Education advocates and parents speak out against appointment of Joe Belluck to the Panel for Educational Policy

UPDATE 2/17/2022:  Belluck did not show up for the PEP meeting last night, and  reporter Madina Toure on twitter reported that he had withdrawn, and linked to a Politico article  behind the paywall..  

An article about this appointment was in yesterday's NY Post.

For immediate release: Feb. 15, 2022

Contact: Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329

 

Education advocates and parents speak out against appointment of Joe Belluck to the Panel for Educational Policy

 

The news that Joe Belluck, chair of the SUNY charter committee, is going to be appointed to the NYC Board of Education, otherwise known as the Panel for Educational Policy, has sparked outrage among many education advocates and parents. 

SUNY has authorized nearly two thirds of the three hundred NYC charter schools, which together are now costing the NYC Department of Education more than $2.5 billion per year.  These include many of the most controversial and the fastest growing charters,  including Success Academy, which has been found guilty of violating student civil rights in both the federal courts and by the State Education Department, as well as violating student privacy rights by the US Department of Education and the state.  The Success Academy network is also the focus of an ongoing investigation by the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education.

According to Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters and co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, “Appointing Joe Belluck to the PEP is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house – a huge conflict of interest given how the interests of charters are diametrically opposed to our public schools, by taking away their resources and space.  Moreover, Belluck has allowed the charter schools authorized by SUNY to violate the privacy of students year after year, and to illegally push out struggling kids. One has to question whether he has the interests of any NYC child at heart.”

As Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Network for Public Education, pointed out, “Pro-charter hedge funders and other billionaires gave the Adams campaign nearly $7 million, including one million dollars donated by controversial hedge-funder and Success Academy board member Daniel Loeb.  I guess they’re getting their money’s worth with this appointment.”

“The fact that Mayor Adams is appointing a charter school authorizer to the Panel for Education Policy further underscores the need to reform Mayoral control,” said Naila Rosario, a public school parent and President of NYC Kids PAC.  “We need a more democratically elected Board of Education that will work to protect and strengthen our public schools, rather than undermine them for the purposes of campaign donors who favor privatization."

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