ALBANY, NY (August 15, 2018) — Governor Cuomo recently accepted a $45,100 contribution toward his re-election campaign from hedge fund investor John Petry, who sits on the board of the largest publicly funded, privately run charter school network, Success Academy.

In response, the public education advocacy group Alliance for Quality Education released the following statement:

“Andrew Cuomo is clearly Governor of the 1% and we have the receipts to prove it. Petry’s donation represents more than 10 percent of the money Cuomo has received during the primary. It is foolish to think that Cuomo is not beholden to the privatization agenda of the major donors who helped him get elected in the first place, and who are now bankrolling him in his campaign to stay in office,” said Jasmine Gripper, legislative director, Alliance for Quality Education.

“Andrew Cuomo is the wolf in sheep clothes. He pretends to care about issues impacting working families, but in reality he is bedfellows with anti-immigrant, racist and anti-public education donors. He claims to fight the Trump agenda while holding onto Trump’s campaign donations. He claims he supports Democrats in the State Senate, yet refuses to return money from hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb after his racist remarks about the highest ranking Black women in state politics, Senate Democratic leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Now, he wants us to believe that he cares about public education and equity after receiving over $45,000 from anti-public education hedge funder John Petry. We’re tired of the hypocrisy and disrespect.

“The reality is that Governor Cuomo has pushed anti-public education agenda over his eight years in office, while further undermining public schools by maintaining systemic racism in school funding.”