Fariña’s Big Lie About Charters
SCHOOLS Chancellor Carmen Fariña keeps making accusations that discredit and disparage students who attend charter schools. As a mother of specialneeds students in both district and charter schools, I want to finally put this myth to bed. In a radio interview last week, Fariña said: “When you look at the parents who make it their business to enter a lottery, that already predetermines a certain section of the population.” The teachers union and other critics of charter schools often make this charge to imply that the academic gains made by students have nothing to do with the school — and that charters are shutting out disadvantaged students in the process. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m a charterschool parent myself — I’m raising three wonderful kids in The Bronx. Each has unique skills and challenges.
My oldest daughter spent several years in district schools and was socially promoted, despite struggling with her reading. It wasn’t until she started at a charter that she was diagnosed with dyslexia.
My middle son is succeeding at a charter school, where he’s also getting help as a specialneeds student. My youngest son has been diagnosed with autism — and, while he is in a district school, I pray every day that he’ll have access to a school that gives him what he needs to succeed.
We’re not a family with special advantages, or any sort of unique drive that meant our kids would have succeeded anyway. We stumbled onto charter schools, and my kids are so much better off for it. Schools matter. I didn’t “make it my business” to enter my children in the charter admissions lottery — I, like many other parents at my children’s schools, found out about the school almost by accident. We applied to the charter school in part because it was even easier than applying to my neighborhood school.
Don’t just take my word for it. Studies that find charterschool students get a higherquality education than districtschool children are careful to control for the selfselection myth the chancellor perpetuates.
These studies look at charterschool lotteries and compare students who get in with those who don’t. They find that even though both sets of students have parents who applied to charter lotteries, students in charter schools do better. The chancellor should be celebrating this success — not implying that the schools and the students haven’t earned their achievements.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time she’s said something like that. Last year, she even tried to blame charters for failing district schools by claiming that charter lotteries somehow grabbed the best students away from district schools.
It was a ridiculous thing to say, because randomized lotteries make that impossible. But her comments show she’s more interested in putting down the success of charter schools than in listening to families like mine.
Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Fariña need to recognize that if we had better options, most parents of black and Hispanic children trapped in failing schools would in fact “make it their business” to leave. The real problem isn’t that charter schools “selfselect” parents — it’s that 50,000 families are on waiting lists still trying to get in.
For the sake of New York’s children, the mayor and chancellor should stop attacking charter schools or bribing parents to be happy with their failing “community” schools by giving them free laundry or dental clinics.
De Blasio and Fariña should focus on helping all families and expand access to the charter schools that families in my community so desperately deserve.
My oldest daughter spent several years in district schools and was socially promoted... It wasn’t until she started at a charter that she was ’ diagnosed with dyslexia.