Never underestimate the power of New York City’s (NYC) and state teachers unions. For decades, even when the city was desperate for funds to run its schools, it was spending tens of millions to pay hundreds of teachers their full salary and benefits to sit around and do crossword puzzles, engage in other hobbies, or nap. Those teachers were consigned to reassignment centers — also derisively known as “rubber rooms” — because they were so problematic that they had to be removed from the classroom. Still, thanks to the United Federation of Teachers (UTF), and its affiliate, the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the school district couldn’t, and still can’t, easily dismiss ineffective or even abusive teachers. Now known as the “Absent Teacher Reserve,” idle UFT members reportedly cost NYC $150 million in 2016.
That example gives context to the courage it took to do what Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul did yesterday when she released her budget proposal. In it, Hochul made good on a campaign promise to do what she could to allow new public charter schools to open in NYC.
Tens of thousands of students — most in communities of color — are on public charter school waiting lists in NYC, but there has been no relief in almost a decade for parents seeking better schools for their children. Since the passage of the state’s charter school law in 1998, the NYSUT and UTF, through their Democratic proxies in the state legislature, have artificially “capped” the number of charter schools permitted in the state, with a smaller subset cap for NYC. The law was amended in 2007, 2010, and 2015 to allow slight increases in charter school numbers, but then, thanks to Democrats’ obeisance to the teachers unions, progress ground to a halt. Charter school expansion has been synthetically halted in NYC for about five years, despite ever-growing, organic demand.
Too many teachers union leaders reflexively oppose public charter schools, not least because the vast majority of charters aren’t unionized. Charters cost unions dues paying members. They also embarrass them when they outperform traditional district schools, as most do in NYC.
Hochul’s budget does not propose doing away with the caps, even though a new poll by the nonprofit Democrats for Education Reform found that almost two-thirds of NYC parents want the cap lifted, including half of Democrats.
But a proposal to eliminate the cap likely would have been a fool’s errand. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), once supportive of charters, couldn’t ascend to the speaker’s chair until he’d won the unions’ backing — and it’s obvious he had to make promises about maintaining the cap to get it. At the same time, Deputy Senate leader Mike Gianaris (D-Queens) has sung the praises of one charter waiting to open in his district, but he hypocritically refuses to even ease the cap because the NYSUT and the UFT are having none of that.
What Hochul did propose is more pragmatic, and hopefully will be more palatable to her legislative colleagues. Her proposal would keep the statewide cap of 460 charters in place — at least for now — but it would eliminate regional caps to make 85 more slots available for new charter schools anywhere in the state — including New York City.
NYC parents who don’t care how the sausage gets made but do care very much about their kids’ education should cheer Hochul on. But they should push themselves to keep an eye on the sausage-making, too. They must ensure their assembly members understand just how much this issue matters to them as the legislative session grinds on. It’s going to be a heavy lift.
And those of us who advocate for public charter schools need to raise our voices too — especially those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle. We need to praise Hochul for doing a hard thing; the right thing. We also need to hold her up as an example of a Democrat who has the courage — and the pragmatism — to understand that while Democrats appreciate union support, that doesn’t translate to permitting them to indefinitely trample constituents’ right to something as basic as seeking a decent public education for their children.
