Bill De Blasio Is Actually More Helpful To Charter Schools Than Some Republicans, Report Says
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NEW YORK -- Last fall, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) waged his successful populist campaign in part on reversing his predecessor Michael Bloomberg's education policies -- particularly Bloomberg's dramatic expansion and preferential treatment of charter schools. In a move that pleased many voters, de Blasio threatened to start charging the charter schools rent.
But despite taking the rhetorical hatchet to those 183 schools, which are publicly funded but can be privately run, in the months since the election, de Blasio ultimately has helped charter schools -- even more than some Republicans, according to a new brief from Democrats for Education Reform, released on Monday.
"If you look at what [de Blasio] actually did as opposed to what he said, he did approve the opening of most of the charters," Charles Barone, DFER's policy director, told The Huffington Post. "He gave co-location space to most of the charters that wanted co-location space. We're not saying he had an ideological conversion, but regardless, he wound up doing a lot more on charters than one might have expected, given his campaign."
And after months of charter wars, Barone argued, the schools are now better off, at least in New York. "Now the situation for providing building space to charters is better than it was when he [de Blasio] started, as a result of negotiations with the governor [Andrew Cuomo]," Barone said.
DFER argues that while Republicans have been more outspoken on charters, de Blasio, who ran against them, ultimately has yielded more benefits for the schools. The group's brief points to a January speech House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) gave at the Brookings Institution, in which he chided de Blasio for his charter
Bill De Blasio Is Actually More Helpful To Charter Schools Than Some Republicans, Report Says: