Charter-school leaders are furious at Mayor Bill de Blasio for breaking his vow to treat all kids equally. But all New Yorkers should be outraged.
The Coalition for Education Equality fired off a letter Monday to de Blasio decrying his “desertion of public charter school children,” despite his promise to care for “all” city kids — “district, charter, parochial.”
The mayor “regularly” refuses to let charters use available space in public-school buildings, the group notes. And that hits minorities hard: “You are denying Black and Hispanic families the opportunity — and right — to send their children to a high-quality charter school,” it says.
The mayor took office promising to choke charters — pleasing the teachers unions, which hate the competition. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo forced him to give charters space or pay their rent. Hizzoner then promised to quit the obstruction.
Ha! Charters had to get the state to overrule the city in 44 cases where Team de Blasio denied them open space.
As the letter notes, the mayor is trapping kids in failing schools. “By virtue of their zip code,” black and Hispanic kids are locked in 850 schools “where 70 percent of kids can’t read or do math at grade level.”
As for fixing these awful schools: The big “vision” he just rolled out calls for two-thirds of high school grads to be “college-ready” in a few years. Hmm: The state already plans to require all grads to meet that standard.
And, as The Post noted, most kids aren’t even close to being ready for the eighth-grade algebra and high school Advanced Placement courses that de Blasio also promises.
Heck, only 18 percent of his schoolkids scored well enough on algebra tests to be considered college-ready — vs. 29 percent in the charters that sent the letter.
Some 43,000 city kids are on charter wait lists. That de Blasio is still set on keeping them trapped in failed schools is unconscionable.