NEW YORK – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is telling it like it is.

And he hasn’t hesitated in pointing directly at liberals and their backers in the teachers unions for contributing to the plight of minorities.

“That energy that (Al) Sharpton and everyone else is spending protesting against police would save a lot more black lives if it would start talking about improving black education, if it would talk about improving the family situation in black neighborhoods, if it would talk about dealing with police officers with respect,” Giuliani told Geraldo Rivera Monday, according to The Huffington Post.

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Giuliani knows first-hand how teachers unions have resisted efforts to improve the profession, to help rid its ranks of pedophiles and child abusers, and worked against other promising education options for the city’s black communities.

Sharpton and his ilk should look to their political comrades in the teachers union if they’re truly honest in their mission to help minorities.

“Maybe all these left-wing politicians who want to blame police, maybe there’s some blame here that has to go to the teachers union, for refusing to have schools where teachers are paid for performance, for fighting charter schools, for fighting vouchers so that we can drastically and dramatically improve education,” Giuliani said.

American Federation of Teachers President Rhonda Weingarten, who served as president of the New York City teachers union during Giuliani’s tenure, was clearly perturbed by the former mayor’s candid analysis.

Weingarten tweeted Monday:

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Giuliani didn’t blame teachers for Garner’s death, of course, he simply pointed to those who “are exacerbating these problems: teachers unions,” as the Huffington Post put it.

He explained to Rivera that there’s a lot more to the problems than police brutality.

“Liberal guilty whites have to stop refusing to say the bigger part of the problem here is black crime and not police overreaction. A small part of the problem is police overreaction. It is driven by the incredibly large rate – disproportionate rates of crime in the black community,” Giuliani said.

He reiterated his point on Fox News’ “Hannity,” the Post reports.

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with these communities. It’s problems that have to be cured, problems that have to be dealt with, like education,” Giuliani said.

“Why not support charter schools? Why not support vouchers? Why not support new ways of having education in the black community, instead of submitting to the will of the teachers’ union?”