Eva Moskowitz and her charter-school cronies have paid nearly $5 million to fund commercials to promote their interests at the expense of overcrowded NYC public-school students, a number of whom have special needs.
The interests of over ninety percent are trumped by one Eva Moskowitz and her obscenely wealthy cronies. With her own empire and a salary close to $500,000 per year, she makes out to be a crusader for the poor. She spends more than another half a million dollars per year for a D.C. public-relations firm, SDK Knickerbocker, not to mention the loads more sent the way of Governor Cuomo by her charter-school interests. Really? Can public policy be bought? Seems so! In which century are we living? And, can we still call ourselves a democracy?
At first, I favored comparisons with the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. Now, I know that I've had it wrong. The situation is far worse. Charter-school students comprise a mere 6% of NYC students (and that number is owing almost exclusively to the policies of one Mayor Bloomberg who decimated neighborhood public schools whilst giving preferential treatment to charters).
Statewide, charter-school students comprise 3% of the population, yet, again, they are privileged and seem to have the private ear of our Governor. The system is separate and unequal in so many ways. Only the other day, a study showed that NYC schools are the most segregated in the country and, among these, charters are the worst offenders. Money buys a lot. But will it always do so?
The last time I remember the wishes of 3% overriding the wishes of the other 97%, it was upon the eve of the French Revolution. And this is a very sobering and frightening thought!
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