Metro

Pol a charter ‘fool’

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A powerful state lawmaker has proposed a new bill that would block the opening of new charter schools and limit educational options to parents and kids, critics charge.

The controversial legislation — advanced by Harlem Assemblyman and Manhattan Democratic Party Chairman Keith Wright — would give 32 community-education councils the power to veto plans to put charters in buildings also used by traditional public schools.

Under the bill, which is backed the influential teachers union, the 11-member parent CECs would vote to approve or reject such co-location plans.

If they disapprove, the mayoral-run Board of Education would be prohibited from even voting on charter locations.

“Co-locations by executive fiat has not worked. It has torn communities and neighborhoods apart. I have seen police officers called in to go after parents. That doesn’t make for a good educational environment,” Wright said.

“This bill provides a better way to satisfy space concerns and educational concerns of the entire educational community. Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t know better than Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Bronx,” he added.

Principals, parents and staffers often complain their school has to give up space when a charter moves in.

But school-choice advocates worry that giving the local councils veto power could spell the death knell for charter-school expansion. It would be akin to giving community boards — whose members have advisory input over land issues — the power to unilaterally kill building projects.

“Giving power to decide co-locations to a group of bodies that were created specifically to be advisory only will do much to restore us to the failed system of decentralization that may have worked fine for adults, but was an unmitigated disaster for children,” said James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center.

Charter schools don’t receive capital funding from the government to construct their own buildings. For that reason, Bloomberg has authorized charters to share space in public-school facilities.

The Bloomberg administration opposes the bill.

“This is a backdoor attempt to undermine our ability to offer more high-quality options for New York City students and their families — a key strategy that has led to better schools and changed thousands of lives in the past decade,” said Department of Education spokesman Frank Thomas.

Advocates, meanwhile, say the makeup of the district councils are stacked against charters. They consist of parents from traditional public schools, not charters.