New York disagreement over charter schools spotlights Democrat vs. Democrat battle.
Most non-New Yorkers know only two things about Bill de Blasio, the city's new progressive mayor: Heeats pizza with a knife and fork, and Al Roker attacked him for sending students to school in a snowstorm.
But parents should know a third: He's waging a Democrat vs. Democrat battle over education issues that could spill into the 2016 Democratic presidential primary and into your community.
The issues involved range from how to pay for preschool to how fast to pursue new Common Core standards. But the most revealing clash involves independently run public charter schools.
It would be comforting to tell parents that something positive could emerge from this fight, but that's not true. If the de Blasio faction of this battle among Democrats prevails, you can expect to witness a pullback from recent decades' major school reforms.
With charter schools, de Blasio has singled out a special foe, fellow Democrat Eva Moskowitz, who runs 22 Success Academy charter schools that educate 6,700 students. The mayor cites Moskowitz as the kind of charter operator who needs reining in. Classroom and office space that Success