Quit suffocating charter schools: Lift the cap and give them room

Such is the power of special interests in New York that the Legislature won’t allow more charter schools to open in the city — while the city bureaucracy won’t give available school space to charters that plainly need and deserve it.And so kids at the Success Academy High School must hold choir rehearsal in a crammed staircase and clarinet practice in a broom closet.While thousands of other city children are stuck on waitlists, unable to escape the regular public-school system for a charter — even though high-quality organizers are eager to meet the demand.The state’s teacher unions have the Legislature’s leaders eating out of their hands, not only refusing to lift the cap on new charters but also steadily chipping away at mayoral control of the city Department of Education.Which leaves DOE bureaucrats reluctant to make room even for existing charters.Thus Success Academy Charter HS of the Liberal Arts on Manhattan’s East Side must shoehorn its scholars into closets and hallways in the 33rd Street building, even as the three traditional public high schools that share the site have plenty of elbow room.The 888 students at Success outnumber the kids at the other three schools combined; Success HS is over 100% capacity of its allotted space; the other schools are at 39%, 61% and 74% of enrollment.

State law requires the DOE to provide charters with space available in public-school buildings but in practice allows shameful squeezing of charter kids all across the city (and not just at Success schools).The unions even got the Legislature to pass the New York City-only class-size law in part to use up space that charters could otherwise occupy.And so Success HS classes average 26 to 27 students, vs.16 at three other schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s DOE did its best to completely stifle charters; Mayor Eric Adams is far more supportive in principle of the choices parents make in enrolling their children in charter schools — but is also hemmed in by teac...