Top charter school leaders are looking to improve ties with Zohran Mamdani as simmering tensions between the mayor-elect and the sector threaten to open a contentious chapter in their relationship with City Hall.
After those differences became apparent on the campaign trail, the heads of 19 charter schools and networks, including Eva Moskowitz of Success Academy and Rev. Al Cockfield of Lamad Academy, reached out to Mamdani and invited him to meet with them on Dec. 12 or sooner at Ember Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
“Please come see our schools — what’s working, what we’re changing, and where the City’s partnership would enable us to do so much more for the children and families who need us most,” read the letter, shared with the Daily News.
Success Academy
Susan Watts/New York Daily News FILE – Eva Moskowitz speaks during a press conference on the steps of City Hall on Thursday, November 17, 2016. (Susan Watts / New York Daily News)
As Mamdani prepares to take office next month, his relationship with the charter sector is being closely watched to see if the mayor-elect can make inroads as he has with other skeptics, or if the city is in for a revival of the charter school wars that dominated New York politics a decade ago.
In the final stretch before the Democratic primary, Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, said he opposed any expansion of the publicly funded but privately run schools in New York, which he argues siphons resources away from traditional public schools. Only the governor and state legislature can raise the statutory cap on the number of charter schools, not the mayor, though he can use his bully pulpit to apply pressure on the sector in other ways.
After he won that contest, the charter schools led a march over the Brooklyn Bridge that drew some 15,000 demonstrators from 200 schools, widely seen as targeting the Democratic nominee. Charter leaders have denied the Sept. 18 demonstration was related to Mamdani’s then-frontrunner status, though made no secret of their beliefs that opposing public school choice was antithetical to his affordability agenda.
The next day, two state lawmakers, including an early endorser of Mamdani’s, led a push for an investigation into the rally, alleging a misuse of instructional time and public funds. It is unclear if a probe was ever launched; a rep for Sen. John Liu said his office has not heard back from the SUNY Charter Institute and also sent a letter on the same issue to the Department of Labor.
Mamdani did, however, visit Imagine Me Leadership Charter School in Ocean Hill in late October before the general election, according to his rep, who did not comment Friday on the invite specifically. Bishop Raymond Rivera, founder of Family Life Academy Charter Schools and one of the letter’s signatories, also met with Mamdani earlier this year and discussed the sector, The News previously reported.
The charter school leaders said they had yet to hear back from Mamdani on their invite, which was sent Tuesday. There are no reps for the sector on the mayor-elect’s education transition committee.
“We want to do everything we can to get on his radar,” said Kalam Id-Din, the founder of Ember Charter Schools who spearheaded the letter, “because we speak the same language of equity.”
In the letter, the charter leaders offered their help on universal child care and more quality public schools, while not so subtly appealing to Mamdani’s own educational background.
“You know well the power of public school choice,” the heads of school wrote. “Your own journey at private school Bank Street and then at Bronx Science, a selective public high school, shows how options can widen the circle of what’s possible.”
“In that same spirit, charter schools throw open the door of possibility.”
