Bloomberg Unmasked « EdVox

Bloomberg Unmasked « EdVox

Bloomberg Unmasked

by edvoxny

By Norm Fruchter

Responding to the filing of a lawsuit challenging his Department of Education’s school closing and charter co-location policies, Mayor Bloomberg let loose a mini-tirade on WOR-AM last week. “Unfortunately there are some parents who just come from —“ the Mayor said, and then cut off the rest of his sentence. One wonders about the intended conclusion — did the Mayor mean to say ignorance? Poverty? Ghetto neighborhoods? Other countries with little or no public schooling? “They never have had a formal education,” the Mayor continued, “and they don’t understand the value of education. Many of our kids come from families – “ again the Mayor cut himself off, and again one wonders about his suppressed conclusion. Instead, the Mayor finished with an odd observation — “the old Norman Rockwell family is gone.”
Norman Rockwell was an artist and illustrator of hundreds of covers for the Saturday Evening Post. Much of his work presented idealized portraiture of sentimental American themes – baseball, scouting life, children’s bedtime, though a few of his Post covers commented on the integration struggle and the murders of civil rights workers in Mississippi. Was the Mayor mourning the demise of the Dick-and-Jane white family that Rockwell