Working Families Party eyeing Diane Ravitch as possible challenger against Gov. Cuomo - NY Daily News:

Working Families Party eyeing Diane Ravitch as possible challenger against Gov. Cuomo

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 11:38 AM

Updated: Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 12:54 PM

The Working Families Party is eying education activist Diane Ravitch as its gubernatorial candidate should the liberal minor party decide to withhold its backing of Gov. Cuomo, a source told the Daily News Wednesday morning.

The party has spoken to Ravitch, 75, about possibly being its nominee and she has expressed interest, the source said.

"Either way, she'll have a role at Saturday's (WFP) convention," the source said.

It's still unclear in which direction the party will go.

As the Daily News reported in Wednesday's editions, Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio and leaders from key unions that help make up the Working Family Party met with party leaders Bill Lipton and Dan Cantor Tuesday to discuss backing the governor for reelection.

Cuomo wants the line to help build up any potential victory over Republican Rob Astorino. The Daily News reported Monday that Cuomo is threatening to toss the Republicans from the Senate leadership coalition by working to reunite the chambers fractured Democrats unless the GOP agrees to a full statewide campaign public finance system--a major priority for the WFP--before next month's end of the legislation session.

But many of the 200 activists who make up the Working Families Party state committee that ultimately decides on which candidate to choose are upset with Cuomo, particularly over his successful push for corporate tax cuts, charter school protections, and opposition to parts of de Blasio's agenda.

If she runs, Ravitch's candidacy would put a spotlight on charter schools, one of the issues that appears to be a source of conflict between Cuomo and the Working Families Party.

Like the many of the party's leaders, Ravitch is an opponent of charter schools.

"Billionaires like privately managed schools. Parents are lured with glittering promises of getting their kids a sure ticket to college. Politicians want to appear to be champions of 'school reform' with charters," Ravitch wrote in the Los Angeles Times last year.

"But charters will not end the poverty at the root of low academic performance or transform our