which allow the private-corporate sectors to appropriate our public school dollars for their profiteering and to discredit teachers for "poorly" functioning schools. Privatization via charters only serves to undermine, underfund and union-bust our public schools. The complicity of OUR UFT must be stopped.

Unite with our communities and GEM in our Citywide fight-back!

Click to see GEM's video on Protest.

GEM issues include: stopping school closings & privatization with charters, democratic control of our schools, restoring teacher seniority transfer UFT-contract rights, smaller class size, ending high stakes testing, stopping teacher harassment, and more.

We defend equal & quality fully-funded neighborhood public schools.

Please forward.

Angel Gonzalez,
for GEM