Fariña’s Child Sacrifices

Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña won’t stop sacrificing schoolchildren to a private vendetta. On Monday, Fariña offered a pathetic response to requests for middle-school space from the Success Academy Network.

Success has long warned that it will need room to grow as children who attend its newer primary schools age to middle school, which the network starts in Grade 5. It long ago asked for new space to accommodate what will be 8,000 new middleschoolers in a few short years. Fariña proudly offered room for just 1,000 kids.

This, when Department of Education data show at least 10 chronically under-enrolled schools with hundreds of seats available.

Success wanted space for four middle schools (two in Brooklyn, one in The Bronx and one in Queens) plus reallocation of space at two existing middle schools. Fariña only provided two schools — slapping families in Rosedale, West Harlem, Cobble Hill and Williamsburg.

The DOE’s letter to Success parents says, “Every rising Success Academy 5th grade student who would like to continue at an SA middle school next year can do so.” That’s technically true — if you ignore long commutes to schools that may not even be near the right subway line.

It also leaves out the fact that this one-year accommodation will force Success to open entirely new space the next year, when its middle-schools have both 5th and 6th graders. And likely have to face the same mess the year after that.

Success leaders are right to reject Fariña’s dishonest offer. After all, the network is delivering the best educational results in the state, for student bodies that are mainly minority and lower-income.

It’s simply obscene that a chancellor and mayor who claim to care about children are instead doing their best to crush kids’ dreams.