Leftist Bullies Try To Bulldoze Successful Charter Schools
By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Posted 06:18 PM ET
On March 17, 19 parents who send their children to Success Academy, a Harlem charter school, filed suit in federal court to stop New York Mayor Bill de Blasio from denying them previously arranged space in a public school building.
Without space, their children and 173 others will not be able to continue at Success Academy this fall.
School bullying is a problem nationwide, but in New York the bullies are de Blasio and his pals — state NAACP President Hazel Dukes and teachers unions.
Their targets are middle-school kids, 97% of them minorities, and 80% eligible for lunch assistance.
Overcoming disadvantages, these middle-schoolers have soared to the top 1% citywide in overall student achievement.
The fifth-graders rank first in New York State in math — surpassing students in Bronxville, Scarsdale and other wealthy New York suburban school districts, where resources are available at school and at home.
So why try to force the closing of this successful school?
De Blasio, who sounds like a communist, is outraged that charter schools receive donations from "very wealthy Wall Street folks."
The parents' legal complaint documents show how de Blasio targeted their school during his mayoral campaign last fall, vowing to make the school pay rent, something other public schools don't have to do.
De Blasio's fellow bully Dukes blasted the lawsuit on Monday. She called the suit "an outrageous and insulting attempt by Wall Street hedge fund managers to hijack the language of civil rights in their shameless political attack on Bill de Blasio."
Sadly, it is Dukes who is playing the race card for political gain and sacrificing minority children.
A Bronx Tale
Consider what another Success Academy called Bronx 2 is doing to educate minority students. In that charter school, 97% of students passed state exams in mathematics, and 77% passed English.
In math, the school ranks third in the state, besting schools in well-heeled suburbs. Bronx 2 shares space with a district public school, where kids under the thumb of the union and city bureaucrats are failing.
Only 3% passed the state English test. Same building, but a world of difference. Which school is giving kids their civil rights? Not the one Dukes and de Blasio are defending.
This is not just a local scuffle. Across the nation, teachers unions and civil rights opportunists are planting themselves on schoolhouse steps, determined to stop school choice and the emergence of charter schools that serve minority kids rather than union bosses.
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