N.Y. Schools Chief Richard Carranza Can't Quit Calling Parents 'Racist'. Embattled chancellor even playing the outside agitators card in the face of mounting parental criticism

Reason ^ | January 30, 2020 | Matt Welch

[karpov]

In September 2019, I wrote a long Reason feature about how New York City politicians and education bureaucrats, particularly Department of Education (DOE) Chancellor Richard Carranza, were pushing through their preferred policy changes in part by weaponizing charges of "racism" against opponents, skeptics, and parents. So what's Carranza been up to since then?

Weaponizing charges of "racism" against opponents, skeptics, and parents!

The kerfuffle currently making local headlines concerns a raucous Jan. 16 Community Education Council meeting in Queens that Carranza cut short after being booed and yelled at by parents of middle-schoolers who had been assaulted on campus. Critics contend that Carranza's new "restorative justice" approach to discipline is leaving violent perpetrators unpunished.

"It was unproductive," Carranza explained to CBS News the next morning. "People were yelling. People weren't allowing anybody to answer. They weren't allowing me to answer. And it was grandstanding."

Italics mine, to emphasize the next phase of the controversy. "How can you say a parent is grandstanding when their child has been sexually harassed and assaulted?" NYC Parents Union President Mona Davids told the New York Post, which has been calling for the chancellor to be fired. "I empathize with the anger and frustration of parents and families when they're not being heard," added City Councilman Mark Treyger from Queens.

Nine City Council members last June called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to fire Carranza unless the chancellor cuts back on his "divisive rhetoric," so you might think that the embattled educrat would choose his next words carefully. If so, his ensuing choice speaks volumes about Carranza's judgment, or the tilt of the intended audience, or both.

At a press conference with Mayor de Blasio Tuesday, the chancellor called the Queens meeting a "setup," claiming that protesters were "brought in vans to agitate"

[Secret Agent Man]

Democrats bus people in all the time to events, voting and rallies to agitate and cause problems. Doesn’t seem to bother them, it’s a tactic they employ as part of their regular plans.

[DeplorablePaul]

The problem with restorative justice - code for keeping blacks out of jail - is that beneficiaries won’t cooperate. Instead, when free of consequences for bad behavior, they commit more and worse crimes.

NYC public schools were already disaster. It’s hard to imagine that they’re even worse now.

[aquila48]

The useful idiots of New York deserve that and more.

[PGR88]

[arthurus]

If non white children are assaulting white children and parents complain then the complaining is obvious and odious RACISM in New York and Calilfornia.

[Regulator]

“unless the chancellor cuts back on his “divisive rhetoric,”

Hilarious. They really don’t know Mexicans.

He will double down. This is a power game to him called “Beat the Gringo”.

On your knees, Gringos! Speak Spanish! You will obey, dogs!

[kearnyirish2]

Any time expectations are lowered for blacks, more and more of them are isolated from non-blacks. We have few “diverse communities” here in neighboring NJ (in terms of blacks and whites) because of this dynamic. Even towns that have both are segregated by neighborhoods (and therefore schools); nobody who loves their children could send them to a school geared towards accommodating blacks in terms of lowered expectations; there is nothing learned but bad behavior.