The New York Post reports that Governor Kathy Hochul made some astonishing comments at this year’s Milken Institute Global Conference.

“Right now we have, you know, young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is,” Gov. Kathy Hochul blabbered into a microphone Monday.

“They don’t know, they don’t know these things. And I want the world opened up to all of them,” she continued.

It was an idiotic thing to say, and it attracted appropriate criticism.

“Deep down, White liberals see themselves as our saviors and only need our votes to protect their power. These aren’t gaffes. This a result of the racism of low expectations,” Michigan representative John James, a black Republican, said on X. “Apparently being a powerful Democrat is a license to spout racist filth without accountability.”

Hochul herself walked back her comment after the uproar: “I misspoke and I regret it.”

The real lesson to be taken from the Hochul hiccup isn’t so much about race as it is about the awful state of urban public schools. New York City schools are notoriously bad at educating kids even while spending about $38,000 per pupil per year.

If Hochul wants to open up the world to New York kids, she should support school choice. But that is the absolute last thing that her teachers’ union buddies would accept. They are focused on policies that ensure that New York school spending first benefits the adults employed by the system.