During National School Choice week in January, 49 mayors and 21 governors supported the bi-partisan effort to expand k-12 educational options across the nation. The Leftist mayor of New York City was not among them ~
 
De Blasio’s War on Minority Education (by Arnold Ahlert at FrontPage Mag) ~
 
Despite promising results from the city’s charter schools “Red Bill”, NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, NAACP President Hazel Dukes and the teachers’ union want to keep city children, especially minority children, in the failing, Democrat-run public school quagmire.
 
Evidence that charter schools are effectively improving educational results is hard to refute ~

Success Academy Harlem 4, where the same minority students achieved some of the highest math scores in the entire state and 55 percent passed English exams last year. Both rates far exceeded city averages. For reference, only about a quarter of New York City students in third through eight grade earn passing scores on English and math tests; 26.4 percent passed in English proficiency and 29.6 percent passed math proficiency, according to statistics from last year. Moreover, there is compelling evidence that some charter schools are closing that very same achievement gap reflected on the entrance exams. Yet late last month, Success Academy Harlem 4 was one of the charter schools De Blasio kicked out of its space in a New York City public school building.

 
The mayor is closing some charter schools and cutting off funding for new construction on others; completely indifferent to a waiting list of 50,000 New Yorkers determined to obtain those educational opportunities for their kids.
 
The above-referenced Success Academy is filing a federal civil rights lawsuit to overturn De Blasio’s decision preventing them from co-locating in a public school building. This move infuriates NAACP’s Hazel Dukes who wrote that “the lawsuit
is an outrageous and insulting attempt by Wall Street hedge fund managers to hijack the language of civil rights in their shameless political attack on Bill de Blasio.”

Duke’s class warfare rhetoric is transparent. Moreover, the irony of her position is breathtaking. The president of the nation’s foremost civil rights organization — ostensibly tasked with advancing the agenda of black Americans — is upset that someone is fighting tooth and nail to save the educational future of black American children. If there’s a better indication of the poisonous influence exerted by the the teachers union, one is hard-pressed to imagine what it is.

 
 
What the heck, even Sheila Jackson Lee got behind January’s school choice promotion in Houston, making common cause with – gasp(!) Ted Cruz. Representative Lee could possibly have benefited from a charter school education herself (in American history anyway) 😀 – but in all seriousness, she makes a convincing case for choice in this interview on leftist MSNBC. (To her credit, she didn’t even play along when the host attempted to deal the race card.)
 
Why is your average Leftist so transparently disingenuous? They elevate Freedom of Choice to the highest good – until it comes to your child’s education.
 
This battle really boils down to what’s best for the union vs. what’s best for the kids. If the greedy thugs on the Left would just get out of the way, the kids will win.

 
Related:
Freedom of SCHOOL Choice

What’s really going on in Ukraine?
 
Well, based on all the various media reports I’ve seen, this video seems to be a fairly accurate representation of complexities of the movement known as Euro Maidan and the lead-up to the violence and tragic deaths of last week. It’s an honest and objective look at what was a very volatile situation ~
 

 
Recent developments are very encouraging. Accusing President Yanukovych of massive human rights violations and abandonment of his duties, the Ukrainian Parliament unanimously voted to impeach him. And ~

In one of the greatest political reversals of all-time, Yanukovych was stopped leaving Ukraine on a Donetsk tarmac while his imprisoned rival, Yulia Tymoshenko (below), was set free from prison by parliament and whisked to a waiting crowd of more than 100,000 people on Kyiv’s Independence Square who listened attentively to the ex-prime minister.

 

 
The biggest unknown now is: what will Vladimir Putin do in response to what is plainly a defiant rejection of Russian involvement in Ukrainian affairs (Yanukovych was essentially a Moscow puppet) by the majority of Ukrainians? The future is still uncertain as Reuters reports ~

“We all know Putin likes to meddle,” said Alexei Tsitulski, a 25-year-old protester from the Crimea. The region used to be Russian territory and was given to Ukraine in 1953 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was from Ukraine.
 
“If he decides to try to take over regions like Crimea or anywhere else in the east, we’ll go there to fight. We’re not going to let Ukraine be split.”
 
Such comments, echoed by other protesters, underline how high the stakes are as Putin looks for ways to save face in the geopolitical struggle over Ukraine that had appeared to be going his way until the past week.

 
And then there’s the gas…

[Hat-tip: Bobo]

Although happily, the pundit quoted in this Zero Hedge post turned out to be 100% incorrect in his predictions thus far.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Related:
The best and latest news about the unrest in Ukraine has come from Kiev Post.
 
Ukraine’s priests provide protest inspiration, key link to pre-Soviet era ~ The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been a critical source of support for Euro Maidan.