There’s a deeply troubling debate in New York City over a plan to have the city pay for the deployment of NYPD school safety officers in nonpublic city schools in the same way they are deployed in public schools. A bill to that effect is being sponsored by Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield and has 45 of 50 other members of the council as co-sponsors.
The illogic of some of the opponents on the council and some outside groups is astounding.
Councilwoman Inez Barron said, “It’s an additional cost that I don’t think should be borne by taxpayers to subsidize the cost of running a private school….Where do we draw the line?”
Barron said her two sons had attended private schools and she is not opposed to public funding for crossing guards or transportation to and from school. But, she went on to say, without explanation, “Once they’re inside, what goes on inside should be borne by those who choose to use that school.”
Perhaps she doesn’t accept the fact that those children’s parents are taxpayers as well.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Bratton said at a City Council hearing that he “would have other priorities for how I assign resources, rather than to the assignment to private schools.”
Yet under the Greenfield plan there would be additional resources, not a reshuffling of what is already in play.
As Mr. Greenfield puts it, “When the safety of our children is at stake, there is simply no justification for distinguishing between public and non-public schools.”