Sigh. Mayor Bill DeBlasio is at it again, showing how much he cares about teachers unions children who need better school options. DeBlasio announced he would reverse a decision made by the Bloomberg administration to provide classroom space for a number of charter schools.
Eva Moskowitz, a former City Councilwoman, operates 22 charter schools that serve 6,700 students and their families, and has stated that she may pursue legal action against the mayor. One affected school, The Harlem Success Academy, is home to nearly 200 students. The school may now be shut down because of Mayor DeBlasio’s actions, despite its high performance.
DeBlasio doesn’t even have an ally in Governor Cuomo on this issue. The governor stole the mayor’s thunder when he gave a speech at a pro-charter schools rally in the state capital at the same time that DeBlasio was appearing at a (notably smaller) rally for his universal Pre-K initiative. The two have not seen eye to eye on this before, most notably regarding DeBlasio’s desire to raise raxes on the rich and his subsequent characterization of NYC as a “Tale of Two Cities”.
Nothing like fractured Democratic leadership to keep a city thriving, right? People of Detroit and Chicago know what I’m talking about.
In an interview with the radio station Hot 97, Bill De Blasio defended his decision to close down the schools simply because they are funded by rich people.
“Oh, yeah, a lot of them are funded by very wealthy Wall Street folks and others,” Mr. de Blasio responded.
(Translation: Obviously rich people only use their money for evil. It’s up to the government to take their money and do purely good things with it like that bring our debt to nearly $20 trillion sending children to public pre-schools.)
Mr. Darden then suggested that these wealthy people — who, Mr. Rosenberg added, are “already upset that you’re in office and not their guy, Bloomberg” — were funding a campaign to paint Mr. de Blasio as anti-charter schools.
“I think you’re providing a keen political analysis here,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Newsflash, DeBlasio, it’s not “keen political analysis” because the radio hosts were kissing your ass. Keen political analysis would be pointing out that closing these schools harms families like those profiled in the NY Daily News:
“I don’t know where else I can send my son so that he can have the same level education,” said Fatoumata Kebe of the Bronx. Her 11-year-old son, Ousmane, is a fifth-grader at Harlem Central.
The charter school was set to move to a nearby public school building in July, but de Blasio revoked the offer.
City officials say they don’t have another space for the school, which is one of the highest-performing in the state, and charter school officials say they were counting on the space from the city and have nowhere for the kids to go.
“They’re charter schools. They’re on their own now,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said Wednesday. “That’s part of what they do. They’re an independent structure, and that’s how they function.”
“There are other Success Academies in that same neighborhood, much the same way that public schools have feeder schools they can choose from,” she said.
Parents of Success Academy students say that just won’t work.
Those struggling schools aren’t acceptable choices for their kids.
They want their kids in high-performing schools.
“Those other places aren’t an option,” said Kalima Gilkes of Harlem, whose daughter Kayla is a fifth-grader at Success Academy. “I’d get a second job and send my daughter to private school rather than send her there.
Yeah, they totally sound like one-percenters. So much for caring about what’s best for the children.
Mayor DeBlasio is not some champion of the underprivileged.
He is nothing more than a divisive and opportunistic politician who cares about nothing except his own career. He throws around terms like “income inequality” and “one percent” in speeches, but then enacts policies that hurt the poor and middle class, while lining the already deep pockets of the heads of teachers unions.
Maybe one day the people of New York City will stop being fooled by progressive bullshit artist candidates and learn from the very big mistake they made by electing him.