Another Broken Promise

Mayor de Blasio’s olive branch to the charter-school movement didn’t even extend to the end of summer vacation. Charter parents and advocates rallied Wednesday at City Hall to protest Team de Blasio’s failure to meet the Sept. 1 deadline to respond to requests for public space.

Timely responses in that process were one of the specific promises the city made after the Legislature renewed mayoral control before school let out in June.

Of course, the mayor regularly breaks his word to charters. He made similar promises of cooperation on space requests back in 2015, only to renege.

And in March 2014, de Blasio stood in the well of Riverside Church and pledged to work with charters, saying: “I won’t choose between our children in this city any more than any parent can choose between children of their family.”

On the space issue, he said, “They are all our children; they all deserve a solution.”

These space requests aren’t frivolous. Charters are bursting at their seams. They now serve 114,000 students, with 48,000 more kids wait-listed.

Unless de Blasio and schools chief Carmen Fariña act now, 842 kids — and thousands more in the years to come — at high-performing elementary schools will be without an educational home for middle school.

The Department of Education’s own data show lots of free space. Many of its buildings have more than enough unused classroom space to accommodate charter requests.

De Blasio has no legitimate reason (other than kowtowing to his teachers-union pals) for denying charters the space they need when the DOE has so much available.

And for all the “socialistic impulses” he claims to feel, the children he’s depriving with these games are overwhelmingly from low-income families.

Mr. Mayor, stop stiffing charter kids. Grant their requests for public space.