Mona Davids facts for kids

Mona Davids is an American activist who works to make schools better for children and parents. She is known for starting two important groups: the New York Charter Parents Association and the New York City Parents Union.

Early life and education

Mona Davids was born in South Africa. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

Business career

Working with Dutch companies

Early in her career, Mona Davids worked for two companies from the Netherlands. These were Schiphol USA Inc. and MeesPierson Investment Bank.

Azania Holdings International

Mona Davids helped start a company called Azania Holdings International Inc. with Eric Steinhilber. This company helped businesses in the United States and African countries work together.

The company was named after a historical region called Azania. It aimed to help Black-owned businesses grow. Azania also offered advice on business development, marketing, and project management.

As part of Azania, Davids helped organize meetings for investors with big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. She also set up trade events in New York City. In 2007, a director from "Brooklyn Goes Global" praised Azania. The company helped create an agreement between the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture. This agreement aimed to help businesses in both places. Davids also taught U.S. business leaders about working in South Africa.

During her early work for education, people sometimes said Davids was taking a break from Azania. But she continued to speak at conferences as the head of Azania. In 2014, as the CEO of Azania, she gave a speech at an investment meeting in New York City. A New York City official praised Azania for helping connect New York and South African companies.

Education advocacy

Mona Davids started working to improve education in 2008. This was when she was on maternity leave after having her child. She became a co-president of the PTA at her daughter's school.

At first, Davids was against charter schools. In 2008, she led protests against a new charter school, Equality Charter School. This school was going to be in the same building as her daughter's public school, P.S. 160 in the Bronx.

However, Davids later changed her mind. She applied for her daughter to attend the charter school. She also started helping the charter school find other students. She explained that she had been given wrong information about the school's size. She also said that many parents were against charter schools because they did not know what they were.

New York Charter Parents Association

After her daughter joined the charter school, Davids started the New York Charter Parents Association in April 2009. She said she created the group because charter schools were not required to have PTAs.

A newspaper article in May 2009 reported that Davids, who had fought against charter schools just two months before, was now leading a new effort. She was starting the first citywide parent group for charter schools.

By November 2009, Davids was very active. She attended many meetings about charter schools. She even appeared in a TV ad for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election. In the ad, she criticized his opponent's education record.

Davids supported charter schools but also saw problems. For example, she said the charter system did not have special advocates for families. At the time, she was on leave from her company, Azania Holdings. She used her own money to fund the Parent Association. An anonymous person also donated money. This donation helped pay six parents who were active in the group.

Some parents from P.S. 160 felt betrayed by Davids for changing her mind. Davids also got a lot of attention, and some criticism, for her involvement in other charter school debates.

With her new group, Davids worked to change New York State education laws. For example, she wanted public schools to get money to fix up their buildings when they shared space with a charter school.

Changes made in 2010 because of Davids' work included:

• Charter schools had to accept a certain number of students with special needs and those who speak English as a second language.
• Charter schools had to form PTAs or Parents Associations.
• The New York City Department of Education had to give money to public schools that shared buildings with charter schools for renovations.
• Every school sharing a building had to have a committee with parents and teachers from all schools in that building.

Davids also wanted to stop the New York City Department of Education from being able to approve new charter schools.

Davids has been part of many lawsuits involving schools. For example, in December 2010, she and others sued the New York State Education Commissioner. They sued the City of New York for allowing Cathie Black to become the head of the New York City Public School System.

New York City Parents Union

In May 2011, Davids started the New York City Parents Union. When the group began, she sued the New York City Department of Education. She claimed they had made mistakes in school council elections.

The next month, the New York City Parents Union joined another group, Class Size Matters. They sued Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They said he was not charging charter schools enough rent. This, they argued, broke the law. In February 2013, Davids and her group sued Governor Andrew Cuomo. This lawsuit was about the United Federation of Teachers and Mayor Bloomberg not agreeing on how to evaluate teachers.

In November 2013, the New York City Parents Union joined Public Advocate Tish James and Class Size Matters. They sued Mayor Michael Bloomberg again. This time it was about him placing different public and charter schools in the same buildings. The next month, Davids was the main person in a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Education. This case was about sharing student and parent information. In February 2014, Davids and her group sued Governor Cuomo and New York State over money matters.

The New York Post reported in November 2011 that the New York City Parents Union had received $10,000 from the United Federation of Teachers. The group also held its first awards event at the teachers union headquarters.

As of August 2015^[update], the group was not listed on websites for charities. This meant details about its members and money were not publicly available. Davids said the group had 9,000 members. She stated, "We are not listed on any charity, we are grassroots. We are not affiliated with anybody or the charter lobby or education reformers, or teachers, or the teacher unions that they support."

Protea Group

Since May 2012, Davids has been the president of The Protea Group Inc. This company helps with communication and public relations. It offers services like community relations, advice, and helping groups speak up for their causes. The group's website focuses on helping with public issues and creating websites for political campaigns.

Media

Mona Davids has appeared on many TV news channels. These include CNN, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, NY1, ABC7, Fox 5 NY, WCBS Channel 2 News, WABC Channel 4 News, and Al Jazeera News.

In an opinion piece for the New York Daily News in February 2014, Davids criticized New York City Mayor de Blasio's plan for a bigger pre-kindergarten program. She said he did not explain how he would deal with teacher quality, keeping teachers, and their salaries. She pointed out that most pre-K programs are run by non-profit groups. She felt the mayor needed a better plan, not just big goals.

In another opinion piece for the New York Post in April 2014, Davids said Mayor de Blasio had not yet shared his education plan for children. She also claimed that de Blasio was creating an unfair pre-K system. She believed students in community-based programs would get a worse education than those taught by certified teachers.

Davids v. New York lawsuit

In July 2014, Davids filed a lawsuit to challenge New York State laws about teacher tenure. Teacher tenure means teachers get special job protection after working for a certain number of years. Davids believed these laws made it too hard to remove teachers who were not doing a good job. She said this hurt students' education.

This lawsuit was similar to another case called Vergara v. California in California. The Davids case argued that the special job protections for teachers made it too difficult for school leaders to fire teachers who were not effective.

However, the future of the Davids case became uncertain. In April 2016, a court in California changed the decision in the Vergara case. The court said that the people who sued did not prove that the tenure laws violated students' rights. In August 2016, the highest court in California decided not to review the Vergara case again.

The New York City Parents Union said that the California ruling did not affect cases in other states. They argued their case focused on different legal issues. However, a lawyer for the city teachers union disagreed. He said that if the Davids case used the initial Vergara decision as a reason, it would be affected when that decision was overturned.

Some people, like education writer Richard Kahlenberg, disagreed with the idea that teachers' jobs were too secure. He pointed out that many teachers, both with and without tenure, were replaced in some cities. Research also showed that teachers were fired or laid off at a higher rate than private sector employees.

Personal life

Mona Davids is a mother of two children, a daughter and a son.