Bill de Blasio won an amazing victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. Not long ago, he was in fourth place but last night he ran decisively ahead of former Comptroller Bill Thompson (the UFT’s candidate) and Christine Quinn (who was tarnished by her close association with Mayor Bloomberg).
In exit polls, voters said their leading concerns were jobs and education. Of the three leading candidates, de Blasio was the sharpest critic of the mayor’s education policies.
The election was a clear repudiation of Bloomberg’s strategies of test-based accountability, closing schools (despite community opposition), and charter schools. .
The New York Times polls showed that only one in four New Yorkers approved of Bloomberg’s education policies. The Quinnipiac poll showed approval at only 22%.
One thing is clear:
The national reform movement just took a big hit. New Yorkers rejected it as stale and oppressive. They don’t like the status quo. They want change. They want leadership that cares more about children than about data. They want leadership that values education more than testing.
A public school parent and former local school board member, Bill de Blasio is poised to bring a fresh vision to the city’s schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I guess feet on the ground can beat money.
I loved his speech
Sent from my iPad
Between this, and Bridgeport, CT…maybe the tide is turning!
Great!
This seems like a very big deal. Perhaps we have a counterweight to Cuomo.
The use of taxpayer funds to pay for privatized charter schools will not fly! So be it…
Wonderful! This news–along with that in Bridgeport–on the eve of the anniversary (9/10) of the Chicago Teachers’ strike is the perfect celebration. Congratulations Bridgeport & NYC!
WooHoo! What wonderful news from NY and CT! Thank goodness for Democracy and well-informed voters!
Just be on the lookout for future attempts at voter suppression etc…
Great news to wake up to! UFT needs to have a serious reflection time. I would like to see them focus on turning their attention to stopping the train wreck of tying teacher evaluation to test scores. It is out of control in this country and is causing detrimental consequences for our educators, schools, and our children.
Agreed!
Unfortunately, the UFT is one of the parties that brought us the new evaluation regime, continues to tout it to its members, and has taken on the role of co-managing its implementation: an utter disgrace that members of Unity Caucus will come to regret, perhaps sooner than they think.
While I have my doubts about how far De Blasio will go in opposing the so-called reformers, I was content to vote for him, if only as a repudiation of Weingrew.
And it certainly was sweet to see voters give Bloomberg/Quinn the back of their hands.
Assuming De Blasio avoids a runoff and wins the general election, it’s time to take advantage of the moment and make him live up to his campaign promises.
Michael,
I too and crossing my fingers. I no longer trust any pol, but I do know if you have the support of Weingarten and Tisch, it doesn’t pass the smell test.
I do not consider myself a “Liberal” or “Progressive” and if Dinkins were running today, I wouldn’t vote for him. But I don’t think deBlasio will do anything to undermine either the security or crime stats of this city. Nor do I believe he will bring this city to a “Detroit” status.
No one ever follows through with their campaign promises. I just hope he doesn’t have a DFER spokesman waiting in the wings to run the DoE the way Obama did.
People love their local schools as much as they love their local representative to the House and their local post office. It is not surprising that there is an emerging voter backlash against the efforts to strip local control.
Great news and it cannot happen fast enough! I wonder how many great teachers will be fired under “ed reform” nonsense before the tides turn! And… if some of these teachers will now have the energy to FIGHT their firings?
Please stop calling it a “reform movement.” These people who claim to be “reformers” are anachronisms – who really believes that leading through intimidation, coercion and profit is really an example of “reform?” Would John Dewey, Lucy Sprague Mitchell or Maria Montessori approve of such troglodytes like Michele Rhee and Arne Duncan? You don’t even have to think about this for more than a second to have an answer…..
This is wonderful news. Thank you for it, Diane, and thank you for all that you do.
I will see you on October 15th when you come to Rhode Island! Wouldn’t miss it!
I feel very hopeful this morning and am excited with the possibility of De Blasio becoming New York’s next mayor.
Loved watching deBlasio’s daughter intro her dad and then touch her brother Dante’s famous Afro. Defeat of Mrs. Bloomberg(Quinn)was the biggest item here, imo, b/c she was the billionaire Mayor’s agent and lackey for 3 terms, also hostile to paid sick leave and other needed progressive reforms. She richly earned her loss. DeBlassio may yet bring a liberal turn to NYC school and social policy but it will take agitation to his left to guarantee that. In his victory speech last night, deBlasio moved to the center in his rhetoric, nesting safely in a long commemoration and analogy to Sept. 11. He did not use the words “stop and frisk” in his remarks, either. Typically, in major party politics, candidates run as outsiders on the left or right and if successful then move to the corporate center. Quinn did that. Obama did that. So, Deblasio with his gorgeous kids may also do that unless the rest of us maintain a ruckus to push reforms far beyond his two signature issues, stop and frisk and preK/after school funded by tax on rich.
Scary–just got word from an NYCer that there has to be a recount–?
She wrote that she’s keeping fingers crossed. OY! Me, too, here in Chicagoland.
It’s not so much a recount, but more of a counting. All the votes aren’t in ye,t and if Thompson can move his numbers to bring deBlasio’s numbers below 40%, then there will be a runoff election. I am hoping deBlasio maintains his lead but it will take @ a week until we know. But de Blasio did emerge the clear victor last night.
He won most demographic groups of voters (including women) and Quinn voters are also moving to support de Blasio. I am hoping all the other candidates stand with him as well. But if they are reading the exit polls, they know he is the Democratic voters choice.
Weingarten has to save face because he dumped $2 million of our COPE funds into getting Thompson elected. Obviously many teachers decided to vote for the better candidate. So until we get the final tally, Thompson can still be in this race.
It is being reported here in NYC that top Democratic officials are urging Thompson to concede the race rather than go into a 3-week battle than can hurt the Democrats in the long run. I am hoping Thompson stands for the good of the party rather than his ego. Even Tisch is telling him to put the party first. I sincerely hope he does so the real campaign can begin against a pro-Bloomberg era candidate.
I met Bill at a fundraiser for him in a Fifth Avenue apartment, when he was running for Public Advocate. I had left my school when I realized that it was over a toxic dump and became the “Advocate For School Indoor Air Quality”. I was called on by City Council members to identify toxins in the ground where new schools were being created by the City in their districts. After 9/11, I served on the Mayor’s Committee, in opposition to Intro 650, which would have blocked indoor air quality testing in schools. Later, I was a signature on a letter to EPA Secretary Lisa Jackson to label TCE as a carcinogen, which she did. TCE is abundant under many NYC schools. I filed a lawsuit against the City which forced them to spend 10 Million dollars to rehabilitate a school where children were sitting in a cloud of chlorinated solvents.
Bill deBlasio was nice to me and my date from the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and recognized the work that I was doing.
On one hand I can understand Thompson’s need to get the full count of this. But even if deBlasio goes back to 39%, it would be a mistake to have a runoff. The UFT has yet to put their support behind deBlasio.
Thank you Diane for your quote in Politico. NYers do not want a continuation of the Bloomberg education agenda.
It is best to withhold your support for the man who has George Soros ties…. I would be wary if I were you in putting all your support on this guy who is a George Soros supporter..
All that gliters is not gold…I would do an extensive background check on Bill de Blasio because you are a credible distinguished historian and blogger and people follow your every word…some follow you blindly…and this, in my estimation, can be dangerous….just my 2 cents worth…thanks
Full Disclosure
Written by Chris Bragg on October 17, 2011.
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One autumn night last year, about 50 people gathered in the sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment of billionaire financier George Soros for a panel discussion on a topic that was roiling the liberal political establishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court had issued its Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in January, allowing individuals, unions and corporations to engage in unlimited spending on political campaigns. Secret corporate cash funneled through shadowy nonprofits had immediately flooded the country’s political system, helping Republicans win a record number of seats in Congress.
Soros and his cadre were looking for a way to fight back.
One of the three panelists was Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who after less than a year in the city’s second-highest-ranking office was already considered a leading Democratic candidate for mayor. He had become one of the Left’s leading voices on the impact of Citizens United, and had a compelling story to tell of how he was using his poorly funded, little-known office to respond.
Over the previous year, de Blasio had used his seat on the board of New York City’s pension funds and the bully pulpit of his office to cow Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan into disclosing their political contributions—and in some cases, to agree to not make such donations altogether.
“I really didn’t know Soros before this,” de Blasio recalled. “At the end of it, I talked to him a bit, and he expressed some appreciation for the notion of finding a constructive way to address this. He said, ‘Stay in touch,’ and we did.”
He added, “Then we went to his staff and said, ‘Look, we’re trying to build this out nationally, and here’s an idea how to do it.’ ”
The resulting arrangement has given de Blasio an unprecedented platform to try to stem a flood of corporate money that he contends will corrode American democracy. It has also given him some strange allies to do so: He works in a taxpayer-funded office; his effort is funded through a related nonprofit that benefits from a close connection to government; and his main benefactor, Soros, funnels millions of dollars to his favorite causes through some of the same campaign-finance loopholes he aims to close.
De Blasio is walking a tightrope, pushing an ambitious national campaign to restrict money in politics while perhaps becoming a cog in a larger effort funded by a single-minded billionaire.
But the public advocate strenuously disputes the idea that Soros’ backing has made him a proxy in the long-running war between the Left and Right.
“We had been doing this for a year before the funding ever existed,” de Blasio said. “This is work that’s been going on, in one form or another, since Watergate.”