Charter schools’ current fight against Mayor de Blasio’s effort to deny them promised space is actually rooted in a problem that dates back to Dec. 17, 1998, when the state Assembly overwhelmingly gave final approval to the Charter Schools Act. The best way to avoid future conflicts is to fix that law’s biggest flaw — its failure to provide “brick-and-mortar” funds for charters.
New York’s law, pushed and championed by then-Gov. George Pataki, was hailed as one of the strongest in the country. But now, years later, that flaw in the law is taking center stage — so much so that it helped compel 12,000 children, parents and teachers to brave last week’s ridiculous cold to rally outside the state Capitol.
Here’s the problem: The law contains nothing to ensure charter schools access to facilities. It provides funds to cover staff, supplies and all the other expenses of the school year — but nothing to cover the classrooms or school building.
The Bloomberg administration solved this problem by making space in district school buildings available to charters — under the very sensible belief that public schools (which charters are) should get public space.
It was completely and totally logical, and good government. By using its own inventory of school buildings, the city was efficiently using its resources and giving students a place to learn in a public school their parents chose.
If space in a public-school building is available, Bloomberg felt, we should use that space to educate public school students in the best way possible — and not let the space sit empty or underused. Given New York City’s insane real-estate market, this is particularly cogent.
By the way, here’s an underreported fact that charter-school opponents conveniently ignore. During the 2012-13 school year, only 8 percent of co-located schools — schools in shared space arrangements — were charters. Meanwhile, more than 58 percent of all New York City district schools were co-located. That’s more than 900 city schools — five times the total number of charters that even existed in the whole city last year.
Through Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts, two-thirds of the public-school children being educated by nonprofit public charter schools are learning in a district building. These co-location arrangements drove growth of a charter sector that has since been hailed as a model of success by weighty critics all the way from Stanford University to Washington, DC.
With 70,000 city children in charters, and nearly that many on waiting lists, this is no sideshow or distraction. It’s an important part of the city’s mosaic of public education, and it’s one producing amazing academic results.
The problem is that co-location depends on two things: 1) available space in city school buildings and 2) a mayor whose vision of equity includes giving children access to schools that actually prepare and educate their students for the future.
But now the de Blasio administration has revoked approval for three schools to expand in co-location space, leaving them educationally homeless. One of those schools contains the highest performing 5th grade in the whole state in math. Hundreds of students who had been enrolled in a terrific school have been pushed onto the street.
As my young daughter might say: Seriously?
We can make sure it never happens again by ensuring the state’s charter-schools law gives all public-school students access to facilities. If there’s no space available, charters should get funding to pay for private buildings.
I was heartened to hear Gov. Cuomo pledge at last week’s rally in Albany that the state will do what’s needed to let charters continue to flourish. But they can’t flourish without access to facilities — either funds to obtain space or the space itself.
As an early charter supporter once said: If you want a school, you need a school.
Bloomberg’s heroic co-location efforts compensated for a critical flaw in our law. But as we’re seeing now, that success can too easily be erased.
Let’s fix it, so never again does something like a building become a barrier to an excellent education.
David Umansky is CEO of Civic Builders, a nonprofit that helps charter schools address their real-estate problems.