Charter school proponents are graciously accepting Mayor Bloomberg's offer of more schools. However, they want more money as well. As public schoolchildren are herded like sheep into ancient crumbling buildings, there needs to be more for the chosen few Mayor-for-life Bloomberg has seen fit to grace with decent conditions.
After all, when you have the rich backing you, there's pretty much no limit what you can do. Gates and Broad lay down a little seed money, and leave the punters to support whatever the program is pretty much indefinitely.
Because here's the thing--when you systematically starve public schools of resources, when you crowd them several times beyond capacity, when you deny them technology, space, and even classroom furniture, the Eva Moskowitz redecorating plan starts to look pretty good.
You say to yourself, "Gee, those schools that service 2% of our population really look good." And then you wonder why the hell your kid can't study in a clean, freshly painted classroom. Then you start to think, "Gee, maybe it's a good idea to make teachers work like chattel, give them crappy benefits, and no retirement plan. Let's put more money into painting those rooms."
The only problem is this--your kids are the ones who will grow up into jobs just like the one you created for the Moskowitz teachers. They'll grow up to be chattel too. And if you think the likes of Mayor-for-life Bloomberg is ever going to fix things for the 98% of the kids who don't get those privileged conditions, well, you just don't understand how the mind of a union-buster works.
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