ALBANY – Charter school supporters will be watching closely to see if Gov. Kathy Hochul will make good on a campaign promise by pushing to lift a cap on their number through the state budget she will unveil Wednesday despite progressive opposition.
“She’s going to have to stand her ground sooner or later,” Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Suffolk), a charter supporter, told The Post Tuesday.
“People are waiting to see, pardon my French, but does she have the cojones to push back against the left?”
Getting Hochul, the state Senate and Assembly to agree on increasing or eliminating the 460-school cap on charters appears to be a long-shot this year, but certain changes could allow more to open in New York City by reallocating charters associated with roughly a dozen shuttered “zombie” schools across the five boroughs.
Hochul could also propose reallocating 85 slots reserved for outside New York City to the city.
“It has been one of my dear dreams and goals to open a charter school, but at the moment, that is not a possibility,” Claudia Espinoso of the New York City-based Latinas On the Verge Of Excellence, said at a Tuesday rally at the state Capitol urging Albany Democrats to support a cap increase.
“So I’m here today, on behalf of the young women that we serve, on behalf of the community that we support, to ask you to please allow them the choice to choose the kind of education that they want to receive, I’m asking you to please lift the cap,” she added.
The newly-elected Hochul said in a TV debate last October that she favored increasing the number of charters, but the issue went unmentioned in her Jan. 10 State of the State speech and its companion 276-page briefing book.
“We’re hopeful that she listens to the voices of the parents and students and educators,” James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said Tuesday about the possibility of the proposed state budget reflecting her commitment.
He stated “no comment” on the extent the Hochul administration has discussed the cap with charter supporters in recent weeks.
Charter supporters say they give families more choice when it comes to where their kids go to school with better results than many traditional public schools.
A recent Morning Consult poll found 64% of parents supported raising the cap, with 64% of parents having a favorable opinion of charter schools versus 22% who had an unfavorable view.
But any effort to increase the number of charters will face stiff resistance on the political left alongside opposition from teachers unions and advocacy groups while likely costing Hochul political capital accrued through her successful effort last year to increase funding for public schools by billions of dollars.
“This idea that everyone is just welcoming to charters and they can have their ways – It’s not true,” Jasmine Gripper, executive director of the left-leaning advocacy group Alliance for a Quality Education. “Parents are invested in their public schools and they want to see them thrive. And having a competing system that finding resources from the traditional system isn’t really helpful.”
Competition between traditional schools and charters remains a testy topic, but that does not have to be the case, charter supporters say, if the ongoing debate around the cap focused more on the facts on how they provide families with additional options for educating children.
“We’re ready to work with state lawmakers and legislators and the governor to improve and support parents’ choice. There’s been too much misinformation spread about public charter schools – and we are all here to correct that,” Jacquelyn Martell of the advocacy group Democrats for Education Reform NY said at the Capitol on Tuesday.