Blas & the School Competition

Frustrated as we are by Mayor de Blasio’s slow pace in reopening schools, we have to give him some credit for making more progress than his peers in other cities.

He announced Monday that middle schools will reopen for students who opt in to classroom instruction starting Feb. 25. Of the city’s 196,000 middle-schoolers, 60,000 will be back in the classrooms at least part time. That’s only 30 percent, in part because so many parents are frustrated by the open-again/closed-again reality even for schools that do “reopen,” and so opt for the certainty of remote-only — or find alternative schools.

Students of all ages thought they were out of the woods last fall, only to be sent back to the virtual classroom in November for no good reason: Science indicates the virus rarely affects children, and kids (pre-teens, at least) also don’t transmit COVID in any significant degree.

But at least Hizzoner let elementary students out of their Zoom prisons in December and now is following up. Meanwhile, the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in America, wants all children vaccinated before they resume in-person classes. And never mind that no vaccine is yet authorized for those under 16.

Chicago, the No. 3 US district, is held hostage by a teachers union that has not only killed plans to expand reopening but also forced home kids who had returned to class.

Some credit for New York’s better performance goes to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who fought for the mayoral-control law that lets parents hold one man accountable. He and Mayor Rudy Giuliani also fought the teachers’ union hard enough that it is less willing to defy a basically friendly mayor.

Yet private, Catholic and charter schools are all doing far, far better for New York’s children. That’s the real competition for de Blasio’s system.