See cap, run.
Charter-school operators from other states are urging New York’s elected officials to increase the number of charter schools allowed in the state or risk having them set up elsewhere, letters obtained by The Post reveal.
Directors at the highly regarded MATCH Charter Public School in Boston, Citizens’ Academy in Cleveland and The SEED Foundation in Washington, DC, have all said they won’t even consider opening shop in New York without an assurance that there will be charters left to issue above the state’s current limit of 200.
To date, 36 charters remain unclaimed, but that number is expected to be cut in half as early as next month with the approval of 18 new schools.
“Given the state’s looming charter cap, I can’t justify investing time to explore the interest in bringing a Citizens’ Academy to New York City,” said Perry White, the school’s founder and executive director, who is looking to replicate the academy’s 11-year-old model. The Citizens’ Academy Charter Elementary is one of just 11 schools in Cleveland — out of 150 — that was rated “excellent” by the state, according to White.
MATCH offers its students a minimum of 10 hours of one-on-one tutoring per week on top of a long school day and a small, intimate environment. The SEED schools are college-preparatory boarding schools that target poor urban kids who largely hail from single-parent or no-parent households.
It’s a model Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has singled out for its innovation and that its founders have been considering exporting to New York City, but only if conditions are right.
“New school ventures generally take years of planning and investment before students arrive on opening day,” SEED Foundation managing director and co-founder Eric Adler wrote to Gov. Paterson and other state officials last month.
“Therefore, the current cap on charter schools serves as a significant deterrent for national educational organizations such as SEED from targeting New York state to replicate their proven models.”
Legislation has been introduced in the Assembly to lift the cap on charter schools, but it may not be taken up until January at the earliest.
The issue has taken on importance with the dangling of a $4.35 billion competitive pot of federal education aid, which includes criteria that are disadvantageous to states with limits on the growth of charter schools.
With applications for those funds due next month, State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has recently begun to highlight the urgency of lifting the cap.
“We’ve got to really move to address that,” Tisch told The Post.