Will de Blasio Choke Charters?
Parents of 70,000 charter students think their schools are in peril.
Dec. 11, 2013 7:06 p.m. ET
Income inequality is the Democratic Party's new bumper sticker. And the newest driver of the party's income-inequality election bus is New York City's mayor-elect, Bill de Blasio.
Running for election on "a tale of two cities," Mr. de Blasio evoked a New York City circa 1860, divided between uptown millionaires in top hats and spats and everyone else. The reality of class struggle in 21st-century New York is more complex.
Over four years of Mr. de Blasio's term, a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party—with national implications—is going to play out inside New York City's poorest neighborhoods. It is the battle over the future of the city's charter-school movement.
Of New York's 183 charter schools (public schools that operate independently of the central bureaucracy and unions), most are located in neighborhoods that have become household words for endless poverty—the Bronx, Harlem and much of Brooklyn.
The parents of some 70,000 students who live there believe the neighborhood charter schools, most of them opened during the Bloomberg years, are a path out to something better. They think Bill de Blasio is going to pull the plug on their schools.
Bill de Blasio at his election-night victory party, Nov. 5.Getty Images
Mr. de Blasio was critical of charters during his campaign, saying they should pay rent for occupying public space. The teachers union and New York's take-no-prisoners Democratic left want the charters'
