Thursday, March 6, 2014

Rant of the Day - The NY Progressives' "War on Education"

I have to rant here for a minute or two. We have a war waging in NYC. You may remember that we have a new mayor in NY - Bill de Blasio - Marxist Progressive. He made all sorts of promises to make everything better for the poor, downtrodden of NYC. One of his promises was in the field of "public school education". Yes, our children were going to fare better if only he would be elected mayor. And his war will be waged against the scourge of charter schools.

Whatever you may think about charter schools, by all accounts, they are doing an amazing job in NYC. Under Bloomberg (remember him?), charter schools grew by leaps and bounds. The children who have been lucky enough to win a seat by lottery at one of our charter schools in NYC that are co-located within public school facilities, are getting the best public school education that our tax dollars can fund. These charter schools are filled with dedicated non-union affiliated administrators and teachers. The top school in the state right now is Success Academy Charter Schools founded by former City Council member and apparent de Blasio nemesis Eva Moskowitz. The students of the Success Academy, mostly poor minority students, scored the highest in math in the state of New York last year and fifth in language. That is all the schools across the state including the all of the tony, upper class school districts outside of New York City where all the upper crust, ivy leaguers moved to for "better schools" for their children. And inexplicable our new mayor is trying to shut them down. He is demanding that they move out or pay rent or, if possible just go away. It's just not right that they the charter students should be allowed to hog all the empty space and all that oxygen that should otherwise go to union teachers...I mean, regular public school students. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not equitable that any student should be learning when they do not have a union teacher to teach them.

The charter school concept seems pretty simple - set a high standard to achieve and challenge the students to meet that standard - no excuses. Understand that this is a kind of "Stand and Deliver" kind of goal. Remember that movie about Jaime Escalante, the teacher in California who decided to take otherwise underachieving minority students and challenging them to pass the AP Calculus test? All the administrators and teacher thought he was crazy and wasting his time. He and his students proved them all wrong. For almost 20 years, his students aced the AP calculus exam and went on to college when no one expected them to be able to do more that count change at a fast food joint.

This week our dear Mayor de Blasio announced that he was rescinding any further expansion of the otherwise successful charter schools mostly to appease his union buddies in the UFT. Let's just say that the otherwise compliant minority constituency of our Mayor are, as we say in the South, "loaded for bear". A huge rally by the parents and sympathizers of charter schools was held in Albany to object to the Mayor's decree. Governor Cuom, who is at odds with Mayor de Blasio for other reasons attended the rally to show his support. Fifteen thousand angry parents with their children in tow and in the snow and cold, descended on our capital to voice their strong opposition to the wrong-headedness of de Blasio's stubborn adherance to his campaign promises. They are not happy that their kids who are finally getting a real chance to break out of poverty and get the education that they deserve are being thwarted by the very people (and party) that purports to want to "help" them and are doing everything they in their power to halt their childrens' education! It was beautiful thing to behold.

For all the complaints that have been leveled at these overachieving charter school [which, btw, includes better lunch hours, better lunches, better gym hours etc], not once have I heard one union teacher, one union administrator, one union-sympathizing talk show pundit, or even the pro-UFT Mayor (see a pattern here?) ask "What are these charter schools doing so RIGHT that their students are scoring so high?". Call me crazy, but shouldn't that be the ONLY question being asked? Isn't this the point? These kids, mostly minority, who, by all that we are lead to believe, shouldn't be able to learn anything because of whatever aggrieved [fill in the blank] reason the unions can come up with, are surpassing not only their inner city, regular public school, union-teacher educated counterparts but ALL student in the state, and no one is asking "How are they doing this and how can we emulate what they are doing?". It makes me crazy...

Any thoughts?

11 comments:

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Nice rant. Charter Schools have changed education all across the US. Not only do they typically provide a superior education for the kids in them, but they've been forcing the public schools to step up their game too.

So for de Blasio to attack these schools honestly can only be seen as a desire to harm children. I'm sure he's got some asinine socialist "everyone should be at the bottom together" crap, but this is beyond obnoxious.

Anthony said...

Honestly, I'm not that high on charter schools. I suspect the big difference between charter and public schools are motivated parents who are actively involved in their kids' education (and applying boot to butt when their kids slip).

That being said, while I don't think charter schools are the answer (because the problem IMHO is parents) its insane to be down on charter schools. They allow motivated students to be grouped together and learn together at a fast pace, rather than being held back by the need of teachers to try to bring the kids who don't want to learn or who have serious discipline problems up to speed.

Critch said...

Well, De Blahzeo is one of those socialists who wants to level everything, of course for the left that means bringing everyone down instead of raising everyone. I was surprised yesterday to see the crew of Morning Joe lambasting the mayor, normally if it's a socialist in the news they're wetting their pants with glee.

tryanmax said...

It's very likely that Anthony is right about the parents, though I suspect there is also something more. So long as folks are too timid (or angry, or biased) to face the question that Bev asks, "What are these charter schools doing so right that their students are scoring so high?", then the only thing to do is defend charter schools until that question is asked and answered.

The worst thing that could happen is to let leftists like de Blasio fold the charter school system summarily. You know they will revise history to say they were closed b/c they were failing. (As opposed to failing b/c they were closed.) Narratives like that inevitably take hold. Who would dispute the facts? We had charter schools and now we don't. Who would shut down a good thing? They must have failed.

BevfromNYC said...

Anthony - Yes, the parents ARE motivated. However all the students that attend these charter schools won seats in a lottery - their names were picked out of barrel. Now, yes, the parent(s) had to be motivated enough to PUT the kids names in the barrel, but we are not talking about some tony private school where kids have to take a battery of tests to even get in the door. This system is the most democratic of placement.

The sad fact is that these charter school kids are acing the 5th grade regents exams at 96% passing - NYC regular public schools that rate is 3% - that is not a typo. No one should be taking this opportunity away from any child. And that it is purely to score political payback because of some slight that Eva Moskowitz did or didn't do against Bill de Blasio - makes it even more egregious.

BevfromNYC said...

Critch - It is surprising that de Blasio has had no "honeymoon" period. The press has been on him from Day One. and he is making some really arrogantly asinine mistakes. I wish that I could say that the moniker of "Marxist" was just an far-right unfair epithet...but it's not. Even seasoned political consultants are dismayed at how he is determined to ram things through (sound familiar) simply because they were campaign promises. And how he refuses to understand that there are other people in the city besides his allies! And sadly the very people who is trying to harm in the charter school wars are the very people he vowed he would protect and defends.

Kit said...

Bev,

I wonder if the reason there is no honeymoon is because the press likes Cuomo more because he is a possible 2016 alternative to Hillary.

BevfromNYC said...

Kit - It's possible that they are rooting for Cuomo, but I really think they just don't like de Blasio. And, though they could have tried to do the same with Bloomberg, the cast of characters that Bloomberg surrounded himself with were kind of unimpeachable. And Bloomberg, though highly annoying could NOT be bought off. De Blasio and his cohorts are just easy pickings because all of them have skeletons in their closets that the press is smelling out. and then there's the cohorts right out in the open like Al Sharpton.

De Blasio has an "Obama-style" problem too. He is doing exactly what Obama did in his first year in office - trying to ram as much of his campaign agenda through the city counsel before anyone notices how bad his promises are for the city. Cuomo is being a spoiler in that. It really is entertaining to watch Moderate Dems go after far leftist Dems in an ideological war for change.

Kit said...

Is he more or less competent than Obama?

BevfromNYC said...

Kit - He's turning out to be mostly the same on a local level right down to the jeans. He likes to be "a man of the people" by dressing like hobo.

Kit said...

Bev,

You have my sympathy. God bless you.

Post a Comment