Bill slams Eva’s kids

After painting charter schools as alien to public education, Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña Thursday issued their first serious salvo against the independently run public schools.

Put through the shredder: plans approved last fall to locate three charter schools in Department of Education buildings.

The mayor’s harsh rhetoric suggested that he and Fariña might nix many more of the 19 charter school plans okayed last fall. He deserves credit for letting most go through, even as Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito demanded more aggressive anti-charter action.

But that is cold comfort to hundreds of moms and dads who were desperate to find top-notch schools for their young ones. De Blasio and Fariña have almost certainly consigned these kids to subpar schools.

The two leaders decreed, for example, that Success Academy 4 in Harlem, now serving fifth and sixth graders in temporary quarters that lapse this year, will be barred from moving into an elementary school building, where plans had called for expanding to seventh grade.

Success Academy 4 children are 97% black and Hispanic. More than three quarters are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Even so, a stunning 96% of the school’s kids passed the tough new state math exam. Fifty three percent passed the English exam — putting them in the top tier of all schools across the state.

They face the end of excellence. Without a rescue, they must look elsewhere for schooling.

The prospects are bleak. At nearby PS 76, 8% of kids passed their state math tests, and 6% in English. At nearby PS 149, 3% of kids passed in math, and 7% in English. At nearby Frederick Douglass 2, 3% of kids passed in math, and 9% in English.

As he blocked the expansions, de Blasio also blocked Success Academies from opening two schools this fall, one in Jamaica, one in downtown Manhattan. Some 1,600 families had entered the admissions lottery for 420 slots.

There was a damn good reason for the powerful demand: Students in Success Academies soared far above those in traditional district schools last year. More than 8 in 10 met the new, high bar in math, nearly 6 in 10 in English. Citywide, fewer than a third of kids did so.

De Blasio and Fariña gave reasons for the rollbacks. Elementary schools should not be housed within high-school buildings, they now claim. One of the plans would have done harm to students with disabilities, they allege, without offering evidence.

De Blasio, in a statement, said “We set out consistent, objective criteria to protect school communities from unworkable outcomes,” and wound up “rejecting those proposals that do not meet our values.” The mayor’s invented standards fail the smell test, while his personal bias against the leader of Success Academies is clear.

Former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz is the bête noire of the de Blasio administration. Her schools are the most impressive example of what independently run, non-unionized charters can accomplish.

Last June, candidate de Blasio, speaking of his plan to charge charter schools rent — another threat to children looming on the horizon — spit venom in her direction: “There is no way in hell that Eva Moskowitz should get free rent, okay?”

He’s aiming at a grown woman — and catching children in the crossfire.