New York’s education cartel will be in its Sunday best today: It’s Trash the Charter Schools Day!
A 2,000-strong United Federation of Teachers rent-a-mob is expected in the streets downtown this morning, as Harlem state Sen. Bill Perkins convenes a public hearing meant to libel the wildly successful charter-school movement.
Those 2,000 protesters will make a lot of noise — sort of like seals in a circus — but frankly we find the 55,000 city families struggling silently to get their kids into charters far more convincing.
How out of touch are Perkins and the teachers? A survey released yesterday by the New York City Charter School Center found skyrocketing demand for charter schools, as parents look to flee sub-par (union-controlled) zoned schools.
Fully 55,046 city students applied this year for fewer than 12,000 open charter seats. And total applications (some students apply to multiple schools) are estimated to break 64,000 — a 155 percent surge from just three years ago.
Why the enthusiasm for charters?
Well, charters — which are publicly funded but privately run — aren’t weighed down by union work rules meant mostly to cosset substandard, often incompetent, teachers. Charters ex pect excellence — something that terrifies teachers unions.
The only problem: There aren’t nearly enough of them.
Thanks to union power in Albany, the number of charters statewide is capped at 200 — forcing desperate parents into lotteries for the few available slots.
Charter schools are also hampered by a lack of access to public funds for construction — and by moves in recent years to freeze the rest of their funding.
Now Perkins wants to run the entire movement through the wood-chipper.
A bill he introduced recently would:
* Force charters to unionize.
* Mandate public referendums on charters in all districts where they’re more than a token presence.
* Ban charters that increase “the racial isolation of a school district” — i.e., schools that give black and Latino parents better options for their kids.
* Make it much harder for charters to secure space in existing school buildings — even though some zoned schools in Perkins’ district are so awful that they’re barely half full.
All these measures, of course, would bring charters squarely under the thumb of Perkins and his union allies — which is to say, kill them.
Why is Perkins doing this?
Perhaps he truly believes that charters are an affront to the “democratic vision of public education,” as he said recently.
But Gotham parents are already voting with their feet — especially in Perkins’ native Harlem, where 14,000 students applied for a mere 2,700 charter seats.
Perkins has come down squarely on the side of New York’s education cartel — and against its kids. For shame.