{"id":891133,"date":"2026-06-25T05:52:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/891133\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T05:52:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:52:41","slug":"ny-charter-school-heads-blast-education-department-in-scathing-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/891133\/","title":{"rendered":"NY charter school heads blast education department in scathing letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u2019s charter school bigwigs are \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by state education officials who they claim are stunting the growth of<\/a> the publicly funded alternative schools \u2014 instead of embracing its success in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Fourteen charter leaders sent a scathing letter to state education boss Betty Rosa on Monday, slamming her department and the Board of Regents for allegedly undermining the schools <\/a>approved by the State University of New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, SUNY\u2019s success has made it a target,\u201d the letter fumed.<\/p>\n

Commissioner of Education and President of the University of New York, Betty Rosa attends a meeting of the New York Board of Regents on Monday, June 10, 2024, at the State Education Building in Albany, N.Y. Albany Times Union via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers unions and other opponents of charter schools cannot credibly argue with the results being produced by SUNY-authorized schools, particularly for students in underserved communities<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both SUNY and the Board of Regents \u2014 the policy board which oversees the state\u2019s education department \u2014 have the authority to approve charter schools. <\/p>\n

But thanks to a bureaucratic quirk in the law, the Board of Regents reviews applications approved by the more charter-friendly SUNY Board of Trustees\/Charter Schools Institute \u2014 and often opposes them.<\/p>\n

The performance gap between SUNY-authorized schools and Regents-authorized charter schools was a whopping 17 percentage points in English Language Arts and 21 percentage points in mathematics in recent years, Success Academy Charters Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz and Zeta Charter School Schools CEO Emily Kim said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, SUNY\u2019s success has made it a target,\u201d the letter fumed. Jason Stitt \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York\u2019s education officials should not be fighting success,\u201d the letter said. \u201cNew York\u2019s students need more of what is working, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charter school leaders said they\u2019re \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by \u201crepeatedly second-guessing\u201d SUNY\u2019s decision-making and \u201ceven supporting\u201d lawsuits challenging SUNY-authorized schools, which serve more than 117,000 students across the Empire State.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, they have increasingly sought to attack the institution itself,\u201d the letter added. <\/p>\n

An SED spokesperson slammed the letter, insisting education officials are merely upholding the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the signatories to the letter boast of their strong academic outcomes, this record is not shared equally among them,\u201d said spokesperson JP O\u2019Hare. <\/p>\n

An SED spokesperson slammed the letter, insisting education officials are merely upholding the law. Albany Times Union via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, in any event, academic achievement does not excuse, for example, violating the New York City charter cap or ignoring community opposition to new schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph Belluck, chairman of the SUNY Charter School Committee, argued SED and the Regents have gotten more aggressive against charter schools. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThey oppose every little thing that has to do with charter schools,\u201d he said, adding that SUNY is abiding by the charter school cap.<\/p>\n

Although several bills have been floated in Albany to strip SUNY of its power to authorize charter schools over the last few years, none have passed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a source told The Post some of the charter school administrators who signed the letter have had issues that SED flagged.<\/p>\n

Al Cockfield of Lamad Academy has a prior federal felony conviction related to drug conspiracy and distribution, and was denied a charter application by SED, but was approved through SUNY.<\/p>\n

The United Federation of Teachers and its state affiliate, New York State United Teachers, recently sued SUNY for allegedly overriding the state charter school cap \u2014 permitting Success Academy to transfer a charter from one of its Bronx Success Academies to a new entity, Strive Charter School, founded by Eric Grannis<\/a>, the husband of Moskowitz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s charter school bigwigs are \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by state education officials who they claim are stunting the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":891134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,161225,18728,126258,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,47333,90388,38597,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-891133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-board-of-regents","tag-charter-schools","tag-eva-moskowitz","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-state-education-department","tag-success-academy","tag-united-federation-of-teachers","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116809193831551698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}