Mayor Bill de Blasio’s privately financed campaign to offer prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds in New York City spent nearly $236,000 in January and February, spreading much of the money among the same core group of political consultants behind his winning campaign last year, according to records released on Wednesday.The horror! None of this is tax money, by the way - it's all raised privately. But the Times sniffs,
For all those efforts, the campaign has fallen significantly short of persuading state leaders to go along with the mayor’s desire to increase taxes on high-earning city residents to pay for universal prekindergarten and after-school programs.MEANWHILE, the Daily News reports on another lobbying effort:
Eva Moskowitz (often presented in the press as an apolitical educator, which she is not) and her grifting cronies have spent at minimum $3.6 Million dollars in just the last three weeks to attack the new mayor.An pro-charter school group has spent $3.6 million on TV ads over the past three weeks attacking Mayor de Blasio — the amount candidates typically spend in three weeks of a heated mayoral primary, an insider with knowledge of the ad buy revealed Wednesday.Families for Excellent Schools — founded by a deep-pocketed group of current and former financiers — has run a series of ads, including a heart-wrenching spot blaming de Blasio for taking away the “hopes and dreams” of 194 students by blocking Success Academy Harlem Central’s co-location plan.
And yet, the poor, poor charter schools should never be asked to pay a dime for rent, or to meet the same requirements of public schools. There are plenty of well meaning people, parents mostly, caught up in the charter school campaign. But the people behind the movement have a hidden right-wing agenda that centers on union-busting, rolling back labor protections, privatizing public resources and cannibalizing the public school system.
And the third story, added as this post was in progress: the NY Post (no link for you, Murdoch) is harping on deBlasio's popularity ratings, as if such things exist in a vacuum, and are not the direct result of near constant scurrilous attacks from our billionaire owned vanity press and multi-million dollar smear campaigns from Eva Moskowitz and her band of corporate raiders.
Class warfare, indeed.
You have mostly the poor in the charter schools. They now have a chance to better themselves. The Public educational system in this country is broken. It has become nothing but a brainwashing tool for the Democratic party. The UFT,NEA,NYSUT,AFT (Unions) are all in lock step. Unions are supposed to be neutral that is the biggest lie. I read all the union rags. They support 100 percent the Democratic party. They spend 1/3 of your dues campaigning and lobbying Democrats. They bombard you with robo calls for Democrats. Unions are nothing but money laundering for the Dems. Public education is dumbed down education since the 1970's. We spend 20-22 thousand a year per student. Not to mention free breakfast and free lunch. What next supper? There are such things as EBT, Food Stamps, WIC cards. The schools are flooded with thousands of illegals every week with no knowledge of English or a alphabet. No immunization papers either. School nurses and administration let it slide for months on end. You have Sandinista Wilhelm who has his personal vendetta. Not to mention the UFT in his pocket.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll let your comments speak for themselves and let others decide how rational and reasonable they are. A pastiche of recycled, rambling, right-wing talking points.
ReplyDeleteBut: Who says unions are supposed to be neutral? Of course unions support the Democratic party - it's the party of labor. The GOP despises and actively works against the interests of working people.
But as a side note - the UFT supported Billy Thompson, not deBlasio.
Now for god's sake put down the NY Post and turn off the Fox News and ABC talk radio.