GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The latest internal Department of Education emails to come to light are mostly dark: The 228 pages released today contain large swaths of blacked-out text.

But between redactions, a few messages stand out — including one in which charter operator Eva Moskowitz speedily outlines an agenda that became the driving focus of former Chancellor Joel Klein’s last year in office.

Urging Klein to be “SUPERAGGRESSIVE in [the] standard of excellence” for schools’ academic performance, Moskowitz wrote, “If folks criticize you for having the bar way too high, you know you are inching closer to success.”

The emails were part of the yield from a massive Freedom of Information Law request filed by the United Federation of Teachers. The union wanted to see the communication exchanged between the city Department of Education and charter school supporters during a period when legislators were under pressure to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in the state. That cap was raised in May 2010.

Hundreds of emails between Klein and charter advocates were released last month, showing that Klein kept careful tabs on the legislative action and was quick to connect advocates with support. (more…)