{"id":12659,"date":"2025-10-22T22:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T22:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12659\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T22:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T22:55:09","slug":"charter-schools-give-our-kids-a-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/12659\/","title":{"rendered":"Charter schools give our kids a chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I joined 15,000 other parents to march across the Brooklyn Bridge<\/a> and demand what every family deserves: the right to choose an excellent public school for their child, and the right to be treated equitably as a public-school parent.<\/p>\n

Today, we are still waiting for electeds to take action.<\/p>\n

I grew up in The Bronx, went to the local district schools and was the first in my family to graduate college.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t guaranteed. And it was possible only because my mother, who couldn\u2019t read herself, forced me to go to school every day.<\/p>\n

My mother never admitted her illiteracy to me as a child. <\/p>\n

Instead, she\u2019d \u201cfake read\u201d books to me, inventing stories from the pictures, hoping to instill in me a love of reading.<\/p>\n

Despite a system that failed her, she believed education was the only escape from poverty.<\/p>\n

Thanks to her, I had a fighting chance. <\/p>\n

But many of my peers \u2014 just as bright as me \u2014 weren\u2019t so lucky. <\/p>\n

They lacked adults who pushed them, believed in them or paved a path to college.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, when I walked into a local charter school as a teacher right out of college, I was shocked. <\/p>\n

In the very same neighborhood where I grew up, every single first-grader<\/a> in that school could read.<\/p>\n

Every. Single. One.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t luck. It was thanks to the charter school<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what happens when adults believe in children and refuse to let them fail.<\/p>\n

I stayed and worked my way up. Today, I am a manager of 13 Bronx charter schools.<\/p>\n

My son attends one of the schools I manage, and I even helped my younger sister become a teacher at the school where I started; she\u2019s now an assistant principal at another charter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I believe in charter schools because I see what they do \u2014 not just for my family, but for thousands of children.<\/p>\n

Yet politicians who claim the progressive mantle, and insist they stand with working-class, minority and lower-income communities, demonize the charters<\/a>, saying they \u201csiphon money\u201d from \u201cpublic schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s insulting. Charters are public schools. <\/p>\n

They offer a free and excellent education<\/a> to our communities.<\/p>\n

And far from \u201csiphoning resources,\u201d they receive less from government \u2014 thousands of dollars less per student \u2014 than district schools.<\/p>\n

That is discriminatory and unfair, and hurts the very communities these politicians claim to want to help.<\/p>\n

We marched for children whose parents don\u2019t have the resources to move or to pay private tuition for an excellent education.<\/p>\n

We come from neighborhoods that get told \u201cno\u201d too often<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But last month, we stood up to demand an end to the \u201cno\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

If our elected officials care about low-income, minority and working-class families, it\u2019s time to say \u201cyes.\u201d <\/p>\n

They must protect, support and expand the schools we want for our children.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s be honest about what\u2019s at stake: If elected officials succeed in blocking or shrinking charters, what\u2019s the alternative? <\/p>\n

Schools that are unsafe, underperforming and failing generation after generation?<\/p>\n

That was my mother\u2019s story. I fought for it not to be my sister\u2019s. <\/p>\n

It cannot be my son\u2019s. Or anyone\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Parents understand this. They may not know all the politics, but they know what\u2019s real. <\/p>\n

They know their child will be safe in charter schools. <\/p>\n

They\u2019ll learn to read, and will be challenged and supported.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why families line up for charter schools<\/a> and go on wait lists for seats.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why 15,000 of us came out to march.<\/p>\n

Some people forget the history. They assume charter schools <\/a>were always here.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t. Parents and educators had to fight tooth and nail for these schools. <\/p>\n

Now, we\u2019re redoubling our fight to protect and, we hope, expand them.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t accept a system that says our only option is a failing school, and we won\u2019t settle for politicians who treat our children\u2019s education as a political football.<\/p>\n

My mother couldn\u2019t read. She believed in education anyway. <\/p>\n

She passed that dream to me. Now I pass it to my son.<\/p>\n

We marched so that every family can do the same.<\/p>\n

Every politician, especially those who say they stand for us, must listen.<\/p>\n

We are many. And we are watching.<\/p>\n

Bianca Rosa is a manager and parent at New York City\u2019s Success Academy Charter Schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A month ago, I joined 15,000 other parents to march across the Brooklyn Bridge and demand what every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,6602,67,9953,9,24,63,299,209,5272,9954,5271,9955,129,131,130,9956],"class_list":{"0":"post-12659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-charter-schools","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-minorities","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-public-schools","17":"tag-school-choice","18":"tag-school-safety","19":"tag-schools","20":"tag-success-academy","21":"tag-the-bronx","22":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","23":"tag-the-bronx-news","24":"tag-working-class"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}