Among the accomplishments Mayor de Blasio cited in his speech Thursday, one was missing: classrooms for 500 charter-school kids whose space he swiped. Because he has yet to find them a school.
This is troubling, because the Success Academy charter schools sent out letters this week to families that won seats for their children in the schools’ lotteries. But these moms and dads still have no idea where their children’s schools will be.
Three possible reasons can explain the mayor’s unkept promise:
- The mayor’s office is just plain incompetent. If so, that makes his decision to take away the space even more ill-advised.
- Finding space for these children isn’t a priority. In which case you have to question his sincerity when he now claims, “They are all our children.”
- De Blasio never intended to find these kids space, even though he promised they “will have a great building to go into [in] September, period.” Maybe he just can’t wrap his head around the idea that charters are public schools, too.
In remarks at Riverside Church just three weeks ago, de Blasio admitted he didn’t “measure up” when he took the school space away. He vowed to correct that.
“I will reach out to all of the children, in traditional public schools, in charter schools, in religious schools,” he said. Unfortunately, 500 children who had a good school before de Blasio took it from them remain in limbo. Time for the mayor to stop jerking these kids around and get them the “great building” he promised.