If Mayor de Blasio thought charter supporters would wind down their campaign to shake up the system after winning concessions from the city, he’s about to be schooled.
More than 10,000 charter and education advocates are expected to flood Foley Square on Thursday to demand the city devote more attention to its worst performing schools.
“We are focused on having the highest-quality school for every child, and we’re particularly concerned about students trapped in failing schools,” said Families for Excellent Schools CEO Jeremiah Kittredge, one of the rally organizers.
“For us, it’s incredibly important the city takes bold action to address this urgent problem.”
De Blasio — who agreed to provide space for new and expanding charters only under pressure from Albany — dismissed the campaign as unnecessary and said he’s already working to “change the school system from its foundations up.”
“My job is to serve all the children of this city — over 1 million of those kids go to traditional public schools,” he said.
“That’s our first obligation to get it right. We know that many parts of our school system are not working the way they should.”
The Success Academy charter network — run by de Blasio nemesis Eva Moskowitz — said it would reschedule classes to allow parents and students to attend, just as it did for a March rally in Albany.
This time, reformers are highlighting the city’s struggling schools while calling for more options for parents in distressed neighborhoods.
Families for Excellent Schools released a report last month showing that 90 percent of students in 371 city schools could not read or do math at grade level in 2013.
Last week, the group bought $ 479,200 in TV ads to promote its new campaign.
Kittredge declined to explain the group’s latest legislative goals.
But sources said eliminating the cap on new charter schools and increasing per-student funding would be on the table.
One charter critic slammed the ads as a “p.r. stunt.”
“Despite the fact that public schools are severely underfunded, Wall Street-backed charter-school groups continue to use aggressive propaganda to win more public-school dollars, while at the same time, the charter schools are receiving large amounts of private donations that public schools do not have access to,” said Zakiyah Ansari, advocacy director for the Alliance for Quality Education.
But Kittredge said the campaign is about shaking up the system to produce better results for all students.
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