Charter Lottery

Editorial of The New York Sun
March 27, 2007

Anyone wondering what is at stake in the fight between Governor Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg, who want at least 150 more charter schools in the state, and Assembly Speaker Silver and his allies in the teachers unions, who want to limit the number to 50 while essentially mandating that they be unionized, can stop by the auditorium of the Harlem Success Academy Charter School tomorrow night and see firsthand. In attendance and awaiting a lottery, the school's founder and executive director, Eva Moskowitz, tells us, will be about 600 parents vying for 105 spots for their children in next year's kindergarten.

Why the crowd? The Harlem Success Academy Charter School day runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., longer than the union contract allows for the city's noncharter public schools, and the school offers 10 more days of instruction. Students get science education five days a week, learn chess, and compete in soccer, basketball, dance, and karate. Parents are sophisticated enough to realize that that their children will get a better education here than at their local school run according to the union contract.

The lottery's timing — days before a deadline for an Albany budget deal that could include an increase in the statewide cap on charter schools — sends a message. The statewide cap, which is at 100 and has been reached, prevents the creation of more schools like the Harlem Success Academy and other, similarly successful and innovative schools such as KIPP Academy, another charter school whose Web site notes "the 2005-2006 school year marks the ninth consecutive year that the KIPP Academy has been the highest performing public middle school in the entire Bronx in terms of reading scores, math scores, and attendance." The parents who lose the lottery can know where to place the blame.