Let’s hope De Blasio doesn’t go full Maduro quite yet:
‘A centerpiece of his mayoral bid, Mr. de Blasio’s proposal calls for a tax hike on those making more than a half million dollars a year to fund expansive pre-K and after-school programs. Raising income taxes requires the approval of the State Legislature and critics have assailed Mr. de Blasio’s plan as quixotic because the State Senate, partially-controlled by Republicans, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo could torpedo the plan.’
Health-care and education are natural areas in which to secure the People’s future. Given De Blasio’s connections with labor, activists, and folks who look over to the right and see progressives, charter schools have reason to see a rough time ahead in New York City. Perhaps so could any New Yorker paying taxes not affiliated with those coalitions, or at least they ought to check and see how their money’s being spent in a few years.
I suppose we’ll find out how effective de Blasio will be against Cuomo’s upstate pushback.
Walter Russell Mead notes how this could play out for charters:
‘Bill de Blasio’s tenure many not mean the end of charter schools in New York City, but it will make them considerably more difficult to operate. With the cutback in city aid for charter schools, de Blasio appears committed to fighting one of the most promising things happening in city’
And to step back a bit, perhaps education reformer Diane Ravitch is succumbing to the same anti-capitalist, collectivist, 60′s Left zeitgeist, abandoning a more liberal-minded independence?
Sara Mosle At the Atlantic has ‘The Architect Of School Reform Who Turned Against It?:’
‘If the reform movement hopes to retain the public’s trust, insisting that reputable charters expel their for-profit brethren is a sensible place to start. Ravitch also argues convincingly that charters should accept a fairer share of the toughest-to-educate students. For her part, Ravitch might lead her own followers to recognize that the desire to improve teacher quality isn’t tantamount to teacher-bashing.
“If my child were in a school where he was not learning,” Ravitch wrote in the not-too-distant past, “I would not wait for a gathering of social scientists to tell me whether it was okay for me to put him in another school.” A reform movement convulsed by extremism shouldn’t hinder parents, or children, either. If only Ravitch, too, would dedicate her zeal to a less divisive vision.’
Is this an ongoing argument between post-60’s establishment liberalism and progressive street politics in America, with consequences for the rest of us?
Thanks for the funny photo, NY Post.
Addition: Adjusted headline from a reader: ‘A Pre-K Slot In Every Pot…’ Boffo!
Related On This Site: What Will De Blasio’s New York Look Like?-Some Links…Sandinistas At The NY Times: ‘A Mayoral Hopeful Now, de Blasio Was Once a Young Leftist’…Two Links On Diane Ravitch & School Reform
Richard Epstein At Defining Ideas: ‘City Planners Run Amok’…Virginia Postrel At Bloomberg: ‘How The Elites Built America’s Economic Wall’...The Irish were a mess: William Stern At The City Journal: ‘How Dagger John Saved New York’s Irish’
Politicians and politics likely won’t deliver you from human nature, nor fulfill your dreams in the way you want: anarchy probably won’t either: Two Sunday Quotations By Albert Jay Nock in ‘Anarchist’s Progress’
Josh Barro At Business Insider: ‘Dear New Yorkers: Here’s Why Your Rent Is So Ridiculously High’