i also had a community in washington heights that had a terrible riot in 1992 and a blackout in 1999. that community went from being very high crime community to being a good community. i would ask all those politicians you saw there talking about the terrible conditions economic conditions they have been in charge of baltimore for the last 30 years. this is a democratic city since 1939. o malley was the governor for eight years. if those people are suffering from economic depravation, then what the heck have they done? what has elijah cummings done for his city? what has that state senator done for that city? what kind of economic development have they done? you go. take a look at brooklyn today and look at it after the things that i did. take a look at harlem today.
called washington heights which had a terrible riot in 1992 and a blackout in 1999. there was not a single crime committed that night. that community went from being a high crime community to a good community. i would ask the politicians asking about the terrible con conditions dark dash the economic decisions they have been in charge of baltimore. this is a democratic city since 1999. o malley was the governor for eight years.years. if those people are suffering from economic depravation, then what the heck have they done? what has elijah cummings done for his city? what has that state senator done for that city? what kind of economic development have they done? you go. take a look at brooklyn today and look at it after the things that i did. take a look at harlem today.
so that the concentration there and that s why you ve got the enormous push back from the unions and others. the unions like a monopoly operated school system, it works well for the adults, guaranteed client base whether you re good, bad or the other. in harlem nobody can take those kids for granted anymore. parents have choice. some of the harlem, charter school operators tried to run into the west side of manhattan and running into enormous resistance notwithstanding the progress they had in harlem. people who have monopolies and a guaranteed client base don t like competition. the parents on the west side are demanding that this school be open and they re lining up to get in it probably 100, 120 kids admitted and you ll have 5, 6,000 in the first year and parents vote this story has to change because the parents are not going to tolerate the results,
over that time frame. having said that, it s also clear to me that way too many kids graduate high school who are not prepared for college and far too many kids don t graduate high school. in the 21st century, kids graduated high school, what s their plan b. one of your strategies for reform is to put charter schools in clusters and had some success there and because then you get a kind of community that looks at it, all schools get lifted up by that kind of cluster strategy, but the critique of charters is that they never anywhere have gone up to scale. the kind of scale you need. even though some individual schools are very successful you need scale if you re going to reform the whole system. how do you respond to? you re absolutely right. but i think column is close to scale in new orleans now. post katrina they created a new system and in new orleans you have a real choice system. and harlem today, 40% of the kids who start school go to charter schools.