Hitting Charter Kids Again

Once again, the state dashed the hopes of city families looking for good schools when the Board of Regents nixed a plan Monday by four K-8 charters to jointly open a high school for their graduating middle-schoolers.

The board cited a lack of charter slots available under the state’s charter cap.

As we’ve argued repeatedly, there’s no reason for a cap. Rather than make more kids suffer in failing public schools, lawmakers should scrap it, or at least raise it significantly.

Yet even with the cap, the Regents could have accepted the claim by the schools’ operators (Public Prep Charter School Academy and the Brilla College Preparatory Charter School) that they weren’t creating a whole new charter but merely expanding their existing one, albeit jointly.

Clearly the Regents didn’t want to draw the ire of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his master in the teachers unions, which despise the largely non-union-run charters. These kids’ future schooling is now in limbo.

Meanwhile, a recent survey by The Post found that 72 percent of New York households with incomes with incomes under $60,000 want the cap lifted. In Queens, as The Post has reported, some traditional schools actually tell parents to pull their kids out if they want them to get a good education — yet lawmakers won’t let more charters operate, even though they often far outperform the traditional schools.

Lift the cap — and make life a little more hopeful for New York’ kids.