Mayor Bloomberg, on the heels of the NEST-Ross fiasco, has decided to award the non-union Ross charter school the best classrooms in the city--the state of the art facilities at Tweed, funded by city taxpayers. While public school kids are sent to trailers, hallways and bathrooms, the Ross students will be fine.
A note to the teachers working for Ms. Ross--avoid talking about union salaries and benefits. You know what happens to people like that.
"Boy, how nice is it for a privately run school to get such wonderful attention!" said Carmen Colon, a parent who runs a group of parent leaders. "It would be nice if our public schools were getting this type of attention."
Stuart Marques, a spokesman for teachers union president Randi Weingarten, said the move "certainly shows where the chancellor's priorities are."
Perhaps if public schools received this sort of consideration, they wouldn't be in the state they are now. In fact, all things being equal, a lot of people think public schools are just as good , or even better than private schools.
Personally, even beyond what test scores say, I think they're better. I can't muster much sympathy for bazillionaires like Ross who deny working people their right to unionize. However good her school may be (and it's certainly getting better treatment than any public city school), the kids who leave it, thanks to her "vision", are going to enter an economy with even fewer opportunities.
Thanks to Schoolgal for the tip!
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