![]() As of 2006, laws in 25 states and Washington, D.C., limited the number of new charters that could open 10 states did not have charters at all. Kipp and other charter-school operators had a pragmatic take on how big school networks could or should get. Like the Gap, which had made its name targeting young people, the point was to serve not an entire market, but a niche-in kipp’s case, the poorest students. But kipp schools were spread across 15 states, with just a few schools per city. It was part of an expansion funded by the founders of the Gap, Doris and Don Fisher, after the charter movement took off in the 1990s. The country’s best-known charter network, kipp, had grown to 46 schools by 2006. By some measures, 40 wasn’t unprecedented. I underlined the number in my reporter’s notebook. All in New York City, and all in a single decade. While other charter-school leaders ran only a handful of schools in a given state, she planned to open 40 more schools like this one. But already Moskowitz had set herself apart. Like other charter schools-which operate independently of a school district’s control but are still publicly regulated and funded-Harlem Success Academy, as the school had been named, was starting up slowly, serving 165 kindergartners and first-graders in its inaugural year. She picked the Napoleon option.Ĭheck out more from this issue and find your next story to read. Feeling under siege, she could either defend or attack. She was either paranoid or plagued, probably some of both. She stalked the school corridors more like a rear admiral than a pedagogue, rattling off to whomever would listen the obstacles she was up against: union rules governing sink repair, school bells ringing on a cryptic schedule, doors requiring custom fixes. But the person who made the biggest impression was Moskowitz herself. The kids, who congregated in a corner of a large public-school building on West 118th Street, were a sight with their orange-and-blue uniforms and blue backpacks. I had visited impressive schools before, but none quite like this one. What were you doing in kindergarten? Moskowitz stalked the school corridors more like a rear admiral than a pedagogue. To keep up with the school’s reading requirements, she and her son regularly hauled 50 books home from the library. She didn’t “want to contradict the mayor,” she said solemnly, “but there’s going to be some swimming, but there’s also going to be some reading.” Later, the mom of a kindergartner told me just how serious the principal was. The school’s principal, Eva Moskowitz, spoke next. He ticked off the fun things they might do once school let out, like go to the pool. “Who’s excited about summer?,” Bloomberg asked a group of 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds seated in front of him at their new Harlem elementary school, which had opened the previous August. It was June 2007, and I was following the mayor around as he took a victory lap celebrating record-high test scores. ![]() Bloomberg and Klein played their part, but the real revolutionary was another person I met early on in my reporting: a 5-foot-2-inch redhead from Harlem named Eva Moskowitz. Except I got the architects of the transformation wrong. Supporters and opponents alike shared the BloomKlein conviction that their “disruptions” would soon spread to cities all across the country.Ī decade later, I can say that I did indeed land in New York City just as a sweeping remake of public education got under way not only for New Yorkers but for families all across America. And they wielded unprecedented authority to actually follow through on their enlightened mission to tackle inequities and eradicate dysfunction in 2002, state lawmakers had dissolved New York City’s elected school board and handed total control to the mayor. Both liked to say that their work, begun in 2003, was the next phase of the civil-rights movement. “BloomKlein,” as their enemies called them, radiated a crusading moral confidence. The drivers of this transformation were the city’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and his handpicked schools chancellor, Joel Klein, a prosecutor who had previously taken on Microsoft and had now set his sights on toppling his hometown’s education status quo. In New York, I could cover the biggest education revolution ever attempted: a total overhaul of the way public schools worked, in the country’s largest school system. One of those annoying people who had settled on a career before I knew how to drive, I was a young and enthusiastic reporter on the education beat. In the spring of 2007, I moved to New York City to cover what I was sure was the most important story in the country.
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