New York’s public charter schools will be the subject of a high-profile legislative hearing this week chaired by one of their chief critics, state Sen. Bill Perkins.
Oddly, Perkins represents more families with students in charter schools than any other legislator: His Harlem district is home to more than two dozen charters. Yet the senator has been growing more outspoken in his criticism of these innovative public schools.
Indeed, when hundreds of charter students and parents from his district visited Albany in February for the annual Charter School Advocacy Day, Perkins told them he flat-out doesn’t support charter schools.
That won him a round of boos — and it’s easy to see why: Charters are serving Harlem’s hopes far better than the area’s regular, “district” public schools.
As The Post reported yesterday, Harlem charters scored nearly 20 points higher than district schools on last year’s state exams in English and math. In fact, most charters in Harlem have more than 80 percent of their students meeting or exceeding state reading standards.
These and other indicators account for one key finding in a recent study by Stanford University professor Caroline Hoxby, that charters in New York City have done a more effective job than district schools in narrowing the “Harlem-Scarsdale” achievement gap. That is, charter students come closer to matching suburban students on standardized tests than do students in the city’s district schools.
The story is the same statewide: About four of every five New York charter schools do better than the average for surrounding district schools when it comes to percentage of students meeting state standards.
That success is why the state Board of Regents is expected to vote to renew the contracts of 11 charter schools today — a clear sign that they’ve achieved impressive performance, while under rigorous government oversight.
Even the examples of dubious individual charter-school practices that Perkins is quick to highlight resulted from the existing oversight by charter authorizers, SUNY and the Regents.
Charters’ record of achievement also explains why more and more New York parents (especially in the city) are trying to get their kids into charter schools. But that demand can’t be met if the state doesn’t raise the current cap on the number of charter schools statewide.
Let me be clear: One key reason that a growing number of charters outperform the other public schools in their districts is that charter schools that chronically underperform get closed down. That is, a bad charter school doesn’t keep going, ill-serving generations of students. If only that were true for all public schools . . .
In the decade-plus since New York’s first charter opened, nine of these schools have been closed for poor performance, and two more face that fate at the end of the year, including East New York Prep in Brooklyn. That’s real accountability.
Which may be the reason that the state and city teacher unions continue to fight to stop the growth of charters. Their current approach seems to be insisting that any raising of the cap be coupled with poison-pill measures that would make it impossible for new charters to open their doors, especially in high-need areas like Harlem.
Who benefits from fewer charters and less competition in public education? Not children. Rather, having fewer charters serves the interests of traditional public schools, because it makes it easier for them to get away with being dysfunctional, unsafe and low-performing.
President Obama understands this, which is why he made charter schools a key component of his education-reform agenda and is prepared to reward states through his Race to the Top program if they “lift caps on the number of charter schools wherever such caps are in place.”
Raising the charter cap and providing equitable funding are vital steps for New York if our school districts are to have any chance of securing Race to the Top funds — potentially hundreds of millions of dollars that could help make up for looming funding cuts and teacher layoffs.
Sen. Perkins’ hearing this week ought to be an opportunity to learn the facts about charter schools and address any shortcomings. But will he resist the pressure to instead put on an anti-charter circus?
Ironically, Perkins himself gave one the best reasons to raise the charter cap when he acknowledged last month to the state School Boards Association, “Many parents in my district and elsewhere clamor to get their children into charters.”
Do right by your community and your constituents, Sen. Perkins: Let charters continue to blossom in New York, so that public educational opportunity can spread further.
Peter Murphy is policy director for the NY Charter Schools Asso ciation and writes for the Chalk board Blog (blog.nycsa.org).