By Steve Levy
We hope that the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute will approve the application for a charter school in Hempstead Village.
Here’s the bottom line: Charter schools work. They produce better-performing students at a lower cost to the taxpayer.
The powerful teachers’ unions and the elected officials they control oppose charters for one reason: They are competition to the often unproductive, violent public schools that are costing taxpayers a fortune.
Let’s be clear: most Long Island schools are very good. It’s one of the reasons people move to this region. But many schools, especially in predominantly minority areas, are failing.
That’s why parents of these children want the option to send their children to a better, safer charter school. They should be able to do so without going broke.
Rich parents have the option of sending their children to better private schools. So, too, should poor and minority parents.
Our Center for Cost Effective Government issued a white paper this past year, calling for a court challenge to the concept that forces parents to send their child to a local public school simply because of the randomness of where they live. Why should a parent in a violent, poorly performing school district be restricted from utilizing the money they pay into the school system to be transferred to a safer, better charter school in the area? As the students leave the public school system, the cost to the public school system should drop.
We believe forcing children to attend these bad schools is a violation of their due process and equal protection rights under the Constitution. Read about our point of view here. https://www.centerforcosteffectivegovernment.org/wpcontent/uploads/School-Choice-White-Paper.pdf
Many states are now allowing their residents to have the flexibility of getting credits to send their children to a charter school of their choice. It is extremely popular, especially in minority communities, but many blue states, such as New York, are so controlled by the teachers’ unions that they placed caps on the charter schools. We believe those caps are unconstitutional and should be voided.
People are paying their taxes. Let them have the flexibility to take that money and place their kids in a charter school of their choice rather than trapping them in the local public school.
It’s that type of competition that will improve our test scores and make for better schools. The liberal idea of just throwing more money at the schools has failed miserably. New York has doubled and tripled aid to education over the last decade or two and it has resulted in no visible improvement in performance. In many cases, the performance has decreased, despite this massive infusion of aid and increased taxes.
Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same failed actions over and over again and expecting a different result. It’s time for something new. It’s time to support charters.
Steve Levy is Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.”
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