MICHAEL SMITH, N.Y. TIMES
Maybe the problem was with the metaphor.
Mayor Bill de Blasio took office and talked “progressive,” with ambitious plans for an income tax on the wealthy and an increase in the minimum wage. He rallied unions and activists and parents, and the sense was of a dog howling, and putting on notice the bigger dog in Albany.
Two months later, it turns out that the more apt metaphor was of cat-and-mouse.
Mr. de Blasio has taken the role of the impulsive mouse, demanding this cheese and that, and not quite knowing how to end his game. And Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has taken the role of the big cat who can treat the mouse kindly — and, with a whack, send it tumbling back into its hole.
Evidence of the mayor’s diminished state came on Tuesday, when he took his crusade for a tax to fund universal prekindergarten to an armory in Albany a few blocks north of the Capitol. The turnout was not much to boast of, and it was made up mostly of union members who were in town to lobby for various causes.
A far more boisterous and photogenic rally took place at the same hour on the snow-covered steps of the Capitol, where Mr. Cuomo spoke before Eva S. Moskowitz and her fellow charter school crusaders.
Ms. Moskowitz is the founder of the Success Academy charter chain.
Those at the rally, mostly black and Latino families who rolled into Albany on bus after bus, had been stoked to a fury by the mayor’s decisions to freeze the expansion of charters into public school buildings and pull back a $210 million pot of money to build new charter schools. Mr. de Blasio also vowed to make the better financed charter schools pay rent for their use of public schools.
Although her schools are quite successful judged by the metrics, Ms. Moskowitz does not strike a naturally sympathetic figure. She served on the City Council, and collegial politics remained a dance whose footwork eluded her. She was smart and wearyingly relentless, and flaunted her connections to the previous mayor. She has made no secret of her desire to push the teachers’ union into New York Harbor.
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Alfred Giancarli for New York Daily News Eva Moskowitz will continue to fight for her Success Academy network — even if it means taking the mayor to court. |
Mr. de Blasio matched her disdain with his own, making a piñata of her during his mayoral campaign. He decided last week to let most plans for charter expansion go forward — save for three schools run by Ms. Moskowitz. As a result, many dozens of children are without schools for next fall.
Credit is due the mayor. With this decision, he succeeded at the devilishly difficult task of making a martyr of Ms. Moskowitz.
And that led Monday to this scene: Seven thousand charter families standing in 18-degree weather, holding signs reading “De Blasio: No Roll Backs” and chanting: “Charters! Work!”
“Our school is safe, my son is learning, and I have no worries,” one of the parents, Ebony Judge, said in a tone that suggested she took none of this for granted.
“I voted for de Blasio,” she added. “I made a mistake.”
That is the sound of a mayoral education message gone badly awry.
Then Governor Cuomo came bounding down the Capitol steps. “Education is not about the districts and not about the pensions and not about the unions and not about the lobbyists,” he said to loud cheers. “Education is about the students, and the students come first.”
Mr. Cuomo’s staff says his appearance was spontaneous. As his understanding of political power is exquisite, it feels wise to bet otherwise. In early January, he punched defensively as the mayor began his prekindergarten offensive. Then the governor doubled down on his own plan to pay for statewide prekindergarten out of a budget surplus that may or may not exist.
Messages from upstate mayors began to reach reporters, hailing the governor’s plan. And Mr. Cuomo began to retail his own tale of two states, with New York City in the plutocrat’s seat.
The end game is not difficult to discern. The governor could pump a little more money into his proposal, and the mayor could declare victory. Or not. “Power drains away as you get diminished,” a rather senior state official noted. “It’s not enough to be on the side of the angels.”
Then Mr. de Blasio faces his next challenge. Can he ramp up a citywide prekindergarten program? His governance muscle remains untested.