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MSNBC Rallies Behind Charter Schools

Panel Blasts Dem Mayor for Blocking Three Charter Schools

MSNBC's Morning Joe lashed out against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to shut down three charter schools Wednesday.

CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools Eva Moskowitz joined the show’s panel to discuss de Blasio’s educational injustice to the state’s poorest population.

The panel praised Governor Cuomo's pro-charter school views, with Scarborough calling him a "champion of charter schools."

Moskowitz agreed, saying: "It was amazing to see him speak so passionately and we did feel that we were alone. We have a mayor in the city of New York who says he's a progressive on the one hand, but wants to deny poor kids in Harlem an opportunity, a shot at life."

At Harlem Central, one of the three charter schools that de Blasio wants to shut down, students in the fifth grade are outperforming their fifth grade peers in Scarsdale, New York, one of the wealthiest cities. The mayor announced a week ago that students at that charter school would be, as Moskowitz said, "educationally homeless."

Moskowitz called de Blasio out for his supposed efforts to help the poor, a promise which he ran his campaign on, and for turning his back on the impoverished. "It is not progressive to disenfranchise poor minority kids who want a shot at the American dream," Moskowitz declared.

The Mayor’s efforts to shut down the charter schools could have serious implications, Moskowitz warned. "We want this country to get out of this educational crisis it’s in. China and India are leaps and bounds ahead of us. If we do not figure out how to do this, this country is not going to be the great country that it’s been," she predicted.

Moskowitz lamented, "…I was never expecting in my wildest dreams that the Mayor of the city of New York, a so-called progressive, would throw children in Harlem out on the street."

"It is not tough to figure out that we’re all in support of your successful charter schools," Scarborough assured her.