De Blasio - A Public School Parent Who Could Be Mayor

Dana Rubenstein at Capital NY:

De Blasio pointed out that if he wins, he will become the first mayor in the city's history with children in public school.

It's not a claim I could substantiate. I can say with certainly, however, that he would be the first mayor with a child in public school at the time he was mayor in at least 50 years.

(Abe Beame sent his children to public school, but they graduated long before he became mayor.)

None of the other leading candidates from either party who have children made the decision to send them to public school: Bill Thompson sent his daughter to private school and his step-children are in boarding school, while Republicans Joe Lhota and John Catsimatidis sent their children to private schools.

The two Democrats with connections to public education—John Liu, who sends his son to public school in Manhattan, and Anthony Weiner, who has said he plans to send his son to public school—trail their rivals by significant margins in the polls.

Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic nominee in 2005, said his daughter graduated from public school, although she actually graduated from Catholic school.

In 2001, when Michael Bloomberg was mounting his first run for mayor, his youngest daughter, Georgina, was a senior at the Spence School and his older daughter Emma was a senior at Princeton. 

His opponent Mark Green (and Green's opponents in the Democratic primary: Peter Vallone Sr. and Alan Hevesi) all sent their kids to private schools.

Ruth Messinger, the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1997, sent her kids to public school, but they weren’t school-aged by the time she ran for mayor and anyway she lost to incumbent Rudy Giuliani, who sent his kids to private school.

Ed Koch didn’t have any kids. Dinkins sent his kids to private school, the Ethical Culture School and Fieldston, but they weren’t school-aged.

Beame's two sons went to public school, according to his former campaign manager, though they were grown-ups by the time their father got to City Hall.
 
John Lindsay had school-age children, but he sent them to private school.

Bobby Wagner, the son of Robert Wagner, went to the Buckley School and Phillips Exeter Academy. (I can't find any information about the Wagner siblings. Help, please, if you know.)

Vincent Impellitteri had no children.

Bill de Blasio has two.

His daughter Chiara is in college now, but she graudated from the Beacon School, M.S. 51, and P.S. 372.

Fifteen-year-old Dante de Blasio attended he same elementary and middle schools and is now a student at Brooklyn Tech.

De Blasio’s status as a public school parent comes gives him an undeniably appealing talking point, one he has shown no hesitation in using. "Lucky husband of @Chirlane. Proud public school parent," reads his campaign Twitter profile.

It's been helpful to de Blasio in making his case to voters, no doubt.

“To have a mayor who says, 'I’ll tell you how much I’m going to care about the public schools, I got my own kid there,' is a very powerful signal,” said Ken Sherrill, a Hunter College political science professor. “That’s more than spending one night in public housing."

Good piece by Rubenstein.

This is the kind of piece Gotham Schools should be doing.

Instead, they're doing hit pieces on de Blasio dating back to his time on a school board in the 1990's.

I wonder how much the Quinn campaign paid GS for this advertising spot?

Nah, just kidding - they don't have to take Quinn's money for this post.

They'll be paid in kind by the hedge fundies and Wall Street folks around donation time.