When Elorza was mayor, it seemed embarrassing for him to take a public event as an opportunity to confront McKee, but his recent comments about public education in Providence, which formed the basis for the confrontation, suggest his emotions were well placed and genuine:

“What we have now is a system that locks in place the status quo, and with [educational] performance being so bad, the status quo is just indefensible,” he says. “There are frankly very few reforms in education that have provided game-changing results, and charter schools have done that in some places.”

Elorza is not to blame for the failure of the state to turn the schools around after a shocking Johns Hopkins report led to the state take-over.  Failure was predictable the moment Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green arrived with the attitude of working with the teachers union.  She should have begun building bonds with parents and the community as a counterweight to the paid activists.  She didn’t, and the rest is history.