Witnesses Testify on Evil Moskowitz at PS 30 Hearing

Report 1:

I was at P30 that night, but not in time to see the march into the auditorium, thankfully.
It was enough to remain quiet in my seat throughout the evening because of the continued bad behavior of the charter school crowd. I stood next to Moskowitz for most of the evening, who sat in the chair looking at papers, not even paying attention to what people were saying. She looked disheveled. Two very good points were made by P30 speakers, one parent and one teacher, that got the audience's attention. When the parent spoke about how the community was being divided, neighbor against neighbor, by Klein and Bloomburg, there was a lull in the crowd. He lost the charter parents, however, when he criticized Moskowitz for getting an exorbitant pay check and not even being interested in addressing the crowd (remember, disheveled and reading papers all night). At this point, Moskowitz stood up, like Mussolini, papers in hand, and the charter crowd roared. The other point, strongly delivered by a P30 staff member, was concerning Eminent Domain; this got some attention since Bloomberg supports the real estate developers that are daily walking up and down the streets, viewing buildings in East Harlem. All in all, it was a disgusting evening.

Report 2:
I got an earful about Moskowitz and her goons at a meeting at our school PS 30M. There was a meeting about whether or not to house her latest charter school in our building. Her parents entered our building having been fed pizza and given t-shirts with the charter slogan on them. They entered chanting, "Share your space." They were pretty riled up.

When one of our parents was on the stage speaking (it was a big thing for her to speak in public and she was very nervous) she stumbled in her speech and one of the charter school t-shirt wearers shouted out, "You see their parents cannot even read!" At no point in the meeting did Moskowitz stand up and separate herself from this statement. In my twenty years of teaching experience I have seen that the thing that most motivates children to learn is to have some moral or ethical purpose. It was shocking to hear Moskowitz beginning a brand new charter school with such questionable morals and ethics seeming to be at the forefront. It appeared that the charter school parents came fighting and wanting to "beat" the other parents out of their space. There was no desire to listen or learn. NONE OF THIS WAS CORRECTED by Moskowitz. Is this what she stands for? Survival of the fittest (or the ones with the newest t-shirts and the loudest chants)? How sad that our school, which we have pulled out of its SURR status to turn it into a model school and have consistently increased our reading, math and attendance scores as well as other markers of success, is being so dismissed and mocked! Moskowitz should want to learn how we pulled ourselves up from so low a position. We should all be learning from each other so we can be better able to help the children. That is best practices. I don't see that happening in this case. This new charter school will fail because no one has the moral vision to call to the best and deepest thing in our children.

Report 3

I now understand that these gatherings are no more than circuses with trained charter school acts. I might add that the staff of P30 were quiet, dignified and beautiful, presenting themselves in the most elegant manner. I was proud to support them and will continue until Bloomberg and Klein are defeated or out of office. I am totally confident that we will win in the end and preserve public education.