Miseducating

The NY Daily News' Juan Gonzales takes a look at the Harlem charter school work of former councilwoman Eva Moskowitz-and focuses more on what she's getting paid than on what the schools under her command are actually doing for the students: "Eva Moskowitz, the former City Council member who founded a small chain of nonprofit charter schools, is a passionate and abrasive champion of the charter school movement. She's also making a bundle."

Our response? A qualified, "good for her." The qualification, of course, devolves from an evaluation of the schools that Moskowitz is being paid to guide to better performance. Way towards the end of the article Gonzales tells us: "Parents from Moskowitz's schools vehemently defend the Harlem Success Academy and say their kids are making phenomenal progress. That could very well be true, but the DOE has not posted independent test results for any of the Moskowitz schools."

If true, Moskowitz may be underpaid. Thousands of school personnel have been paid hundreds of millions of dollars over the past couple of decades to basically leave students unprepared to compete in the larger society; so if Moskowitz has found a way to buck this lamentable trend, pay the woman! And while you're at it, find ten more like her. Juan should have spent more time evaluating the schools under Moskowitz's control, instead of being snarky about her compensation.

We have remained complacent for years while public money has been squandered miseducating local school children; and our only response has been to demand that more money be thrown at the problem. The choice that Moskowitz provides is an essential antidote to our addiction to the public education money pit. Just as the parents and children from the Harlem Success Academy.