Fair deal for charters
More than 1,000 charter school parents, teachers and students are set to flood New York’s capital Tuesday to stand for the crucial principle that all New York kids should be treated equally — no matter what type of public school they attend. Yes, absolutely yes, charters are public schools. As such, their per-student taxpayer funding must be brought up to par with the per-student funding provided to traditional district schools.
In recent years, city charter school allocations haven’t kept up. Now, though, Gov. Cuomo has rightly called for equalizing the money flow. But that inveterate foe of charters, Mayor de Blasio, stands in opposition — not to the governor but to the 120,000 children served by charters.
Meanwhile, steadfast mayoral ally Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, is pushing legislation to punish charter schools that enroll a smaller percentage of special education students and English Language Learners than district schools as a whole.
The bill is both a frontal attack on charters and a brassy display of hypocrisy — because a third of the city’s district schools fail the very test Mulgrew wants applied to charters.
Were he fair (hah!), the union boss would call for also slashing the funding of hundreds of those schools across the city.
And were he fair (hah!) the union boss would recognize a major reason why charters count fewer special-ed students:
Independent research shows that they are less likely than traditional schools to classify students as in need of special education in the first place — which can be a very good thing — and that more special-needs students stay in charters than in nearby districts schools.
Study after study, in fact, has disproved the myth that charters register impressive academic results only by cherrypicking well-prepared students — and forcing out hard-to-educate ones.
Importantly, state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is set to show up at the charter rally, marking the first time New York State’s schools chief has joined in. Let’s hope that her welcome symbolism is more than that.
At the same time, ask why New York’s mayor and schools chancellor make a point of staying 150 miles away. And press for fairness for the 95,000 students enrolled in 205 city charter schools — and the 42,000 on waitlists desperate to get in.