Albany’s ridiculous reluctance to lift the charter cap is based on fictionBy Ray Domanico
April 11, 2022
New York’s Legislature is unmoved by the desperate desire of city families to have access to more high-quality charter schools. Lawmakers’ reluctance to lift the unconscionable cap on charter-school creation — and indeed the cap’s very existence — is based on notions that simply aren’t true, however: that charters harm the city’s district-run public schools and divert funds from those schools’ students.
Let’s review the facts, all publicly available from the city’s Independent Budget Office. Between 2006-07 and 2020-21, enrollment in the city’s charter schools increased by 123,000 students, or almost 800%. During the same period, per-pupil spending at the Department of Education increased by more than $12,000, or 71%. Even after adjusting for inflation, the spending hike was more than $4,800, almost 20%.
Yes, it’s true that $2.7 billion passes through the Department of Education’s budget to charters, which use it to educate more than 136,000 students. But charter schools are not unique in getting money from the DOE’s budget.
This year, the department is paying out more than $3 billion to private and nonprofit schools to educate students with special needs and to provide pre-kindergarten for the city’s youngest students.
No one has called for a cap on that spending; nor should they. The city and state recognize that the best services and expertise are sometimes found outside the traditional school system, and they are willing to pay for it. Somehow that recognition is not extended to charter schools, which get less spending per pupil but better results.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/albanys-reluctance-to-lift-the-charter-cap-is-based-on-fiction/
