Days after Bill de Blasio declared himself a “fiscal conservative” to a group of business leaders, Joe Lhota addressed the same group and made the case that he is the true progressive on education.
“If you oppose charter schools and the programs and the other choices that are available for minorities, and inner city children, and children of immigrants, you cannot call yourself a progressive,” Lhota said in a speech to the Association for a Better New York.
“There’s nothing more progressive in education reform today than the charter school movement.”
Lhota hit de Blasio’s support for a moratorium on charter school co-locations and school closings, and for requiring charter schools to pay rent to use city buildings.
“With extreme positions like this on education, it’s not progress,” he said. “I’m not going to constrain our children’s education the way my opponent will to just going to schools in the zipcode where they live.”
He said de Blasio “turns a blind eye” to the successes of charter schools, and the concerns of the mostly minority and low or moderate income charter parents “fall on…his deaf ears.”
Besides support for charter schools, Lhota proposed creating online remedial education programs and allowing adults on public assistance to use time spent on those studies toward welfare work requirements.
After the speech, Lhota made clear he embraces the progressive label for himself when it comes to education.
“Bill is beholden to what the needs are, solely the needs are of the teachers’ union. And there’s nothing progressive about what they want,” he said, adding of support for charter schools, “That’s a progressive education approach.”
In contrast to de Blasio’s speech last week, which barely mentioned Lhota, Lhota devoted significant chunks of his address to ripping de Blasio, opening with the quip, “I’m gonna start with a confession — my name is Joe Lhota and I AM a fiscal conservative.”
He called de Blasio’s policing policies “naive and reckless” and said that on increasing fines and fees in the city, the Democrat has been “part of the problem.”
He described his childhood struggles being born to teenage parents, with his father working three jobs and his mother two until his father joined the NYPD when he was 10 – and took a shot at de Blasio’s own upbringing in Massachusetts and affinity for the Red Sox.
“I didn’t go to an elite elementary school in Cambridge. I went to school in the Bronx. And while I was there, I have always supported the New York Yankees,” he said.
“If he wants to go toe to toe with me on inequality, if he wants to go toe to toe with me on affordability, or about understanding how to make ends meet, I welcome it. I’ve lived it and I’m the only candidate in this race who has the experience to take it on,” he said.
After the speech, Lhota hopped on the subway from Grand Central to City Hall – he’s taking the subway these days “not as often as I used to. I used to take it every day, multiple times a day. It’s hard to get to Staten Island by subway,” the former MTA head said – to attend a rally of charter school parents.
There, he further bashed de Blasio’s charter stance.
“If you want to start charging rent, if you want to start saying that they can’t co-locate, they will not be able to function. It’s effectively saying you want to shut them down,” he said. “Charter schools have been under siege for a long time. I think [parents] are very, very worried about what would happen if they have a mayor who doesn’t like charter schools, who doesn’t want charter schools to succeed.”
Lhota won some fans among the charter parents.
Yolanda White, 42, of Fort Greene, said her 5-year-old son attends the Success Academy in Cobble Hill, where he is already reading, writing, doing math, and dreaming of attending Cornell and becoming an architect.
“I know without charter schools, my son would not be able to achieve what he’s achieving,” she said. “I’ve never voted for a Republican before. But if a Republican is what it’s going to take to get in office to make sure that my son has a secure place in school, his charter school, then, you know what, I have no problem jumping the line for a Republican.”
IMAGE: DAVID HANDSCHUH/NY DAILY NEWS
