Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once boasted of getting her goddaughter into a charter school in New York, despite her party’s stand against them.

In an unearthed Facebook Live video which the democratic socialist recorded in 2017 – before she was elected to Congress – she is seen walking around Hunts Point Avenue in the Bronx, telling her social media followers about the area.



(Source: via New York Post)

“This area’s like a lot of where my family is from. My goddaughter, I got her into a charter school like maybe a block or two down,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the video.

The New York Post began its story on the video with the line, “Good for me, but not for thee.”

“Embracing charters would be a big no-no for Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic socialist base, which calls for the total abolition of charters, arguing that their existence hurts traditional public schools,” Jon Levine, writing for The Post, said.

“Charter schools act as tools for privatizing education and weakening the power of unionized teachers,” the New York City Democratic Socialists said in their education platform, while also calling to “end the creation of new charter schools, ban the expansion of existing charter schools, and transform existing charter schools into public schools.”

AOC helped get her goddaughter into a charter school Good for her!!! But why doesn’t she support school choice for everyone else??https://t.co/WMWonIbGkI — Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) February 25, 2020

Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called out Ocasio-Cortez on her hypocrisy in a tweet citing The Post’s story.

“How nice that @AOC claims to have helped her goddaughter get into a public charter school. It’s a shame she works to deny that opportunity to every other disadvantaged family in America,” DeVos, who along with President Donald Trump, is a vocal advocate of school choice.

How nice that @AOC claims to have helped her goddaughter get into a public charter school. It’s a shame she works to deny that opportunity to every other disadvantaged family in America. “Good for me, but not for thee,” indeed. #EducationFreedomhttps://t.co/a2RhOEeU0o — Secretary Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) February 24, 2020

“I do know there are over one million families on wait lists for charters schools,” DeVos told Columnist Cal Thomas in an article published by Fox News last week.”I imagine there is close to that number who would opt to do something different if they had the opportunity.”

Ocasio-Cortez cheered on a teachers’ strike last year in Los Angeles, calling it “inspiring” that it was “a historic strike to improve + protect local public schools from privatization.”

Tens of thousands of LA public school teachers, parents, and students are on a historic strike to improve + protect local public schools from privatization. This is inspiring! Let’s support the teachers & parents strike fund here: https://t.co/DwnDztTmpv https://t.co/mKl416nMf6 — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 18, 2019

At a town hall organized by the Jackson Heights People for Public Schools in New York last year, the progressive lawmaker recalled how her family moved from the Bronx to find better schools in the suburbs.

“My parents, they felt like they had to choose between their community and a quality school, a quality public school,” she said last March. “They felt confronted with this choice that we still see today 30 years later.”

She also warned that Bronx residents were being “incentivized to enroll into a charter school.”

Ray Domanico, director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute, was “not surprised by the hypocrisy.”

“Charter schools are incredibly popular with the communities and populations that a lot of these Democratic politicians claim to be representing,” he told the New York Post. “People in the Bronx can find a good school for their young ones now as the congresswoman apparently did for her goddaughter.”