Opinion

The lobby against NYC school success

Opponents of Success Academy Cobble Hill recently created perhaps the most apropos hashtag in the brief history of Twitter: “#nosuccess.”

Some might find it rather odd that, in a city suffering from so much educational failure, those claiming to speak for children would promote “no success.”

While the intended meaning of the hashtag was obvious, let’s be clear: While our opponents don’t want our schools to exist, they also block much-needed reforms that could bring about far-reaching success.

But what else would we expect from the United Federation of Teachers, which has stopped at nothing to prevent great new public charters from opening and to shut down high-performing charters? (It sued to do just that this spring; thankfully, it lost.)

This sort of obstructionism isn’t just frustrating for those of us who want to provide more great options; it also has real-life consequence for millions of school kids who are falling further and further behind.

This is true not just for students in disadvantaged communities but also in our middle-class neighborhoods. Look at international assessments, and you’ll find that students from our nation’s very best public schools aren’t stacking up against their peers in China, the Netherlands or Singapore.

Anyone who says that middle-class families are satisfied and that they have enough school options clearly isn’t raising school-age kids in New York City. Families don’t have enough good options and often have to weigh moving out of the city, the cost of private school and programs outside of their neighborhoods to ensure their children get an excellent education. Even if they’re lucky enough to find a great public elementary school, they soon must face the dreaded middle-school search.

As a public-school parent myself and a mother of three, I know how hard it is to raise a family in this city and find great schools for our children. But the #nosuccess crowd doesn’t care.

Yes, Cobble Hill already has a few great public schools. The community takes full advantage of them — to the point now that they’re bursting at the seams. As a result, a full year before opening, the new public K-8 school we plan for in the neighborhood already has enormous demand from families.

The only things standing in their way are special interests claiming to represent the neighborhood but at the same time pulling out all the stops to block this school from opening. These opponents, including the Alliance for Quality Education, are all known as arms of the UFT.

Their latest attempt is to float an alternative proposal to our own — a pre-K and kindergarten program. Of course, once these children reach first grade, they’ll still have nowhere to go. Even the local assemblywoman they got to propose the plan admits that the idea for the program never occurred to her until Success announced its plan to open a full-service K-8 option.

I’m not saying Success Academies has all the answers, but we’re getting great results with children from all different walks of life.

We provide daily math, science and chess. We’ve developed our own highly engaging literacy curriculum designed to foster critical thinking in reading and writing.

In other words, the #nosuccess crowd really is opposing success for kids, not just a Success Academy for Brooklyn.

What we’re doing has clicked with families from the South Bronx to the Upper West Side to Brownstone Brooklyn. In addition to the overwhelming demand we’ve found in Cobble Hill, our Upper West Side school (which faced enormous opposition last year) already has a waiting list for next year.

Why must this be an either/or? Both sides could unite to encourage the city to open both the Success Academy and the pre-K/K program in Cobble Hill. Demand exists, and there’s plenty of space in several of the district’s school buildings.

What New York’s parents need is more access to high-quality schools — both district and charter — not more opposition and innuendo and division. And certainly not “no success.”

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.