In the waning days of the New York State legislative session, Republican lawmakers are discussing the extension of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s control of public schools in exchange for lifting the cap on charter schools.
This has emerged as a major issue for two reasons: if de Blasio isn’t granted an extension, the backup plan would be to resort to oversight from 32 separate school boards, which is bred with notorious levels of corruption, as well as the simple fact that he doesn’t like charter schools.
Throughout his long-running feud with Governor Andrew Cuomo, the topic of charter schools has been a hotly-debated and personal one. Things boiled over in 2014 when Cuomo organized a rally in Albany at the same time that de Blasio was holding his own in order to galvanize support for charter schools. What followed were some of the most important protections for charter schools, which have set them on a seemingly inevitable path towards expansion in the city.
What happens in Albany during the next few days is important for the future of charter schools in metro areas across the country. If the legislature holds its bluff and gets de Blasio to relent on charter schools in exchange for what will likely be a one-year extension, then they will have succeeded in expanding an important educational opportunity for the largest city in the country.
According to the New York City Department of Education, there are over 200 charter schools in the city, educating eight percent of children and growing at a rate of 12 schools per year. Charter schools have already made their mark in New York, rapidly expanding in the course of 15 years. As the Brookings Institution noted in 2013, the prior eight academic years saw high school graduation rates in New York City rise by 18 percent, far exceeding the state graduation rate.
A 2013 report from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University concluded that New York City charter schools demonstrate benefits for students. The study, conducted over six academic years from 2005-06 and 2010-11, argued that while learning gains are a mixed bag, the gains in math cannot be disputed.
The study showed that while 22 percent of charter schools outperformed their public school counterparts in reading, 25 percent showed lower learning gains. However, nearly 63 percent of charter schools did better in math than those in public schools, with only 14 percent performing worse. Additionally, the study stated that “students in poverty who are enrolled in charter schools learn significantly more per year in both subjects than students in poverty in [public schools.]”
Academics aside, one of the primary arguments in favor of expanding charter schools is how it provides educational opportunities to those who would otherwise not have access to them. The CREDO study noted that 74 percent of charter school students were African American, class sizes were nearly half that of public schools, and educated more than seven times as many students from Harlem than public schools did.
Charter schools, like the concept of capitalism itself, can provide opportunities to those who did not have access to them to begin with. It is not hard to draw a line between the availability of charter schools in major urban areas and widespread enrollment of predominantly low-income African American students. In short, charter schools succeed in servicing communities where public schools fail to provide.
There’s also an undeniable demand for lifting the cap in New York City. Families for Excellent Schools issued a report in 2015 stating that there were more than 50,000 students on waiting lists, with nearly two in five Brooklyn families applying for charter school seats for their kindergartner. Removing the cap would allow these families to send their children to charter schools rather than wait in limbo for an open space.
In a critical sense, yes, there must be proper oversight as well. This means maintaining high standards for the school, its teachers, and, especially, the students. Despite a dedicated push to expand charter schools, they are not foolproof. Some perform better than others while some display clear deficiencies that must be addressed, such as significant teacher turnover and the inconsistency of curriculum. There is also a clear risk for cronyism to set in, which cast doubt on Jeb Bush’s long espoused claim that he was an education reformer in Florida.
As with any enterprise, there should be a clear benchmark for charter schools, not only in their competition against the public school system but against each other as well. The market has proven that it can curate more opportunities, but it should also emphasize better results in the form of higher student enrollment, higher gains in learning and math, and higher graduation rates. Expansion of charter schools is merely the beginning of providing ample choice and education to families and students in need.
