Bill de Blasio’s policy preferences are rooted in the left-wing agitprop prevalent at our universities.
In his successful mayoral campaign, Bill de Blasio had much to say about K-12 education and pre-K education. De Blasio expressed sharp skepticism about charter schools, attended by 6 percent of New York City children. He pledged to hike the marginal income-tax rate on those earning over $500,000, from 3.9 percent to 4.4 percent, to fund “universal pre-K education” and “after school programs for middle school kids.” Chester Finn at the Fordham Institute assessed 24 of de Blasio’s school-reform proposals. Finn praised the idea of “getting every child to read by third grade” but dismissed the “preschool promise” as “over-the-top unaffordable.” And Finn brushed aside nine of de Blasio’s proposals as “crowd-pleasing rhetoric that’s essentially impossible to turn into anything serious.”
What about higher education? De Blasio called for new science and technology programs at the City University of New York, which he sees as a job-creation engine for graduates of these proposed programs. According to Inside Higher Ed, de Blasio has made increased spending on CUNY “a budget priority.” He has promised to find $150 million in new funds for the university. New York, of course, has dozens of other colleges and universities, but CUNY is directly under the mayor’s control.
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