There are no silver linings to Mayor de Blasio’s ham-fisted attacks on charter schools, but his strange behavior is providing clarity in several key ways.
First, the attacks illustrate how important charters have become. What started as an experiment with a few schools has grown into a genuine movement, one that is thrusting New York into the forefront of educational reform.
The actual size of the charter footprint is small — only 70,000 students out of more than 1 million in the city. But the stakes couldn’t be higher, because if charters can make it here, they can make it anywhere. Most important, the evidence that some are closing the racial achievement gaps gives their model the potential to be a national game-changer.
The second bit of clarity involves de Blasio himself. The ferocity of his attacks reveals how nasty he becomes when he doesn’t get his way. To judge from his start, his only gear is to demand conformity and crush dissent.
Most telling are his harsh criticisms of Gov. Cuomo, his fellow Democrat and former friend. Late Monday, after the Assembly included the mayor’s pre-kindergarten tax plan in its budget, de Blasio issued a statement saying, “Speaker Shelly Silver and his conference have put the children of New York City first.”
The clear suggestion is that Cuomo, who supports pre-K but not the tax, doesn’t care about kids. The mayor’s wife and Al Sharpton suggested the same thing when they played the civil-rights card.
The arguments are transparent nonsense. Cuomo said he will give de Blasio what he claims to want — funding for pre-K. And it is de Blasio, not Cuomo, who is trying to close schools helping poor, nonwhite children.
One result is that the mayor, who accused the NYPD of wide civil-rights violations, is now himself the target of a civil-rights complaint from charter leaders and parents. Touché!
The clarity extends to something else, too. There is no reason to believe de Blasio will limit his carpet-bombing approach to charters. New Yorkers are seeing how he intends to govern. It’s going to be a long four years.
As I wrote Sunday, the mayor is cut from the same cloth as President Obama, who has spent the last five years turning routine government business into hyperpartisan warfare. Both men provoke nonstop conflict over class, race and gender as a way to advance their radical agendas, which is why I dubbed them “Oblasio.”
If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em both. In that sense, Obama’s failed presidency, with even many Democrats souring on him, means de Blasio is not going to get the same benefit of the doubt Obama enjoyed in the beginning.
Cuomo’s refusal to jump on the pro-tax and anti-charter bandwagon is the clearest example of principled resistance, and contributes to the widespread disapproval of the mayor.
Indeed, one surprise is how little demand there is to give de Blasio time. He wasted much of the good will in the blink of an eye, and has no reservoir of trust to draw upon.
That’s not to say he won’t change tactics, as he did Monday by meeting with some operators of charter schools. He showed a smile instead of a clenched fist, and some participants expressed relief that he promised to work with them.
They are suckers, or cowards. And so are the big operators who have stayed silent while Eva Moskowitz bears the brunt of de Blasio’s attacks and policies.
The mayor wants to divide and conquer the movement by making it seem his fight is only with Moskowitz.
In truth, he’s coming for Moskowitz first, and he’ll squash the others after he diminishes or defeats the most prominent leader.
That’s what’s at stake, and the other operators and financial backers should summon their courage. The fight is now and there won’t be a second chance if the mayor gets his way.
Lest there be any doubt, his top deputy mayor, Anthony Shorris, let the cat out of the bag. He told a Crain’s breakfast gathering that some charter backers aim at “the privatization of American education,” before adding: “That’s not going to stand — at least as far as we’re concerned.”
Oblasio couldn’t have said it better. First you make false claims about the other side, then rile up your political base with fear-mongering and code words. Fund-raise and repeat.
It’s a strategy that succeeds only when people who know better stay silent.
We have crossed that bridge
The Bridgegate investigation looks to be taking a serious turn and is no longer just a partisan witch hunt aimed at damaging Chris Christie for the 2016 GOP race.
The decision by federal prosecutors to demand records of Port Authority Chairman David Samson follows allegations that he and his law firm are on both sides of some PA deals and that he didn’t properly recuse himself when he had a conflict of interest.
It’s possible that the investigation has moved on to Samson because it has come up empty on Christie, who appointed Samson to the agency.
Prosecutors who make a big deal out of launching a probe, as they did with Christie, often are loathe to fold their tent without a scalp.
But Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who first demanded the documents, has a reputation for integrity and a successful track record prosecuting white-collar crimes and political corruption. He’s not likely to jump into the game just to score partisan points. Something important may be coming.
Times slimes man who does ‘right’ by NY
The New York Times must be feeling the heat of defeat. An extra-shrill and extra-shameful editorial yesterday encouraged Democrats to attack the political spending of the wealthy Koch brothers as a way to maintain control of the Senate.
The paper scraped the bottom of the barrel in cheering Majority Leader Harry Reid’s claim that the conservative family aims to “rig the economic system for their benefit and for that of other oligarchs.” Reid also called them “unAmerican,” a phrase he has never used to describe fugitive Edward Snowden or the big donors to liberal causes.
The Times inflammatory piece ran the same day The Post noted that David Koch had given $100 million to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and was rewarded with a political protest by leftist union groups at his house.
The generous gift was the latest of many, as Koch has donated a reported $629 million to city health, educational and culture groups since 2000. None of that is mentioned in the Times, which is based in a city that benefits from the family it loves to hate.
Which raises a question: How many millions have the wealthy owners of The Times donated to charity?
Current events for dummies
Here’s the Russian invasion of Ukraine, simplified.
Putin acts, Obama talks, Europe quakes.
Everything else is detail.