Harsh lesson for charter school supporters

Erik Engquist & Jeremy Smerd:

Tuesday's primary was a disaster for charter school proponents and their hedge fund backers. They funded three insurgent state Senate candidates, only to see them lose by huge margins to incumbents viewed as hostile to charter schools: Sen. Bill Perkins in Manhattan, Sen. Velmanette Montgomery in Brooklyn and Sen. Shirley Huntley in Queens.

"If you're going to make a statement, you have to either win or be competitive, because if you get crushed it sends the opposite message," one legislator says. "People are going to believe that this is a paper tiger."

Wall Street and the financial services industry made a similar gamble by investing in insurgent Reshma Saujani against Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who supported the sweeping financial regulation bill and won passage of credit card reforms that will curb banks' profits. Saujani raised more than $1.3 million but won only 19% of the vote in an Upper East Side district where support for Wall Street is thought to be greater than elsewhere.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 18, 2010 1:03 AM
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