Paul Ryan’s detractors have spent recent weeks excoriating the Speaker for allegedly failing to demonstrate adequate concern for the poor, yet when he showed at a Harlem charter school that caters to low-income students on Tuesday, he was met with protesters. Sometimes you just can’t win.
According to reports, protesters gathered outside the school expressed outrage over both the American Health Care Act and Ryan’s decision to visit a charter school, though they appeared to focus mostly on the former.
“The fact that Paul Ryan is coming to NYC to visit a charter school, while ignoring the city’s many public schools only underscores what we learned from his deceitful ACA repeal,” one protester told Mic. “Ryan doesn’t actually care about real people. He wants to take money from the public to benefit private corporations. He did it with healthcare and now he wants to do it with education.”
In fact, what Ryan “wants to do” with education is explore innovative options that could boost the prospects of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. And his visit to Success Academy Charter Harlem-1 did include a stop into a public school classroom, despite claims to the contrary.
A source familiar with with the visit told the Washington Examiner that Ryan was greeted by the principal before stopping into a classroom and receiving a full tour of the academy, which shares space with a public school, on Tuesday afternoon.
According to 2015-2016 data from the New York State Department of Education, 76 percent of students at Success Academy Charter Harlem-1, the flagship school of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter network, are economically disadvantaged.
Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of the Success Academy network, praised Ryan after his trip.
“I was pleased to welcome Speaker Ryan to our flagship school in Harlem today,” she said in a statement. “The education crisis in our city and country is profoundly damaging to millions of children, and parent choice has proven to be an effective lever in education reform.”
Though Moskowitz, a Clinton voter who supported the confirmation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is a controversial figure on the Left, she is also an influential national leader in the charter school movement.
It’s fine if people wish to debate the merits of Moskowitz’s schools, but those debates do not change the fact that Ryan took time during the House recess to spend an afternoon with underprivileged students. In reality, the Wisconsin Republican has made something of a habit out of engaging with disadvantaged communities over the past few years.
After the 2012 election, Ryan embarked on a low-profile tour of impoverished communities with community organizer Robert Woodson.
As The Atlantic reported in March,
[Woodson] took the congressman on dozens of trips to poor inner-city neighborhoods, introducing him to a wide network of grassroots activists, black ministers, and community leaders—front-line foot soldiers in the War on Poverty. Over time, he became convinced of Ryan’s sincerity, and believed he’d finally found a loyal ally who cared deeply about his agenda.
“Paul far exceeded my expectations in terms of being morally consistent and firmly committed,” Woodson explained, adding, “All I can do is trust in Paul Ryan and what I know to be his central principle, and that is to protect the least of these.”
The Left’s reflexive impulse to counter every move made by members of the Trump administration is not serving it well. Slamming Ryan for not caring about the plight of low-income Americans, and then slamming him for spending time with economically disadvantaged children, is unproductive.
The Speaker, for his part, called the day “special” in a statement released after his visit.
“These remarkable kids are getting a great education,” he said. “…That’s what matters — giving every kid a fair shot at the American Dream.”
In her own statement, Moskowitz remarked: “Speaker Ryan took the opportunity to see firsthand what is working … I share Mayor de Blasio’s view (in at least this one case), that open dialogue is essential in finding solutions to our most difficult problems.”
Protesting conservatives for their engagement in an “open dialogue” on tough issues is probably not the way to solve our country’s problems. Not that that’s the aim of the protests or anything.
Ryan’s decision to spend time with low-income students, regardless of what type of school they attend, is admirable and reflective of the Speaker’s larger interest in familiarizing himself with the plight of America’s struggling families.
That’s nothing to “resist.”
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
