New York City desperately needs more good public schools, but state law is about to cut off the most reliable pipeline for fresh educational excellence. It’s up to the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to re-open the tap by lifting the cap on new charter schools.
As part of the deal to open the state’s door to charters back in 1999, the law set both a statewide cap on the total number that could be authorized and a lower cap on how many would be allowed in the city.
Now slots for just seven new charters are left for the five boroughs, and they’ll be used up this year.
This, when what was once just a concept is now a proven success. After 20 years, these alternative public schools enroll 123,000 city students (a tenth of all public school kids) in 236 schools. And the waiting list tops 50,000 families — clear evidence that parents want more charters.
It’s easy to see why. A Manhattan Institute analysis of last year’s state exams for students in grades 3-8 revealed that 57 percent of black city charter kids scored proficient or better on the English test, vs. just 30.6 percent of black students statewide. For Hispanics, it was 54.5 percent vs. 22.8 percent.
The gap in math is about 25 points for both groups — another clear sign that charters do a far better job of offering educational opportunity to minority kids than do the regular public schools.
And they do it for less money per student, because charter foes have also engineered funding formulas that penalize these children.
So it’s not just the students who win: The taxpayers also get better results. Heck, studies even show that regular public schools improve when a charter is sited nearby.
The only losers are the vested interests that profit off the regular public schools, and fear the charter challenge — above all, the teachers unions.
Those interests figure Democratic control of the state Senate gives them the chance to finally start shutting down the charter sector. We’re hoping that Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins & Co. are better than that.
If New York’s leaders want to give children of all races and income levels the chance to attend a good public school, they’ll lift the cap now.
