Today, moms and dads and children from some of the most successful charter schools in this city will make the trek to Albany to send a message to the powers that be:
The public-education monopoly in this state deprives thousands of children of the right to an education, which, by the way, is guaranteed in our state Constitution.
The travelers will rally under the banner “Don’t Steal Possible” on the steps of our state Capitol. They are opposed by the usual suspects — the teachers unions — carping that students should not be pulled out of the classroom for protest.
They have a point. It’s just not the one they are making. The real question is:
How did it come to this? How did we reach the point where many moms and dads, predominantly black and Latino, said to their charter-school leaders, “Yes, take our kids up to Albany — but bring us along, too!”
These moms and dads recognize that a public-school monopoly filled with failure factories condemns their sons and daughters to life at the fringes of the American Dream. They know they need lifelines.
For some the lifeline is a charter, a new kind of public school that every day defies the myth that minority children cannot excel.
For others, it’s one of Cardinal Dolan’s parochial schools, heroically providing disadvantaged boys and girls with a good education in near-impossible circumstances.
We’re told education is the civil-rights issue of our time. We agree, and believe it a travesty that children should have to march in Albany to get schools where they can learn.
But let’s remember why: because the adults responsible for the miserable status quo have failed them.