Raimondo Finds Her Way Back to School Reform With Bloomberg Endorsement: Guest MINDSETTER™ Sanzi

Thursday, February 06, 2020

Guest MINDSETTER™ Erika Sanzi

 

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Erika Sanzi

Gina Raimondo is all in for Mike Bloomberg for president—which certainly explains his visit to Little Rhody this week. Unlike all the leading Democratic presidential candidates who have turned their backs on education reform and even become hostile to charter schools, Bloomberg’s campaign has promised to be full steam ahead on expanding charter schools to provide families with options beyond their zip code determined school.

This means that Raimondo can finally pivot back to her former self, the Gina who was bold on expanding choices for parents because she knew that education —in her case, private education—was the ticket to where she is today.

Raimondo's comments about Bloomberg’s commitment to gun control, climate change, and the opioid crisis are true—but it is also true that Bloomberg has been unapologetic about the importance of expanding charter schools. And his record backs up his rhetoric.

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According to data from the New York City Charter School Center, Bloomberg’s 12 years as mayor saw the charter sector expand from just 18 schools with 4,442 students to 183 serving 71,422 kids.

Ian Rowe, the CEO of Public Prep, a network of single-sex charter schools in New York City, told the New York Post that Bloomberg “is probably the premier champion of charter schools in the country.” And contrary to popular opinion within the Democratic party, Rowe thinks it could be a winning issue for Bloomberg because it would make him the only candidate who “seems to be listening to the low-income families who want great, tuition-free public schools for their children, including charter schools.”

Raimondo made the calculation that she could not afford to be herself on the topic of education in the lead up to her 2018 election—the teachers' unions had their foot on her neck and her campaign decided that a union endorsement was worth the hefty price of an evergreen contract bill. So she paid that price and signed the bill despite the pleas of almost every municipal leader in the state.

Think Mike Bloomberg would have signed an evergreen contract bill? Not a chance. In fact, I suspect that if that bill had landed on his desk, he would have channeled his best Nancy Pelosi impersonation and ripped it up on the spot. This is a guy who threw a 204-page teachers’ contract in the trash and proposed an 8 page one. Teachers' unions hated Michael Bloomberg —and he once compared the United Federation of Teachers to the NRA because of how out of sync he saw the both organizations’ leadership to be with their dues-paying rank-and-file members.

Bloomberg was an unrepentant school reformer during his tenure as mayor—in addition to his passion and commitment to growing the charter sector, he introduced a package of reforms known as Children First. During his twelve years as mayor, New York City’s schools adopted a new reading and math curriculum and adopted an A-F system to grade schools. He closed schools, reformed teacher tenure, and lengthened the school day. And, perhaps most maddening for the unions but welcomed by students and parents, Bloomberg pushed for low-performing teachers to be laid off.

Below is just an excerpt of a speech he gave this past July at the National NAACP Convention in Detroit:

But for far too long, zip code and skin color have determined a child’s education. That is wrong – tragically wrong. And I believe fixing it must be our top priority for our country, and for our next president because kids in Harlem and Detroit and Memphis are every bit as equal to kids in Beverly Hills and Grosse Pointe and Scarsdale, and they deserve schools and teachers that are every bit as good.

Our schools are not preparing students for the tests that they will face in the job market, and the tests that they are taking in school often set the bar far too low.

Now I know testing these days isn’t popular. But if we shield our children from taking tests that measure essential skills, three bad things happen. Number one: teachers can’t possibly know if students are on track. Number two: parents don’t know if they’re falling behind. And number three: students don’t acquire the kind of knowledge, and discipline, and experience they will need to pass tests in the real world. And if they don’t pass tests in the real world, they don’t get the job.

 

Bloomberg’s comments yesterday at the Wexford building were clearly tailored to a more progressive crowd—he intentionally kept the text of his speech vague around education, choosing only to highlight teacher raises and graduation rates. But that is only one piece of who he is when it comes to education and his twelve-year record and comments as recently as July prove it.

So the Bloomberg endorsement may mark the beginning of a return to the Gina Raimondo we used to know when it comes to education, the one who believed that low-income parents deserve the self-determination that comes with educational freedom and that school accountability is non-negotiable. It also may mark the day that she officially threw her hat into the ring for vice president should Bloomberg find his way to the nomination.

Either way, she has definitely climbed aboard a train that promises to double down on the work of providing more educational options to the families who need them most. No other governor, at the moment, can say the same.

 

Erika Sanzi is a full-time consultant with brightbeam, formerly known as Education Post. She is chief editor at Project Forever Free, writes the blog Goodschoolhunting.org and is a senior visiting fellow at the Fordham Institute. She is the mother of three school-aged sons.

 

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