NYC schools allow kids to go on #ClimateStrike

NYC schools allow kids to go on #ClimateStrike

The New York City Department of Education is allowing school kids to skip classes next Friday to partake in a Manhattan “Climate Crisis” rally.

“TEN YEARS. We have ten years to save the planet,” Mayor Bill de Blasio cautioned in a tweet. “Today’s leaders are making decisions for our environment that our kids will have to live with. New York City stands with our young people. They’re our conscience. We support the 9/20 #ClimateStrike.”

Legions of adolescent activists across the globe are expected to demand immediate action to combat climate change in advance of a major UN conference on the issue next week.

As long as mom and dad sanction their principled truancy, absent kids won’t have attendance records dinged, the DOE said.

The September 20th event will feature Sweden’s “Climate Crisis” sweetheart, 16-year old Greta Thunberg.

Teen activist and Swedish sensation Greta Thunberg, who recently docked her zero-emissions sailboat in New York, will speak at the event which will snake its way through lower Manhattan to Battery Park.

Kids with parental permission to attend will be granted excused absences from school, Education Department officials tweeted Thursday.

The infamous “Green New Deal” will be promoted as well.

The New York City climate strike is backed by more than 100 environmental and political activist groups and other institutions, including New York Communities for Change, The New School and the Sierra Club.

The protesters’ demands include a “Green New Deal” that would end fossil fuel extraction and move the nation onto entirely renewable energy sources by 2030. Green New Deal policies have been backed by the likes of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Personally, if I were one of the kids, I might argue about going to school at all. After all, if the Earth only has 10 more years before we are going to die, wouldn’t it be better to spend the time having fun or spending quality time with family?

On the other hand, if the New York City school officials were really invested in solving the climate crisis, wouldn’t they emphasize science and math? Perhaps keeping the kids in school and having them conduct experiments or perform calculations would inspire an interest in real climate science.

One theory that seems to prove true and is certainly consistent with what is happening with the New York City schools: When global problems are emphasized by locals, serious local matters are being ignored.

Case in point: New York state test results for third- through eighth-grade public school students are out, and the results are underwhelming.

Statewide, more than half the kids flunked yet again: Just 45.4% were deemed proficient in reading and 46.7% in math. In the city, 47.4% passed the reading test, while 45.6% got by in math.

Think the problem’s skimpy funding? Sorry: In 2017, the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon reported in May, New York shelled out 89% more per kid than the national average. And that gap has been growing fast: In 1997, per-pupil outlays here were just 45% above average.

…In the city Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza tried to spin the results positively. The pass rate in English, they noted, is up 0.7 percentage points — and three whole points in math.

“Growth counts for something,” Carranza insisted.

Huh? That paltry uptick is what they’re proud of? Even though more than half the kids bombed? Please.

Notably, kids in the one category of public schools de Blasio and Carranza (and their union pals) don’t run — i.e., the charters — beat their counterparts in the regular schools by more than 10 percentage points in both English and math.

At least the kids won’t be flying private jets to attend the event. That makes them substantially less hypocritical than the celebrities who will be indoctrinating them during the Manhattan event.

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