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OPINION
New York

De Blasio should embrace charter schools: Column

Nina Rees
In New York.
  • New York has roughly 70%2C000 students enrolled in public charter schools%2C and the numbers are on the rise.
  • Several charter schools in low-income neighborhoods are showing some of the most impressive achievement gains.
  • Unfortunately%2C incoming mayor Bill de Blasio has taken an aggressive anti-charter stance.

New York¹s public charter schools are upending old assumptions about urban education. And they can help even more students if New York¹s incoming mayor lets them.

Earlier this year, Stanford¹s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) revealed that in just one school year, the typical New York City charter school student gained about five additional months of learning in math and one additional month of learning in reading compared with students in traditional public schools.

These gains, repeated year after year, are helping to erase achievement gaps between urban and suburban students. A rigorous 2009 study from Stanford professor Caroline Hoxby found that students who attend New York City¹s charter schools from Kindergarten through 8th grade will make up 86% of the suburban-urban achievement gap in math and 66% of the gap in English.

What makes these results so impressive is that charter schools are not elite private schools. They are tuition-free public schools, funded by taxpayers and open to any student.

New York has roughly 70,000 students enrolled in public charter schools, and the numbers are on the rise. This school year alone, 14,000 new students in the city enrolled in charter schools ­ with the vast majority in low-income neighborhoods.

Remarkably, several charter schools in low-income neighborhoods are showing some of the most impressive achievement gains. For instance, while just 30% of students citywide passed New York¹s new Common Core math exam, 97% of students passed the exam at Bronx Success Academy 2. The passage rate was 80% at Leadership Prep Ocean Hill in Brownsville, a community that has suffered academic failure for generations.

Like traditional public schools, some charters do under-perform, and the charter school movement is working hard to improve quality at every school. But study after study shows that high-quality charter schools are putting high school graduation and college within reach for many New York City students who once had bleak educational prospects.

Unfortunately, this opportunity could be imperiled. Incoming mayor Bill de Blasio has taken an aggressive anti-charter stance. His main point of contention is that the city¹s charter schools often share buildings with traditional public schools without paying rent.

Mayor Bloomberg introduced "co-location" as a way to turn unused classrooms into productive learning environments. Sharing space also tests the hypothesis that environmental factors make it difficult for children in certain neighborhoods to succeed in school. Charters quickly proved that theory wrong. For example, 88% of third and fourth graders at Success Academy Harlem 5 passed the state math exam. The traditional public school located in the same building only managed to attain a pass rate of 6%.

Mayor-elect de Blasio views this space-sharing arrangement as an improper subsidy for charter schools. But the crucial fact here is that charter schools are public schools.

Traditional public schools in New York City don¹t pay rent for their classrooms, and they already receive more funding per student than charter schools do.

Charter schools start with a public-funding disadvantage, and now Mayor-elect de Blasio could put them deeper in the hole­ to the tune of another $3,000 per student ­ by forcing them to pay rent in the city with the highest real-estate costs in the nation.

If he succeeds, it¹s difficult to see any other outcome than fewer charter schools and fewer options for parents desperate to get their children into good schools ­ a tragedy for the 50,000 families who are on charter school wait lists in New York City.

Across the country, charter schools have produced particular academic gains among students in poverty, minority students and students still learning English. The same CREDO study that revealed impressive learning gains among New York City¹s charter school students also showed that, nationwide, black students in poverty who attend charter schools gained the equivalent of 29 extra days of learning in reading each year, and 36 extra days in math, compared to their traditional public schools peers.

Mayor-elect de Blasio made narrowing inequality a central theme of his successful campaign. In his election night victory remarks, he called inequality "the defining challenge of our time," and said, "we are all at our best when every child, every parent, every New Yorker has a shot."

What better way to give every child a shot at success than to let schools that are doing a great job educating kids serve even more? As he begins his tenure as New York¹s mayor, those of us in the charter school community wish Bill de Blasio the very best, and ask him to join with us to help give every child in New York City a first-rate education.

Nina Rees is the president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including ourBoard of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter @USATopinion or Facebook.


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