It’s no accident that the hundreds of left-wing protesters who jeered House Speaker Paul Ryan’s visit Tuesday to a Harlem charter school only wanted to scream about health care — and not education.
Otherwise, the loudmouths would’ve had to acknowledge that charters are a boon to the very low-income non-white children about whom they claim to be so concerned.
The protesters were spurred on by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and Comptroller Scott Stringer, who both denounced Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz for hosting Ryan’s visit.
“We should be denouncing and holding Eva Moskowitz responsible and accountable for bringing him here to our community,” said Mark-Viverito — whose notion of a more heroic figure is unrepentant FALN terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera.
Stringer declared that Ryan “is not welcome here” since he wants to “eliminate the safety net for those who need it the most.”
Yet a safety net is precisely what charters like Success provide students who desperately want a real education but can’t get one in the regular public schools.
Indeed, charter schools are daily proof that poor and minority students can succeed in the classroom if properly challenged.
And not just succeed, but vastly outperform kids stuck in the regular schools — which is why there is a waiting list tens of thousands of names long for charter seats.
Ryan, a longtime charter-school supporter, understands this. Stringer and Mark-Viverito, in thrall to the anti-charter teachers unions, prefer to change the subject.
They claim Ryan “should have to explain” why he “wants to undercut” health care and other benefits. But Mark-Viverito and Stringer should have to explain why they oppose hope for the kids trapped in New York City’s failing public schools.