The Democrat Party don’t want Charter Schools even if they are better places for children to learn. They prefer the status quo of failing schools, bad teachers and rising teachers' salaries than what's best for the kids.
Looks like Albany pols are mounting yet another push to slow New York's charter-school revolution -- while they still can.
The latest scheme comes from Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Catherine Nolan (D-Queens), who last week introduced a bill that would give the state Board of Regents veto power over school charters granted by the SUNY system.
That's no small matter. SUNY has chartered 64 schools since 1999, according to the New York Charter Schools Association -- including 43 in the city. Yet in their current advisory role, the Regents have opposed two-thirds of the schools SUNY sought to charter since 2007.
No surprise there: The Regents owe their jobs to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who's a lockstep ally of the charter-fearing teachers lobby.
It's no coincidence, moreover, that this fresh attack on charters comes just as they're succeeding beyond anyone's expectations.
State test numbers released last week showed 77.4 percent of third- through eighth-graders in city charters proficient in English -- compared to 68.8 percent in traditional public schools.
Yet the most striking measure of charters' success is the record number of students trying to get through the door.
In central Harlem's School District 5, for instance, parents of fully 548 kindergarten students entered a lottery last month for entrance into just one Harlem Success Academy charter school -- up from 413 last year.
A further 200-plus kindergartners are enrolled in the district's Harlem Children's Zone charters.
Those might not seem like massive numbers -- until one realizes that District 5 has only 800 kindergarten seats in all its traditional public schools.
That is to say, charters are now such a proven success that nearly the entire neighborhood wants in.
No wonder Silver, Nolan & Co. are so eager to stop them: Charters -- which typically function without burdensome union rules -- are clearly a dire threat to teachers-union dominance.
Pity about the kids, though.
Segments provided by the NY Post May 11, 2009
