New York City's new socialist Mayor, Bill De Blasio, has kicked 700 students out of charter schools. Here are the details from the Heritage Foundation:
De Blasio is blocking four charter schools – run by the Success Academy charter school network – from opening or expanding, rolling back an offer made to the charter network by his predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to co-locate in spaces not being fully used by the traditional public school system.
“The cumulative impact of de Blasio’s actions virtually halts charter school expansions,” the New York Post reported.
The charter network’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, runs twenty-two Success charter schools in New York, educating some 6,700 students. The city had agreed to allow the charters, which are public schools that are operated with more autonomy, to co-locate in buildings with traditional public schools.
But that all changed when de Blasio took office. “There’s no way in hell that Eva Moskowitz should get free rent,” he exclaimed.
One of the four schools is already in operation and three additional Success academies were slated to open their doors this fall. The mayor’s actions have left “at least 700 children without a school this coming school year.” Fifty thousand children are on charter school wait lists in New York.
According to a report from 2013, 80 percent of public high school graduates in New York City don't have the basic skills to properly read or do math. Further, minority students in NYC are hardly even finishing school.
Nearly 80 percent of high school graduates lack basic skills like reading, writing and math and are required to relearn them before qualifying for community college.
Critics pointed out that just 13 percent of black and Latino students graduate from New York City schools with the skills required for community college – and overall, 80 percent of all graduates lack these skills.
The number of students who lack crucial reading, writing and math skills is the highest it has been in years, CBS 2 reports. Officials from City University told the news station that 79.3 percent of graduates, or 10,700 students, who arrived to take a test to get into community college last year failed and were required to relearn basic skills that should have been taught in high school. This is a sharp increase from the 71.4 percent who were lacking the skills in 2007.
Michael Bloomberg left his office with a legacy of absolute failure on education, but it seems De Blasio is already well on his way to be worse. Parents in New York are begging for school choice and education options outside of the public system The system De Blasio is protecting and upholding traps students, provides nearly zero opportunity for educational success and destroys the futures of thousands of children.
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