Jack Welch Goes On Scathing Tirade Against The NYC School System

Businessman Jack Welch went on an impassioned rant against the New York City Department of Education during an interview about last week's midterm elections.

"This election is about competence. It truly is about competence," Welch said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

He went on to attack "liberals" in government.

"Let me give you a classic example of why we don't have competence. Take New York City," Welch said.

The former General Electric CEO proceeded to single out the city's school's chancellor for his criticism. He appeared to cite a report indicating a number of superintendents recently reappointed to their jobs came from underperforming schools.

"The chancellor of the school system is named Carmen Fariña. She just appointed 15 superintendents: seven from failing schools, five from disasters - 10% passing tests, et cetera - as superintendents! When you have a philosophy of putting in place people without a meritocracy, without differentiation, you get bad performance," Welch continued.

Welch really started getting on a roll when he argued no one in the business world would hire deputies with the same record of success as those school superintendents.

"You couldn't run CNBC, you couldn't run GE, you couldn't run Apple, you couldn't run Google, you couldn't run any company if you took seven of your 15 appointments to division managers and made them flunkies, hacks. And you stuck them in the schools, you can't do it. It's that system of no meritocracy, of no differentiation, 'we're all equal,' you don't get performance," he said. "You can't do it. You just can't do it!"

New York City's board of education did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Watch Welch's full comments below.