Barone: The troubling legacy of de Blasio's destruction
By Michael Barone
As his two terms as New York's mayor approach their end, and long after his presidential campaign ended with a whimper, Bill de Blasio has chimed in with one last act of destruction: a proposal to end the public schools' entry-by-exam gifted program for first graders.
De Blasio's gripe is that selection by tests results in a student body that is, as New York Times reporter Eliza Shapiro slyly put it, "widely criticized for exacerbating segregation." Of course what de Blasio is complaining about is not actually segregation, which means imposed separation by race. It is the fact that the racial percentages of the gifted students differ from those of the city as a whole.
Specifically, this program, and those at selective high schools, which de Blasio tried to abolish, include much larger percentages of students classified as Asian and lower percentages of those classified as Black and Hispanic.
In practice, de Blasio's proposal is unlikely to be effective. Eric Adams, who seems certain to be elected mayor next month, wants to expand rather than contract gifted programs.
There's an argument that testing at age 5 is just too early. But the proposal is an example of a destructive mindset that is at work far beyond the five boroughs of New York.
The complaint in each case is one that could be described as racist: too many Asians. It echoes the complaint of Ivy League colleges a century ago: too many Jews.
A century ago, public schools and colleges in New York and other great cities provided such an avenue upward. Now, progressives like de Blasio want to close that avenue off for thousands of talented young people.
That's an act of destruction akin to tearing down statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Keeping it open and opening up more such avenues is part of the work of restoring the best American traditions.
The de Blasio mindset is opposed to those traditions. It assumes, as critical race theory teaches, that any underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic people is "segregation" and "racist." It wants to advance corrosive creeds such as critical race theory and to close off upward mobility to what is seen as the racially unworthy.
Interestingly, there's polling showing that such assumptions are shared more by white college graduates than by Black or Hispanic people. And in New York's Democratic primary, Adams trailed among college-educated white voters but won Black voters by a huge margin.
Vehement protests at school board meetings in Virginia may have prompted the astonishing proposal by Attorney General Merrick Garland directing the FBI to monitor what the National Association of School Boards described as "the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism" at such meetings. Garland issued the order without evidence that local law enforcement was unable to deal with any problems, and despite the fact that his son-in-law has a profitable business selling materials on systemic racism, white supremacy and implicit bias to local school boards.
De Blasio will be out of office, but his mindset of advancing bogus theories of systemic racism and opposing programs providing upward mobility for talented students, seems linger.
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