The Two Steves

As the two Steves at Albany — Steve Sanders, the Democratic chairman of the Assembly education committee, and Steve Saland, the Republican chairman of the Senate education committee — try to dismantle the charter-school movement in New York State, they might want to look at a report out from the New York Charter Schools Association. In one of the first studies to compare apples to apples regarding New York's charter schools, the success of the publicly funded and privately run schools is evident.

On the fourth grade and eighth grade English Language Arts tests administered by the state, charter schools look to be pulling ahead of the districts where they are hosted. At the fourth grade level, the number of charter schools with a higher passing rate than their district of residence has almost tripled between 2002 and 2003. At the eighth grade level, two-thirds of the state's charter schools have a higher passing rate than their host districts. At both levels, charter schools are outstripping their traditional counterparts in terms of their rates of improvement.

In New York City, KIPP Academy in the Bronx has 71.9% of its eighth graders passing the ELA versus 15.7% in its host district, District 7. Beginning with Children, in Brooklyn, has 33.8% of its fourth grade students passing the ELA, versus 19.3% in District 14.

Given this clear evidence that charter schools are working, one has to wonder why the two Steves are pushing their separate versions of the same basic Charter School Strangulation Act, which would cut funding to charter schools, limit the enrollment in charter schools, and delay the chartering of new schools. It seems almost as if an arm of the Tweed Trust is at work. Only teacher union money could cloud the vision so.