Charter School Entrepreneurs Roll Out De Basio Attack Ad For Their "Not Political" Rally

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

A new television ad produced for the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools accuses Mayor Bill de Blasio of forcing minority students into failing schools, according to a copy of the yet-unreleased ad obtained by POLITICO New York.

The ad will likely be made public later on Friday, ahead of the group's pro-charter rally on Sept. 30. The rally, which will take the form of a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, is officially intended to help "restore school equality."

...

The ad features two young boys, one white, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a blue shirt, the other black, with a buzzcut and a red shirt.

The clip puts into stark terms the racial and class politics that FES and its allies have embraced in their fight against de Blasio over the last 18 months.

"Because he lives in a wealthy neighborhood, this 6-year-old will attend a good school," the ad's narrator says as the young white boy is walked to school by a white parent.

But when the black boy appears on the screen, the narrator says, "Because he lives in a poor neighborhood, this 6-year-old will be forced in a failing school."

The two boys briefly pass each other on the street as the narrator claims that the white child will likely go to college, while the black boy has little chance of ever attaining a college degree.

A split screen shows the two boys in school; the white boy is happily reading, while the black child is frowning, apparently bored, at his desk.

"Mayor de Blasio, stop forcing kids into failing schools," the narrator says. "Half a million children need new schools, now."

I know a child who attended one of Eva Moskowitz's test prep factories who frowned all the time at school because he was a) bored by the constant test prep and b) sick of being beaten into submission by the abuse and "discipline" from the Success staff.

He doesn't frown much anymore because he's out of the Success prison system and into a school where it's not "All Test Prep All The Time" and "Eyes Up Here!"

I'm sure this ad has been tested by FES and therefore will be effective at further driving down de Blasio's poll numbers, hitting him most where it hurts - with black voters - in order to help Eva Moskowitz or some other pro-charter shill to run for mayor against de Blasio in 2017.

But it's pure lies and propaganda for a whole host of reasons - from the exclusionary attack (charters are, by definition, exclusionary - just ask any child who's been tossed from Success) to the black children are bored in bad schools attack  (which certainly wasn't true in the case of the child I wrote about above.)

That they're rolling out a political attack ad on de Blasio before a rally that they insist is "not political" is even evidence of just how political and full of jive the charter entrepreneurs are.