A former New York City public school teacher is claiming that elite schools in the Big Apple are teaching children that the U.S. system must be destroyed.
Robert Pondiscio, who is also a former private school parent and now is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, made his comments in a column for the New York Post on Wednesday.
He wrote: "Ryan Finlay is a brave young man. A senior at the elite private Horace Mann School, Finlay last week published a pointed but measured essay describing the aggressive political bias that's dominated his education on the Bronx campus, where generations of famous and well-connected New Yorkers, from Jack Kerouac to Eliot Spitzer have matriculated or sent their children."
"Faculty 'feel obligated to open students' eyes to the inequality that surrounds them," Finlay explained, but that takes the form of "continuous pressure in the classroom to embrace visions of wholesale societal reform."
"The message, hammered relentlessly into students' heads at Horace Mann is that 'the system is broken, unable to be reformed, rotten to the core, and deserving of demolition.' "
Pondiscio noted the irony of "hyper-privileged New Yorkers" paying nearly $60,000 a year for their kids to learn they are "the undeserving beneficiaries of a broke system."
He lauded Finlay for breaking the "conspiracy of silence" that has protected top private schools from criticism.
"Wealthy parents can afford to purchase billboards anonymously demanding elite private schools teach their kids 'how to think, not what to think.' " Pondiscio wrote. "But they cannot afford to put at risk their children's shot at the Ivy League so they sit and seethe, lest their children be deemed not a good fit and 'counseled out.'
"Let's be honest. There's really only one surefire way for elite private schools to demonstrate their commitment to dismantling privilege: Close their doors and cease operations."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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