Gavin Newsom is riding the California wave to position himself as the future of the Democratic Party
Gov. Gavin Newsom gives the inaugural address after taking the oath of office being sworn in by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, at his inauguration ceremony at the Capitol Mall on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 in Sacramento, California. Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
Last night everybody got to see the ghost of the Democratic Party past.
But it’s worth keeping an eye on the Democratic Party’s future.
If there’s one man who truly believes he is that future it is Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
As people who sat through the governor’s lockdowns in California will know, Newsom has long been a fan of the idea that rules do not apply to him.
Just as he was content to munch away at a high-end French restaurant while his voters were confined to their houses, so this week it was revealed that normal rules don’t apply to his family either.
As part of his move to affluent Marin County, his eldest child (Montana, 14) has been enrolled at the $60,000-a-year Branson School.
Famous former pupils include Julia Child and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, otherwise known as Gavin’s wife and Montana’s mom.
It’s not surprising that the Newsoms might want to send their daughter to the school.
After all, it has a 100% graduation rate and a 100% college attendance rate, with students going on to elite schools like UCLA, Stanford, Duke and Dartmouth.
Given the results elsewhere in California, of course the Newsoms would want to send their daughter there.
After all, the public schools couldn’t possibly do.
‘Best in the world’
This week, Newsom delivered his State of the State address in California.
In it, he boasted that “across the spectrum, California simply has no peers.”
He claimed that “the best minds in the world call California home because they’re liberated from the constraints of conformity and tradition. That is true freedom.”
Clearly he didn’t have time to reference the fact that California is robbing its youth of one tradition in particular — which is the tradition of being well-educated.
In 2022, just 30% of fourth-graders in the state’s public schools were proficient in math.
Just 31% were proficient in reading.
Among eighth-graders, just 23% of pupils were proficient in math and 30% proficient in reading.
Just think about that for a moment.
Montana Newsom’s public-school-educated contemporaries are in the vast majority innumerate and illiterate.
What an indictment.
Thank goodness Newsom thinks his job is attracting brilliant people to his state.
Because he’s clearly given up on creating even literate students there.
But I shouldn’t just beat up on Gov. Newsom.
After all, he’s not the only Democrat who believes in these double standards.
Chicago blues
Over in Illinois, the president of the Chicago Teachers Unions has also just chosen to send her son to a private school.
Despite Stacy Davis Gates having said in the past that she “can’t advocate on behalf of public education without it taking root in my own household” she chose to send her teenage son to a private Catholic school.
Does that show some confidence in the success of her teachers union?
I’d say not.
It’s the same with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Despite being furiously opposed to school choice, Pritzker also chose to send his children to be privately educated.
And again, you can see why.
The schools he has sent his children to (Francis W. Parker School and the Latin School of Chicago) — like the school of Gov. Newsom’s choice — have a 100% graduation rate and send 100% of its graduates to a range of Ivy League colleges.
State of decay
Yet in the state itself, it’s a completely different story.
According to data released earlier this month by the Illinois State Board of Education, only 31% of third- through eighth-graders in Chicago public schools are proficient in reading, while just 19% of third- through eighth-graders in Chicago public schools are proficient in math.
Last year the four-year graduation rate for Chicago public schools students was just 84% and the college enrollment rate for Chicago Public Schools students was just 65%.
In a way, you have to admire the gall of these officials.
They have enough private money squirreled away to look after their own offspring.
But in doing so they demonstrate that the area which they are meant to have control over — public schooling — is a disaster zone.
If Gov. Newsom is the Democratic Party’s future, then at least parents and prospective parents across this country know how to get their kids a good education: Become a Silicon Valley billionaire.
Otherwise Newsom and his friends will leave you by the roadside.
Pride month is coming to an end and so hopefully we will soon be able to push through the city without having to see the ever more bizarre rainbow flag hanging from the headquarters of every cynical corporation and public building.
Most of the companies and public bodies that now fly the flag never did anything to defend gay rights until it became cost-free to do so.
Then they decided to make up for lost time by not pushing for gay rights but by pushing for the illusory and disastrous (for young people) cult of trans.
I like to keep an eye out for the most ridiculous institutional genuflections.
My winner this year is the New York Public Library.
One of the most beautiful buildings in the city, the NYPL has this month been adorned with huge banners on either side of the main entrance.
Complete with the new “Asexual” colors and (I think) transgender triangles, there are huge mottos on each side.
Blazoned to the left is “Libraries are for everyone.”
On the other side is “Protect the freedom to read.”
I suspect the second is a dig at the endless claim that right-wing librarians are daring to not promote works which teach children that they might be in the wrong body.
Or that things meant for adults should not be pushed onto children.
But it is the first of those slogans that I love the most.
Does anybody really think that public libraries have always given off a fearful, homophobic vibe?
Does anybody outside of the NYPL actually think that homophobia is rife in the nation´s reading rooms and book stacks?
You might say that it’s a demonstration of being out of touch with the times.
But actually it’s a demonstration that these institutions are out of step with reality.
Absurd reading ‘rainbow’
Pride Month is coming to an end and so hopefully we will soon be able to push through the city without having to see the ever-more bizarre rainbow flag hanging from the headquarters of every cynical corporation and public building.
Most of the companies and public bodies that now fly the flag never did anything to defend gay rights until it became cost-free to do so.
Then they decided to make up for lost time not by pushing for gay rights but by pushing for the illusory and disastrous (for young people) cult of trans.
I like to keep an eye out for the most ridiculous institutional genuflections.
My winner this year is the New York Public Library.
One of the most beautiful buildings in the city, the NYPL has this month been adorned with huge banners on either side of the main entrance.
Complete with the new “Asexual” colors and (I think) transgender triangles, there are huge mottos on each side.
Blazoned to the left is “Libraries are for everyone.”
On the other side is “Protect the freedom to read.”
I suspect the second is a dig at the endless claim that right-wing librarians are daring to not promote works which teach children that they might be in the wrong body.
Or that things meant for adults should not be pushed onto children.
But it is the first of those slogans that I love the most. Does anybody really think that public libraries have always given off a fearful, homophobic vibe?
Does anybody outside of the NYPL actually think that homophobia is rife in the nation’s reading rooms and book stacks?
You might say that it’s a demonstration of being out of touch with the times.
But actually it’s a demonstration that these institutions are out of step with reality.