One thing is clear under mayoral control of city education: Thousands of parents have more choices on where to send their kids — particularly, higher-performing charter schools.
The number of charters operating in the Big Apple has jumped from 17 in 2002 — when Mayor Bloomberg took office — to 78 this year. And that figure will climb to 99 this fall, with 32,500 enrolled.
There are slated to be 120 charters by 2010 — and officials are already preparing space to serve up to 100,000 students.
As more charters open, the demand for them grows. Charter operators predict a waiting list of 50,000 students next year.
The greatest transformation is in Harlem, where one out of eight students is enrolled in one of the 23 charters there.
By every measure, privately managed public charter schools outperform nearby zoned public schools on standardized tests.
Critics argue that charters cherry-pick more-motivated parents and students.
But Stanford University researchers said they will soon release a study that confirms charter-school students outperform kids in zoned schools.
Stanford professor Caroline Hoxby told The Post her study accounts for the critics’ claims by comparing kids who applied to charter schools via lottery and were accepted with those who applied, were rejected and then attended zoned schools.
“It’s an apples-to-apples comparison. The kids in charters are doing significantly better,” she said.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said some of the best charter-school operators in the country have set up shop in New York, instilling much-needed competition and innovation to the city school system.
Students and parents said their charter schools have provided them a lifeline.
Daniel Clark, 12, a sixth-grader at Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem, said he was bullied at his prior school and his grades suffered. Now he describes himself as a “scholar” who learns in a safe environment.
“I would have been forced to go to a school that is dangerous . . . I’m not sure I would have made it out alive,” Clark said in testimony before the Assembly Education Committee.
“This would have never happened if it wasn’t for mayoral control.”
But critics complain that Bloomberg pushed charters instead of turning around failing schools.
“That long waiting list for charter schools in the New York City school system really says that the local schools are not doing the job that needs to be done — even after six years of mayoral control,” said Steven Bell, of the Independent Commission on Public Education.