AOC Admits She Got Her Goddaughter Into a Bronx Charter School
The democratic socialist congresswoman has lamented that the public-school system hinges on zip codes.
Billy Binion | 2.25.2020 2:16 PM
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) knows firsthand the limitations that come with the public-school system. In a recently unearthed Facebook Live video from 2017, the self-described democratic socialist said she worked to secure a spot for her goddaughter in a Bronx charter school.
"This area's like a lot of where my family is from," noted Ocasio-Cortez as she walked through the Bronx. "My goddaughter, I got her into a charter school like maybe a block or two down."
This isn't the first time that AOC has inadvertently made the case for school choice. At an October rally for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), she shared that her family left the Bronx for a house in Westchester county, so that she could attend a higher-quality school. "My family made a really hard decision," said Ocasio-Cortez. "That's when I got my first taste of a country who allows their kids' destiny to be determined by the zip code they are born in."
The congresswoman has correctly diagnosed the problem. Whether or not a student is able to attend a decent public school too often turns on the neighborhood he or she happens to grow up in. It's a reality that briefly dominated the national conversation during the recent college admissions scandal, which saw wealthy celebrities paying to have their children receive rigged acceptances to elite universities. Comparisons were immediately drawn to the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, who received a five-year prison sentence for using her father's address to ensure that her children could attend the superior elementary and middle schools nearby.
As AOC recognized in her speech at the Sanders rally, such a dilemma is only possible when the system hinges on a zip code. But isn't that a problem that school choice can help fix?
If her experience is any guide, the congresswoman should say yes. But school choice has become strangely polarizing in recent years, as many Democratic leaders forcefully repudiate charters.
"If you think your public school is not working, then go help your public school," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) told the National Education Association (NEA) late last year. The presidential hopeful's education plan includes a slew of anti-choice measures, including ending all federal funding for public charters. "Go help get more resources for" your local public school, Warren has argued. "Volunteer at your public school. Help get the teachers and school bus drivers and cafeteria workers and the custodial staff and the support staff, help get them some support so they can do the work that needs to be done. You don't like the building? You think it's old and decaying? Then get out there and push to get a new one."
But those words ring hollow when you remember that Warren sent her own son to a private school.
The teachers unions, who comprise a powerful part of the Democratic coalition, are staunchly opposed to charter schools. A majority of black and Hispanic Democrats, by contrast, hold favorable opinions of school choice. Charters are understandably popular in poorer communities of color—communities that progressives say they stand for—because such nontraditional schools provide viable alternatives to the status quo.
During an education town hall last March, Ocasio-Cortez said that a set of "perverse incentives" led her cousin to send her children to charter schools. "The public schools in Hunt's Point didn't feel good enough," she declared, before borrowing a page from the Warren playbook: "We should never feel that way. And the moment we start feeling that way is the moment we should start fighting to improve [public schools]. Not to reject them."
But if Ocasio-Cortez's actual record tells us anything, it's that both she and her family rejected those traditional public schools in favor of school choice. Can you blame them?
Billy Binion is an assistant editor at Reason.
School Choice Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Charter Schools New York
When reality differs from rhetoric.
I do not blame her. I do not blame anyone for wanting their kids or their nieces or nephews or cousins to get out of a poor school for a better one.
Just don't pretend to support those poor schools then all while taking their kids out of them.
I live near Youngtown Ohio, which in some respects is pretty rough. I was born and grew up in the suburbs which has fine schools. Youngstown city schools have always been bad and remain so. I've known some teachers in the district and the stories they tell of the misbehaved kids, the environment for learning it toxic...even for the good kids, there are so many disobedient kids that ruin the whole classroom. It really isn't about money, pay those teachers $70k a year that won't change a thing. It comes down to the home life of the students and the parenting or lack-there-of. We have some newer constructed schools here, I've been in a some as a volunteer delivering donated food for pantries and weekend backpack programs and holiday activity programs. Some of those schools are nicer than the one I went to and the faculty genuinely care and give it their all. Unfortunately too many of the kids there don't care and neither do a large number of the parents.
It's not always a blame on the teachers and it's not always the buildings...it is just the decay of the communities these schools are in. And if I lived in that community with no way to leave I would surely embrace a better school choice so I could send my child to a school where he or she could be in a safe and productive learning environment. That is what people with means will always do, nothing wrong with what AOC did for her family member, the problem is she did it all while telling everyone else they can't have that choice.
Just don't pretend to support those poor schools then all while taking their kids out of them.
That's a dicey problem for Democrat politicians, one of whose largest contributors has traditionally been the Teacher's Unions.
What might be confusing the issue is NYC Charter Schools are public schools. They are still beholden to public school standards, but have a separate administrative board, their teachers aren't unionized, and enrollment is a lottery open to everyone. Traditionally anti-school choice has been opposed to vouchers for private schools, teacher's unions are typically the biggest opponent to Charters. It isn't exactly school "choice" since it's a lottery.
NYC charter schools have increased due to the need for them - the NYC DOE is stretched pretty thin, all of the rich kids go to private schools or parents move out of the city to raise their kids in the suburbs due to the high cost of living in NYC (which is actually what AOC's parents did for her). I actually have a good friend who teaches in Hunts Point, Bronx charter school, might be the same one. It's a rough neighborhood, these aren't entitled kids by any means. In another article, AOC explains the "help" was filling out the enrollment forms: https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/25/aoc-mistakenly-makes-the-case-for-school-choice/
nebish, I've spent some time in Youngstown. I was blown away by the depression there - steadily lost economy and population since 1939, empty boarded-up mansions of past steel magnates line the hilltop. Another good friend of mine was doing her emergency surgery residency there, she treated lots of gunshots or worse. Detroit and Pittsburgh have pivoted their economy, it's wild that Youngstown hasn't been able to reinvent itself, it's like a ghost town. Were it not for the blight, it would be a really pretty city on the river.
Good additional info on the NYC charter schools.
I do not think schools should be for profit enterprises, but do think that parents and students need alternatives rather than being stuck in a poor school district with no means to actually move to a better one. So if that option is a private school, if that is all there is, it is better than being stuck somewhere else.
Yes, Youngstown...and we just lost Lordstown GM plant. That isn't in Youngstown, or actually that close, but a lot of people consider the greater Youngstown area pretty broad considering where people live and commute from.
The downtown area has had many positive developments in areas, while others are still pretty empty and run down. It is really the surrounding neighborhoods which people call the east side, south side, west side, north side, those immediately areas outside of the downtown that are pretty rough until you get out to the burbs. And naturally the invisible border of where that ends and begins keeps expanding. Seems when this happens it allows the downtown to revitalize some, but the uptown area and places like Campbell never get any better, only more run down. So many abandoned houses and crime. Warren is pretty rough in spots too. Nobody has been able to do much for the area, although the politicians all make it a required stop on their campaign maps. They will all be here at some point and still not much ever changes.
Speaking of "pretty city near the river" - Tedeschi Trucks is playing our new outdoor amphitheater this summer. I haven't been there yet, but will be at that one. That is one of the positive things I mentioned about the downtown area.
Yeah, this is a real danger to the republic.
How about changing the model that makes poor areas have the most underfunded schools? Why can states have property tax revenue go into statewide budgets for everything except schools? I know I am oversimplifying the situation to an extent, but having local taxes fund public schools only entrenches generational economic disadvantages. If your parents can't afford to get you out of a bad school district, you are basically screwed for life. There are obviously exceptions, but this is a real driver of inequality in this country as far as I am concerned.
How about changing the model that makes poor areas have the most underfunded schools? Why can states have property tax revenue go into statewide budgets for everything except schools? I know I am oversimplifying the situation to an extent, but having local taxes fund public schools only entrenches generational economic disadvantages. If your parents can't afford to get you out of a bad school district, you are basically screwed for life. There are obviously exceptions, but this is a real driver of inequality in this country as far as I am concerned.
I hear you, but I can only imagine the uproar from wealthy areas, places wealthy families move to specifically for their kids' well-funded schools, if their tax dollars were being diverted to another district in the state. Even if it did somehow happen, more money doesn't mean you are automatically going to attract better teachers to depressed areas. There are some saints out there who run into a burning building, but a most teachers understandably want to work in the safest, best schools.
The district's that usually perform poorly have strong union presence. So throwing $ at the outcome of the actual problem and ignoring the cause is a total waste of time and money. What can you expect from the government but to interfere & screw everything up, Not being able to terminate crappy teachers and ineffective administrators is the definition of insanity. There is consequence for making/selling defective products. Guess allowing a defective institution to influence/educate are children is cool? From my house, kids are way more important than that, mileage may vary.
Laterz
20 years after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled school funding by property tax is unconstitutional, little has changed.
One of the Youngstown City Schools (East) has an 85% attendance rate. Some of the elementary schools are in the low 90s - still too low. Youngstown schools got an F on the state report card - there are just so many factors, new schools and higher paid teachers and more money can't solve it all. Alot of it has to do with the community at-large, home life, parents...improving the communities with job opportunities, fighting crime and cleaning blight in these areas can help as much or more than just putting more money into education.
"Yeah, this is a real danger to the republic. "
Ding,ding,ding!! Congratulations! You are the February winner of the Pyromaniac in a Field of Strawmen award !
Isn't it nice to get back to normal ? 
The fact that I don’t care what AOC does or doesn’t do is a strawman?
