Video:CuomovsDeBlasiooncharterschools

Video: Cuomo vs DeBlasio on charter schools

posted at 2:31 pm on May 31, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Will Cain published the third episode of his video series Alise vs The Mayor on the fight over charter schools in New York City for The Blaze yesterday. This episode’s title is “Check,” but it might be better titled as Cuomo vs DeBlasio. Bill DeBlasio shut down several charter schools, including the high-performing Success Academy locations, as part of his payback to the teachers unions that supported him in his bid for mayor. Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, has come out loudly for charter schools across the state, noting that New York spends the most per student on education but only ranks 30th in results.

Cuomo headlined an Albany rally with 11,000 students, parents, and teachers last March to save charter schools at roughly the same time DeBlasio headlined a union-backed event with 500 attendees. Cuomo demanded a focus on students, while DeBlasio offered expansion of school jobs for unions to fill. The difference is stark, and defining:

This battle between Cuomo and DeBlasio has been brewing for months, and Success Academy is a specific and personal target for DeBlasio as well. Will noted this in one of his earlier episodes, but the New York Times covered it three months ago too:

In New York City, the issue is further complicated by the personal dynamics between the new mayor and one of the movement’s chief proponents, Eva S. Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman.

The two frequently clashed, and Mr. de Blasio singled her out when he voiced his frustration over the educational priorities in the city.

Ms. Moskowitz now runs Success Academy Charter Schools, a nonprofit group, which runs a number of charter schools and was seeking to open more and to expand existing schools.

“She has to stop being tolerated, enabled, supported,” Mr. de Blasio said last year.

The schools that Mr. de Blasio targeted were all affiliated with Ms. Moskowitz’s organization.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo deliberately singled out the Success Academy in his remarks, saying the goal was to change the culture of the schools, even if that meant bucking the teachers’ unions.

“We know that too many public schools are failing,” he said. “We need new ideas.”

That battle will not come cost-free for Cuomo. He may draw a challenger from his left in the upcoming re-election campaign over the issue of charter schools:

Gov. Cuomo is trying to win the endorsement of the Working Families Party for reelection – but he has competition.

The party is considering a handful of people to be its nominee for governor, including Diane Ravitch, a noted education historian, Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham law professor, and Dan Cantor, the WFP’s national director, the Daily News has learned.

Ravitch, 75, expressed interest when approached by the minor party and is mulling the idea, sources said.

A vocal critic of charter schools, Ravitch would present a pointed contrast to Cuomo, who has pushed for charter school protections over the objections of Mayor de Blasio, a darling of the liberal-leaning party.

Watch episodes 1 & 2 of Will’s excellent series if you’re just seeing this for the first time, and be sure to watch my interview with Will — which includes a funny personal exchange at the end — from Tuesday.

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Tags: Andrew Cuomo, Bill DeBlasio, charter schools, New York, New York City, school choice

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FederaljudgegivesLouisianathego-aheadinDOJ’s

Federal judge gives Louisiana the go-ahead in DOJ’s suit against school vouchers

posted at 2:01 pm on April 11, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

In 2012, Louisiana passed a statewide voucher program that would allow families living below 250% of the poverty line and with children attending ailing and failing public schools to instead send their children to a school of their choice — and it didn’t take too long for the Obama administration, what with their pro-union and anti-school choice proclivities, to try to put a stop to it with a permanent injunction while claiming that the program was “impeding the desegregation process.” …Which seems weird, since the overwhelming majority of the program’s beneficiaries have been poor minority students, but don’t even think about accusing the Obama administration of having “taken a position” on the matter:

Attorney General Eric Holder denied that the Justice Department “took a position” on a Louisiana school choice program that administration officials tried to restrict by asking a federal judge to issue a permanent injunction against issuing vouchers to students in some school districts.

Holder took a shot at Jindal and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., during a congressional hearing Friday when Harris said that a Justice Department division had taken the voucher program to court. …

“We were seeking to get from the state of Louisiana information about their voucher program, [we] never ever took the position that we were against vouchers,” Holder told Harris. “It’s a talking point that Gov. Jindal and others — I guess you — think makes good political fodder, but it’s totally inconsistent with the facts.”

Actually, what’s “inconsistent with the facts” is pretending that trying to deny poor families the choice to remove their children from crummy, underperforming public schools is somehow a good or righteous idea, and on Tuesday, a federal judge basically ruled against the DOJ’s attempt at an injunction — although the court did grant some of the administration’s requests in terms of requiring the state to provide the DOJ with its data:

Starting this fall, Louisiana must provide the agency with timely information about the racial background of participating students each year so the Justice Department can monitor the program’s effect on school segregation, a federal judge ruled Tuesday night. …

“We welcome the court’s order, as it rejects the state’s bid to resist providing even the most basic information about how Louisiana’s voucher program will affect school desegregation efforts,” Attorney General Eric Holder said. “This ruling ought to resolve, once and for all, the unnecessary dispute initiated by the state’s refusal to provide data.” …

Under the court order, the state must send a spreadsheet with extensive information on each voucher applicant, including name, address and race; the public school, if any, the child attended the previous year; and the private school he or she would like to attend with the voucher. If the state is planning to award the child a voucher, it must also provide the name of the private school he or she will attend.

The Justice Department may use the information in “federal school desegregation cases in Louisiana,” the judge ruled. That latitude could allow the DOJ to seek to challenge distribution of some vouchers if its lawyers determined that sending the students to private schools would disrupt federal efforts to keep the public schools integrated.

Holder has been perturbed with Jindal for daring to question the administration’s motives in seeking the information, although with this administration’s record, how could anyone not be suspicious of their motives? A.k.a, collecting this data to later make some trumped-up case against the program again? Politico describes this as the DOJ having “prevailed — at least in part,” but Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also said that the decision is a “win for children and parents” and that he’s satisfied that the ruling won’t obstruct the program, at least for now:

Today, U.S. District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle issued an order in the U.S. Department of Justice suit against the Louisiana School Choice Scholarship Program.  The Judge’s order is a win for children and parents in Louisiana who deserve access to an opportunity for a better education.  The order did not grant the request by President Obama’s Department of Justice for veto power over individual scholarship awards as the Justice Department had initially demanded.

Most importantly, the information sharing process ordered by the Judge should not impede the Scholarship Program.  However, the state will remain vigilant to ensure that the information sharing process will not be used by the Department of Justice as a means to impede the Scholarship Program through future litigation.

Governor Jindal said, “Today is great day for school choice and access to an opportunity for a better education for all Louisianians. I am pleased that the court rejected President Obama’s Justice Department’s attempt to establish a review period where bureaucrats in Washington would be able to reject scholarship awards solely because the child is not the ‘right’ skin color.

Tags: Bobby Jindal, Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Louisiana, school choice

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Video:IllinoisDemocratdismissesGOPcolleagueas“half”

Video: Illinois Democrat dismisses GOP colleague as “half” a black person

posted at 11:21 am on April 10, 2014 by Guy Benson

The context for this little chestnut of racial nastiness was a heated floor debate in the Illinois legislature over a proposed education reform bill.  The fireworks started when Democratic Representative Linda Chapa LaVia, who is Hispanic, delivered a speech criticizing charter schools.  Ms. Chapa LaVia was no doubt casting aspersions on behalf of teachers unions — who’ve contributed heavily to her campaigns, are bankrupting the state, and don’t much care for competition.  In defense of the status quo — which traps far too many children, especially children of color, in failing public schools — Chapa LaVia appealed to her fellow minorities within the chamber.  In doing so, she took a racial shot at her Republican colleagues, pointedly noting that “we’re all over on this side [of the aisle], right?”  That didn’t sit well with some people, including State Representative John Anthony, who is a black Republican (via Champion News):

LaVia: “Listen to me, minorities!  I’m over here, because we’re all over on this side, right?  What you’ll also find…

[Jeers and shouts from Republicans]

LaVia: “Wait, we have a half.  We have a half.”

A half.  Is that how Rep. LaVia would refer to a certain former member of the legislature in Springfield?  I suspect not.  But in the heat of the moment, she needed a shortcut to denigrate the racial “authenticity” of one of her colleagues in order to rescue her inflammatory point.  So she sneered “we have a half,” then continued her harangue.  Stay classy, Linda.

UPDATE – Republicans demanded an apology, and got one.  Sort of.  ”I apologize if offended anybody over there.”

Tags: Illinois, race card, school choice

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CPAC:Cruzmeetsthebloggers;Update:CPAC

CPAC: Cruz meets the bloggers; Update: CPAC speech added

posted at 8:41 am on March 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Early yesterday afternoon, Ted Cruz followed up his well-received opening speech at CPAC 2014 to meet with several dozen bloggers for a question-and-answer session. Senator Cruz started off by hailing the power of the blogosphere, and then stepped through a number of issues brought up by bloggers in this impromptu session, including school choice, which Cruz seized as a critical issue. “School choice, in my view,” Cruz responded when asked, “is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.”

Easily the most interesting part of the Q&A, though, was his defense of challenging the establishment in a midterm election cycle:

cruz-bloggers from Ed Morrissey on Vimeo.

That part of the interaction starts at 14:30 in the audio above. “There is no doubt we have to win [in the midterms],” Cruz said, “but for Washington, the conventional wisdom is that the way you win is that you stand for nothing. … Every time we follow that strategy, we lose.” Cruz took aim at the consultant class that ended up on the losing end in 2012. “The Republican Party likes to listen to consultants who ran losing presidential campaigns,” Cruz said, “advise the party how to do exactly what they did before, and lose the next one.” No one wants a Republican majority and a Republican President more than Cruz, he assured the bloggers, but in order to get there, the party has to start standing for something rather than acting like wallflowers. “If we don’t turn this country around now,” Cruz warned, “we are approaching the point of no turning back.”

Be sure to listen to it all. I found out about this by accident, although I believe Senator Cruz’ team tried finding the Salem/Townhall contingent earlier. In a sequence that happens more often than you’d think at CPACs, I just happened to be in the right place for the gathering, because I was trying to track down a lost Samsung tablet and couldn’t get past the security checkpoint at first. (I did get it back later, thanks to a good friend’s persistence.) I didn’t have much notice and any time to get back to my equipment, so all I could do was take pictures and record the audio, which I’ve provided in its entirety — except for one final question, because I had to head out to co-host NRA News just a few minutes later.

Cruz clearly knows how to connect to the grassroots, and more than that, knows how to fire them up. Even if one occasionally disagrees on strategy and tactics, there is no doubt that the future of the GOP lies with Cruz and others similarly talented in this generation of Republican lawmakers.

Update: I thought we had posted Cruz’ speech to open CPAC, but a commenter noted its absence here at Hot Air. Let’s fix that now:

His speech came in the morning, when attendance is usually light, but you can hear the enthusiasm of those who attended. It’s a great speech, well worth watching more than once.

Tags: 2014 election, CPAC, school choice, Ted Cruz

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CPAC:Cruzmeetsthebloggers postedat

CPAC: Cruz meets the bloggers

posted at 8:41 am on March 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Early yesterday afternoon, Ted Cruz followed up his well-received opening speech at CPAC 2014 to meet with several dozen bloggers for a question-and-answer session. Senator Cruz started off by hailing the power of the blogosphere, and then stepped through a number of issues brought up by bloggers in this impromptu session, including school choice, which Cruz seized as a critical issue. “School choice, in my view,” Cruz responded when asked, “is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.”

Easily the most interesting part of the Q&A, though, was his defense of challenging the establishment in a midterm election cycle:

cruz-bloggers from Ed Morrissey on Vimeo.

That part of the interaction starts at 14:30 in the audio above. “There is no doubt we have to win [in the midterms],” Cruz said, “but for Washington, the conventional wisdom is that the way you win is that you stand for nothing. … Every time we follow that strategy, we lose.” Cruz took aim at the consultant class that ended up on the losing end in 2012. “The Republican Party likes to listen to consultants who ran losing presidential campaigns,” Cruz said, “advise the party how to do exactly what they did before, and lose the next one.” No one wants a Republican majority and a Republican President more than Cruz, he assured the bloggers, but in order to get there, the party has to start standing for something rather than acting like wallflowers. “If we don’t turn this country around now,” Cruz warned, “we are approaching the point of no turning back.”

Be sure to listen to it all. I found out about this by accident, although I believe Senator Cruz’ team tried finding the Salem/Townhall contingent earlier. In a sequence that happens more often than you’d think at CPACs, I just happened to be in the right place for the gathering, because I was trying to track down a lost Samsung tablet and couldn’t get past the security checkpoint at first. (I did get it back later, thanks to a good friend’s persistence.) I didn’t have much notice and any time to get back to my equipment, so all I could do was take pictures and record the audio, which I’ve provided in its entirety — except for one final question, because I had to head out to co-host NRA News just a few minutes later.

Cruz clearly knows how to connect to the grassroots, and more than that, knows how to fire them up. Even if one occasionally disagrees on strategy and tactics, there is no doubt that the future of the GOP lies with Cruz and others similarly talented in this generation of Republican lawmakers.

Tags: 2014 election, CPAC, school choice, Ted Cruz

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Source from: hotair

TheDOJdropsitssuitagainstLouisiana’sschool-voucher

The DOJ drops its suit against Louisiana’s school-voucher program, kind of. Not really.

posted at 3:21 pm on November 19, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Earlier this year, the Department of Justice sued the state of Louisiana and thus began an egregiously counterproductive crusade against the state’s school-voucher program, which was itself designed to provide alternate opportunities to low- and middle-income families whose children would otherwise be stuck in failing public schools. The Obama administration claimed that the program was somehow walking back the progress of a federal desegregation order of yore (1975, to be exact) — which seemed strange, because the overwhelming majority of the program’s beneficiaries have in fact been minorities. Even the Washington Post’s editors came out swinging against the DOJ’s embarrassment of a lawsuit, and pointed out the situation smacks much more of a reinforcement of the Obama administration’s pro-union, anti-school choice leanings than a legitimate effort to put a stop to an ostensibly discriminatory voucher program.

On Friday, however, a ruling in a U.S. district court in Louisiana said that Eric Holder’s department was “abandoning its previous request” to seek a permanent injunction against the scholarship program, which seemed like pretty good news at first — until it became clear that the DOJ is merely switching up their tactics and will instead be seeking to require Louisiana to undergo a lengthy review process that submits information on every voucher application to the feds for approval before it can be awarded to the student. The Weekly Standard reports on the ruling and the DOJ’s renewed approach:

On Friday, Judge Ivan Lemelle of the U.S. district court of the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled the parents could not intervene in the case because the feds are “no longer seeking injunctive relief at this time.” Lemelle explained that in the intervening months since the Justice Department filed suit, it had made clear both in a supplemental filing and in its opposition to the parent group’s motion to intervene that it was not seeking in its suit to end the voucher program or take away vouchers from students.

Lemelle continued: “The Court reads these two statements as the United States abandoning its previous request that the Court ‘permanently enjoin the State from issuing any future voucher awards to students unless and until it obtains authorization from the federal court overseeing the applicable desegregation case.’”

Lemelle will hold an oral hearing on Friday, November 22, during which Justice will make its case for the federal review process of the voucher program.

Louisiana governor and school-choice champion Bobby Jindal applauded the DOJ’s dropped injunction in his statement, but made it clear that he’s perfectly well aware of what the Justice Department is really trying to do here, emphasis mine:

Governor Jindal said, “We are pleased that the Obama Administration has given up its attempt to end the Louisiana Scholarship Program with this absurd lawsuit. It is great the Department of Justice has realized, at least for the time being, it has no authority to end equal opportunity of education for Louisiana children.

“However, we will continue to fight, at every step, the Department of Justice’s new Washington strategy to red tape and regulate the program to death.

“The Department of Justice’s new position is that it wants bureaucrats in Washington to have the authority to decide where Louisiana children get an education.

“The centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s ‘process’ is a requirement that the state may not tell parents, for 45 days, that their child has been awarded a scholarship while the department decides whether to object to the scholarship award. The obvious purpose of this gag order would be to prevent parents from learning that the Department of Justice might try to take their child’s scholarship away if it decides that the child is the wrong race.

So, in a nutshell, the Obama administration is ditching their attempt to put a permanent stop to the program and is instead looking to require Louisiana to submit to a federal review process before handing out its scholarships. How very magnanimous of them.

Tags: Bobby Jindal, Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Louisiana, school choice, segregation

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