Charter schools may have triumphed in Albany, but here in Gotham it’s not yet clear whether Mayor de Blasio will truly embrace them — even as the city’s need for more charters becomes acute.
Estimates are that New York City’s charter schools now have more than 100,000 applications for 22,000 open seats. One school, Success Academy Upper West, saw 28 applications per seat. To put this in perspective, that number is twice as many per opening as Princeton.
Plainly, the huge imbalance between demand for, and supply of, charter seats is as a powerful argument for immediate expansion. The families are all too aware that if their kids don’t come up with a winning ball in the charter lottery, the likely alternative is a failing traditional school.
Unfortunately, de Blasio doesn’t want more charters. Only after pressure — not least from this newspaper — did his rhetoric warm and we begin to hear talk about giving charters “new chances to grow.”
Meanwhile, Albany passed legislation guaranteeing charters space or the funding to acquire it. That’s fine so far as it goes. Problem is, these schools must still work out the details with Team de Blasio.
No one knows, for example, if de Blasio will now work to ensure that three Success Academy schools whose space he swiped will be able to open as planned come September. One very bad sign: On Friday, he named the 24 members of a panel he’s formed to address school-space issues. While it includes some from charters, not one is from the Success Academy network.
What make this so troubling is that Success runs some of the best-performing schools in the city. Parents know it, which is why overall Success has received 14,400 applications for its 2,870 open seats.
In the end, the mayor’s challenge — and obligation — isn’t about pleasing charter networks. It’s about listening to what the city’s moms and dads are telling him about public education through the growing wait-lists: We need more charters, and we need them now.