New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's moves against charter schools reveal his commitment to teachers' unions, and his disdain for the private sector, writes Peggy Noonan in
The Wall Street Journal.
Noonan says the mayor, who stands about six-foot-five, is "a small and politically vicious man" for choosing ideology over children.
The charters work, writes Noonan. "They are something to be proud of and encourage."
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Most of the 70,000 pupils attending the charter schools are black or Hispanic. They offer parents a chance to provide the best possible education for their youngsters.
Test results in a leading charter network showed 82 percent of pupils passed the citywide math exam compared to 30 percent for non-charters. Charter schools are privately administered, mostly paid for by the taxpayers, and non-unionized.
In an affable telephone interview with hip-hop radio station, Hot 97, the mayor said he would "work with the charter schools" and acknowledged that "there's a lot of very good charter schools," but insisted he would not "favor them the way the Bloomberg administration did."
When co-host Ebro Darden remarked that "a lot" of charters were backed by the business community, the mayor replied: "Oh yeah, a lot of them are funded by very wealthy Wall Street folks and others."
Co-host Peter Rosenberg commented that a "campaign" to present de Blasio as anti-charter-school was similarly backed by big business, and de Blasio, replied: "I think you're providing a keen political analysis there."
Noonan notes that "it is true that wealthy and public-spirited New Yorkers, out of loyalty to the city and its future generations, give a lot of money, care and time" to charters. "They do it because they care about children who would otherwise be locked into a public-school system that doesn't work."
While liberals like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have broken with the progressives on this issues, other liberals are excusing the mayor's policy while claiming he is not going as far as the progressive left – his natural base – wants him to, writes Noonan.
"It is not the job of nice liberals to make excuses for pols who take a good thing from kids just to satisfy a political agenda," writes Noonan.
De Blasio's "move against charter schools is an opening feint, a showing of mood, and a sign of things to come." Critics were right about de Blasio being a destructive force – an ideologue ready to sacrifice children for his political dogma, she concludes.
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