Hundreds of parents, kids to rally at City Hall to push Dems for more NYC charter schools
Hundreds of parents, kids and educators are expected to rally Tuesday at City Hall to demand lawmakers lift the cap and open more charter schools in the Big Apple.
The pro-school choice push comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to lift the cap has faced fierce resistance from state Democratic legislator♏s allied with t🦹he anti-charter teachers union, 🌃the United Federation of Teachers, including state Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), who chairs the committ🍃ee on New York City education.
Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams has gone wobbly on school choice, complaining about the additional c⭕osts that could be imposed on the city to open more charters.
He testified at a recent budget hearing that the sta🅘te should help pay the bill.🦩
Parents who will attend the 11 a.m. rally said it’s time for politicians to listen to the parents.
“Parents like me want the best for their child. Right now, there’s so many families where I live in Central Brooklyn that don’t have access to high quality schools,” said Brooklyn public school mom Natasha Cherry-Perez.
“More public charters means more access to a great education that can change your child’s future. Parents need their choice respected and supported.”
The head of one of the organizing groups, the pro-charter Democrats for Education Reform, also said it’s time for lawmakers to do the right thing.
“This rally is about empowering parents who overwhelmingly want and deserve the right to choose the best school for their child,” said DFER NY Executive Director Jacquelyn Martell. “It’s time to change history and expand options for these families!”
A recent Morning Consult/DFER survey found that nearly two-thirds of parents — 64% — said they support increasing the charter sch෴ool cap, while jus𒐪t 23% of parents said they were opposed, with the remainder undecided.
Charter sc🔴hools are publicly funded, privately run schools that typically have a long school day year and school year that traditional public sc🍒hools students.
Students at charter schools largely outperform neighboring district schools on the state’s standardized Math and English Language Arts exams, a Post series revealed.
The overwhelming majꩵority of charter schools are non-union and have more flexibility to operate and set their own curriculum.
About 90 percent of students in charter schools are black and Latino. pro-charter advocates, among them former three-term Republican Gov. George Pataki, who approved the original charter school law, said it’s racist to deny minority students the opportunity for a better education.
Former Gov. David Paterson, who expanded charter schools when he was in office, also supported Hochul’s cap lift.
Critics have also accused some lawmakers, including Sen. Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan), of being hypocrites for sending their own kids to private school while opposing the charter school option for mostly poor and working class minority parents who can’t afford private school tuition.
Opponents complaiꦯ💞n that charter schools divert resources from traditional public schools amid declining enrollment.
