Either City Hall has a sick sense of humor, or Mayor de Blasio is as arrogant and tone deaf as he appears.
Just as news was breaking that he had declared war on poor black children, his schedule had him attending a Black History Month celebration at Gracie Mansion. Maybe he thinks the contrast was clever.
What, you hadn’t heard about the mayor’s jihad on black children? Then you missed the meaning of his attack on the charter schools that serve them so well.
He and his ilk can’t have those kids succeeding off the plantation. It’ll set a bad example and lead other parents to try to free their children from the shackles of the teachers union.
So, Wham! Down went the hammer on Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academy Schools. She’s Public Enemy No. 1 when it comes to showing that race and income and ZIP code aren’t destiny. She must be stopped, lest the revolution spread.
All of her schools, you see, are located in poor, nonwhite neighborhoods, and all are good schools. Parents beg, plead and pray to get their kids into her schools. She demands excellence, and some of her charges are so off-the-charts successful that a cottage industry has sprung up trying to debunk her credibility.
Oh, she has money, she counsels kids out, she’s a bitch, she teaches to the test — the deniers throw dust to obscure results that are the envy of every parent in New York. Some of her kids even beat Scarsdale’s by several measures.
In a sane world, she’d be running the whole school system and sharing her formula for success with a million kids. But in the crazy house of New York, where unions make education policy and craven politicians sell their souls, she is regarded as a weapon of mass destruction.
In some sense, she is. Her model of success represents an existential threat to the union model. Every new school of hers undermines every regular school in the neighborhood. Can’t have that.
It is no mere contradiction that de Blasio is determined to defend the status quo. He and his wife talk about pre-kindergarten as the “civil-rights issue of our time” even as they crush the model that gives nonwhite students a running start. The first couple claims to be progressive, but when it comes to education, they give old school a bad name.
The racial element can’t be ignored. The white mayor no doubt assumes he’ll get a pass on this race-based assault because he has a mixed-race family.
Not here. The impact of his decision will harm only black and Latino children. No white children will suffer as a result. The mayor preaches diversity, but his ideas are pure vanilla.
“Disparate impact” is the new liberal test in the courts, and this decision’s racial impact fits like a glove. Moskowitz threatens to sue, and I hope she does. The publication of the lopsided statistical evidence in her favor would shake the education world.
Yesterday’s announcement also shows why de Blasio had to rifle through the bargain bin of retirement ranks to find a chancellor. Carmen Fariña always embraced mediocrity and scorned excellence, and took the job with the understanding that charter schools had to be strangled before they reached a critical mass. No leading educator would agree to those terms because charters are part and parcel of the mainstream reform movement.
Everywhere, that is, except in New York, where progressives are turning back the clock on progress. Shame on them.