The Mayor's speech at Riverside Church today; "we will not accept the neighborhood school that fails them"
Mayor de Blasio spoke today at Riverside Church about the need for systemic education reform, including expanding preK, afterschool programs, retaining teachers, and involving parents; and his refusal to pit children against each other as currently happens with charter co-locations.
It was a very good speech -- despite the fact that it did not mention the critical need for smaller classes. Below the video is an excerpt, in which he addresses the bitter fight over charter school co-locations. Meanwhile, the charter lobby has funded non-stop ads, paid for with $3.6 million, attacking him for his decision not to allow Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy to push PS 194 to 134% capacity and displace special needs kids from P 811 in Harlem.
It was a very good speech -- despite the fact that it did not mention the critical need for smaller classes. Below the video is an excerpt, in which he addresses the bitter fight over charter school co-locations. Meanwhile, the charter lobby has funded non-stop ads, paid for with $3.6 million, attacking him for his decision not to allow Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy to push PS 194 to 134% capacity and displace special needs kids from P 811 in Harlem.
“The answer is not to save a few of our children only. The answer is not to find an escape route that some can follow and others can’t. The answer is to fix the entire system. (sustained applause)… so we have to approach systemic change. …Poverty, hunger, the lack of affordable housing… But even within the education system itself we aren’t approaching root causes and the systemic changes we need to. We have to work from the assumption that we will save every child, that we will reach every child, that no system is working unless every child has