Black and Latino leaders of New York City charter schools are backing a new bill that would allow dozens more of the alternative schools to open — as long as they are run by people of “historically, underrepresented communities.”

The Black, Latinx, Asian Charter Collaborative is championing the Public Education Racial Equity And Diversity Act — or “READ Act” — that would raise the state-imposed cap to open 336 more charter schools, raising the limit from 460 to 796.

The educators hope the woke bill — sponsored by state Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) — will persuade anti-charter progressive Albany lawmakers to change their tune.

“Racial equity is the way forward to get the cap lifted. The legislature is very focused on equity. That is the way forward to benefit students,” said Miram Raccah, a co-founder of Girls Prep charter school who is the chief executive officer of BLACC, representing more than 20 charter schools with 12,000 students.

“We want people who run charter schools to be more representative of the students they serve. We want to incentivize the hiring of principals and teachers who are people of color.”

The legislation says 51 percent of the leadership of new charter schools or their governing boards should be composed of people of color, though sources said the language might have to be changed to make diversity of ownership a goal rather than a preference given the legal controversy over quotas.

The measure, co-sponsored by Brooklyn Democratic state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Kevin Parker, also would create a new state charter school commission and attempt to dramatically increase the pool of minority teachers by exempting them from paying state and local income taxes, as well as providing college loan forgiveness and allowing charter schools to offer alternative licensing.

“These changes are necessary to foster an educational framework in New
York that ensures racial equity and diversity in educational leadership,” Comrie wrote in his bill memo.

Gov. Kathy Hochul last week proposed eliminating the the regional cap in New York City to make up to 85 more charter school slots available in the Big Apple, while keeping a statewide cap of 460 in place. Currently, there is a limit of 275 charter schools in the city, which has been reached and has left some approved charter schools in limbo.

But even Hochul’s modest proposal is facing fierce resistance from the powerful teachers’ union and its allies in the legislature.

Most publicly-funded charter schools, which typically have a longer school day and year and whose students often outperform traditional public school counterparts on the state’s standardized English Language Arts and Math tests, have non-union staff.

Charter schools in the city now enroll 142,500, or 15%, of all public school students. About 90 percent of charter school students are black and Latino.

Despite their success and their popularity with parents, opponents see them as diverting resources from traditional public schools and claim they don’t enroll as many special needs students.

Minority charter school operators disagree.

Bishop Raymond Rivera, founder of the Family Life Academy charter schools in The Bronx and a member of BLACC, said increasing charter schools with minority leadership is the perfect marriage that advances both academic excellence and opportunity with equity.

“Parents are voting with their feet. Parents want choice,” Rivera said.

“There is a correlation between bad schooling and the prison pipeline,” he added. “We can’t wait another 50 years for the Department of Education to get its act together and lose another generation of students of color.”

Rivera said he doesn’t “technically support quotas” but believes in incentivizing “people of color” to run charter schools.

“All our public schools should be more diverse — and that includes the charter school sector. We think charter schools are the closest thing to community control we have,” said Rivera, also founder and president of the Latino Pastoral Action Center.

The charter school equity bill is also supported by the New York City Charter School Center.

“We support the READ Act and other proposals that will result in educators and community members of color having a clear road to open high-quality public charter schools. With the current cap, they have no options and that’s not acceptable,” said Charter School Center CEO James Merriman.