Top NY pols rake in thousands in donations from teachers union while bashing charter schools
Surprise, surprise!
In a stunning display of how New York politics work, two of the state Legislature’s most outspoken opponents of charter schools are also among the biggest recipients of campaign cash from New York’s teachers’ union and its political action committee.
State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the New York City Education Committee, has raked in $33,300 since his first Senate race in 2018, putting him in the No. 3 spot behind Sen. John Mannion (D-Syracuse), who got $35,100 during the same period.
The money for the anti-charter pols came from both the New York State United Teachers — parent of the city’s powerful United Federation of Teachers — and its Voice of Teachers for Education PAC, state Board of Elections records show.
The Rev. Ruben Diaz, a former state senator and founder of the pro-charter Hispanic Clergy Association, on Tuesday blasted Liu as a hypocrite for getting a top-flight New York City public education yet denying parents the option of school choice for their kids.
“What’s wrong with John Liu? He got a good education at the Bronx High School of Science.
“He took advantage of it. What about the black and Hispanic kids?” Diaz fumed, referring to the majority of pupils who have been flocking to the city’s charters.
“John Liu and other legislators don’t care about our children, as long as the UFT gives them money for their campaigns. They should stop being afraid of the UFT and serve their communities.”
Yiatin Chu, founder and president of the city’s Asian Wave Alliance political club who has also worked for Republican Assemblyman Lester Chang (R-Brooklyn), also called Liu — who was fined $26,000 in 2017 over a campaign-finance scandal that sent a political aide and a fundraiser to federal prison — “the only Asian parent I know of who is against charter schools.”
Chu claimed Liu’s ties to the UFT also were behind last year’s enactment of his controversial bill to cap the size of public school classes at between 20 for kindergarten and 25 in high school.
“The teachers’ union certainly benefited from it,” she said.
Chu added: “As the New York City Education Committee chairman in the state Senate, he should be someone who is fighting for all children to get the best education for free.”
Rebecca Shiroff, a former member of the Syracuse-area Fayetteville-Manlius School Board, said of Mannion, an ex-teacher, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he receives money from the union and he is vehemently against charter schools.
“I put myself in the position of parents who live in the inner city, especially Syracuse, which is one of the most impoverished cities in the country. I look at that, and it absolutely breaks my heart,” she said of the lack of more school choice.
Former Republican Assemblyman John Salka also said, “No surprise Mannion is in deep with the teachers union — most [politicians] are beholden to one special interest group or another.
“So much for representing the people!” Salka added.
In a prepared statement, Liu’s spokesman said his boss believes that the cap on city charter schools “has historically served to strike the balance between giving parents so-called ‘choice’ and the city’s constitutional obligation to keep public schools open.”
Spokesman Scott Sieber said that balance “should not be upset, especially now when student enrollment in charter schools and public schools has declined markedly.”
Sieber also said Liu “has proudly accepted campaign support from the teachers union for many years while steadfastly declining much larger contribution offers from deep-pocketed charter bankrollers.”
Sieber did not immediately respond to a request for documentation of those offers.
A spokesman for Mannion said, “His opposition to expanding charter schools is based on his three decades of personal experience in the classroom and working in the public school system.”
The only state senator to rake in more from the teachers’ union since 2018 is Democrat Monica Martinez of Happauge, a former teacher and school administrator who received $40,000 in August 2020, ahead of her re-election defeat that year.
But Martinez hasn’t staked out a public position on charters and also hasn’t received any union funds since then.
Anti-charter Democratic state senators with major union contributions since 2018 also include: Brad Hoylman-Sigal of Manhattan, $25,400; Rachel May of Syracuse, $23,650, and Michelle Hinchey of Kingston, $23,580.
Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) told reporters that “many” members of her conference were “not necessarily comfortable with the removal of regional caps” on charter schools.
On Tuesday, Stewart-Cousins denied campaign cash was behind that.
“There is no nexus. We do our job, and we will continue to do our job,” she said.
