De Blasio to Eric Cantor: Go Screw Yourself

Ok. maybe just a little hyperbole on my part. The charter lobby is trying to overturn the NYC mayoral election where the man who beat the Republican candidate by 50 points ran on a platform of charging charters rent. Charters claim they want choice. Well, that was CHOICE of the voting public in NYC thrown right up in their faces.

"The Republican agenda in Washington doesn't even scratch the surface of the inequities facing more than a million children in our public schools," de Blasio said in a statement after Cantor's remarks.
...de Blasio elaborated further, saying he doesn't intend to take education advice from Cantor, and that the majority leader is "dead wrong" on the issue of charter rent. He said the revenue from charter rent would help New York City's "tremendous needs," and said Cantor should "look at these facts... if you look all over the country, the norm is to charge rent."
In his statement, de Blasio called the national Republicans' stance on education a "dangerous philosophy that turns its back on public education, and it has failed many times before."
"What public school parents want, and I know because I'm one of them, are real investments that lift up all our kids," he said. "That will take big, bold progressive ideas. And that's exactly what the people of New York City just voted for."

De Blasio embraces a charter fight with Eric Cantor

Mayor Bill de Blasio waded into the national debate over charter schools on Wednesday, in response to some pointed comments from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
De Blasio criticized Cantor and the Republican Party for failing to address inequalities facing public school children, a few hours after Cantor gave a speech in Washington that argued the mayor's plans to charge rent and limit co-locations would be "devastating" to school choice.
“Our committees in the House will remain vigilant in their efforts to ensure no one from the government stands in the school house door between any child and a good education,” said Cantor, in remarks at the Brookings Institution.

Asked what exactly the House would do in response to de Blasio, Cantor didn't offer specifics, but said de Blasio's policies put the nation's largest school district "in conflict with federal programs that have been designed to help facilitate growth in public school choice."

The new mayor has conspicuously embraced his role as a national voice for progressive politics--effectively leading a delegation of mayors in a visit to the White House last month--and his scrap with Cantor suggests he's eager to be a national voice on issues beyond income inequality.

Here's the full piece from Capital