Four of the five top Democratic candidates for mayor took to the steps of City Hall Tuesday to criticize the mayor’s school closing policy.
As the city moves to close a record 62 schools this year, the Democrats said Mayor Bloomberg needs to account for what happens to the highest needs kids when a school is closed.
“It’s very easy to close a school. It doesn’t take real leadership,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. “For too long, school closing has been the easy way out.”
“Stop this dangerous shell game with our children. Stop shuffling them around,” said former city Controller Bill Thompson.
Controller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio also joined the advocacy group the Coalition for Educational Justice for the press conference Tuesday.
The Democratic primary field, already critical of some Bloomberg-era education reforms, is in competition for support from the mayor’s fiercest critics on education policy, including the powerful teachers union.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the current frontrunner in the mayoral contest and a close ally of the mayor’s, did not attend. Instead, she issued a carefully worded statement praising the city’s “small schools movement” while noting that there has been no “magic bullet.”
Clearer version of what Quinn said - I like the mayor's closure polices because my money people like the mayor's closure policies and if I am elected I will continue the mayor's closure policies because my money people will want those closure policies continued.
Quinn's a hedge fundie whore and her absence at yesterday's protest of the closures and her "carefully worded statement" say everything you need to know about her as a candidate and her as a person.
She's for sale to the highest bidder - and you can be sure the hedge fund managers/education reformers will be the highest bidders.
In that area, she is no different than another hedge fundie whore who currently serves as governor.
There's a special place in hell being prepped for Quinn.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to Quinn's enabling of Bloomberg's third term and his attacks on the public schools, the two of them stood back and allowed St. Vincent's Hospital, which had served lower Manhattan for 160 years, to close. Three thousand jobs were eliminated, and health care cut back for manhattan below Midtown.
And why did this happen? So that the Rudins could pursue a luxury real estate play at that location.
None of the candidates oppose mayoral control of the schools, and are highly unlikely to buck the neoliberal consensus on privatization, but Quinn is a particularly nasty piece of work. A humiliating Quinn loss in the primaries would constitute a rebuke to Bloomberg and a dram of satisfaction for those who don't like seeing cowardice and opportunism rewarded.
MULGREW supports mayorall control as well...said so the other day...
ReplyDeleteI still favor Liu and still believe that all this campaign finance scandal thing was somehow engineered by Bloomberg--because Liu was one of the few people to buck him.
ReplyDeleteThe degree of mayoral control is ridiculous. There should be a system of checks and balances and it is really disturbing to me that Bloombucks has also been allowed to pack the PEP and then fire his own appointees when they don't agree with him.