Governor Andrew Cuomo has buried in his proposed budget an expansion of the charter cap in New York City. This shows that the Governor is still beholden to the Chharter industry and their education reform supporters despite his claims that he supports public education in the State..
Buried in budget documents released late Tuesday was a proposal to make room for more charter schools in New York City. In 2015, the state set a limit on how many charter schools could open in New York City in the years ahead: 50. Authorizers hit that cap last year. But the total number of charters available has actually been slightly higher, since a 2017 deal allowed authorizers to reissue 22 charters originally issued to charter schools that closed before July 2015.
This week, Cuomo proposed expanding that number, offering a new pathway to open charters as state lawmakers show no signs of wanting to increase the charter cap. His plan would allow authorizers to re-issue as many abandoned or leftover charters as they have available, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many that amounted to. Is it 10, 25, 50?
In addition, the Governor's budget once again short-changes the schools by only increasing funding less than what the State Board of of Regents proposed. His proposed spending increase is less than half of what the state’s education policymakers and advocacy groups have called for. It also fell $175 million short of the year-over-year increase the governor suggested last year.
Chalkbeat has an article about the Governor's proposed budget Here.