To hear charter-school opponents like state Sen. Bill Perkins tell it, charters are all run by right-wing hedge funders and Wal-Mart scions bent on destroying the public-education system in America. The truth is very, very different.
In fact, players with long histories of involvement in public education — from Fordham University to New Vision for Public Schools — are now all working on applications to open New York’s next public charter school. Just one thing is standing in their way: the state’s cap on the number of charters.
By the fall, there will only be about 12 available charters left statewide, with more than 50 groups vying for those final slots. If the cap isn’t lifted, it will all but ensure that most of these major education organizations, which have had a tremendous impact on the city’s youth for decades, will never get the chance to open a school.
Add to that the fact that New York’s charter cap was a main reason we lost $700 million in the first round of the federal Race to the Top competition, and it’s clear the cap has become a major obstacle to improving education throughout the state. The charter cap needs to go.
If our legislators do the right thing and lift it, they’d kick-start a new era of innovation throughout the city led by some of our most well-known and proven educational organizations. Here’s a look at what that not-so-distance future could hold.
The Door and the East Harlem Tutorial Program are now competing for one of the final charter slots. The Door has a 35-year history of providing comprehensive, integrated education services to at-risk youth; EHTP has been giving after-school academic and social support for 50 years.
Both groups have grown tired of seeing students struggle in underperforming schools or leave their community for higher-performing schools. They want to open charters to offer students neighborhood-based high-performing schools.
Wouldn’t Harlem be better off if each of these programs could open a school? If the charter cap were lifted, both the Door and EHTP could.
New Visions for Public Schools is also interested in the opportunities that charters provide; it wants to put in two applications to open charter public high schools. The group now operates 76 traditional public schools with more than 34,000 students in New York City — and has a track record of improving student achievement and strengthening schools in some of the city’s most underserved neighborhoods. (Note, too, that both American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew sit on New Vision’s board.)
Wouldn’t New York students be better served, if New Visions had the chance to operate charter schools, too? Lift the cap, and suddenly, they do.
The schools of education at both Fordham University and Boricua College are also putting together charter applications. Running a school would give Fordham’s and Boricua’s education majors first-hand insight into what methods work to raise student achievement and provide them with invaluable student-teaching experience. The two institutions already train a good portion of New York’s public-school teachers — and it’s clear the city’s students would benefit from them running charters.
But without a cap-lift, it’s unlikely they will get the chance to operate a charter at all.
At least 15 other long-standing city education groups have shown interest over the past year in opening charter schools. But they’ll all get stuck on one issue — the cap.
We still have not succeeded in closing the achievement gap that exists between the city’s low-income and mostly minority students and their higher-income white and Asian peers. Until we do, we can’t afford to turn away proven organizations that are committed to helping out simply because of an arbitrary cap.
Nor can we ignore the fact that the charter-school cap will likely cost the state $700 million — which would go to all schoolchildren — in Round Two of the Race to the Top competition.
It’s time to move beyond politics and do what’s right for our children. It’s time to lift the cap.
James D. Merriman is the CEO of the New York City Charter School Center.