Why Kathy Hochul will NEVER fight to save New Yorks public schools

As she celebrated her school-cellphone ban this week, Gov.Kathy Hochul mentioned she’d like more power over the State Education Department, taking particular aim at the recent scrapping of any real high-school graduation requirements.She’s right; too bad she won’t fight for it.SED, and the Board of Regents that controls it, now actively oppose sane education policy; at the behest of the Legislature’s majorities who appoint them, they’ve turned public education into a racketeering conspiracy.But Hochul doesn’t dare say so, let alone go to war with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to turn SED into a normal state agency answerable to the governor.

So the gov can complain that she “often read about what has been decided [about education] in the newspaper,” as a great “source of frustration,” but she’s far too committed to quiet bargaining with Heastie & Co.to seek any radical change — and this would require amending the state Constitution.Heck, she’d also have to defeat the state’s teacher unions, which consider SED their turf — bought and paid for in the bargaining that let Heastie (once a friend of some school choice) take the speakership. Albany business-as-usual is steadily destroying New York’s future, with the destruction of the state’s once-nation-leading public schools a prime example.

And if Kathy Hochul is anything, she’s the face of go-along-to-get-along with Albany’s ways: It’s the No.1 reason to vote for Bruce Blakeman and change....