ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul, the state Senate, and Assembly are closing in on a deal to allow nearly two dozen more charter schools in New York City, sources said Monday.
The pending compromise would keep a regional cap of 275 charters in place within the five boroughs while allowing 22 so-called “zombie” licenses to get reissued.
But a final agreement hinges on who would provide the space and funding to accommodate future charters, sources familiar with negotiations said.
Some charter supporters say any change to the “co-location” status quo that requires charters get space in regular school buildings is a “poison pill” they could not swallow.
The outstanding issue of charters is among the final hold-ups in state budget talks that have stretched more than three weeks past an April 1 deadline.
Any expansion of charters would represent a significant win in budget talks for the embattled governor, who reportedly secured some changes to cash bail laws before conceding defeat on her controversial housing plan as the fiscal stalemate continued.
Hochul had proposed changes that would have allowed roughly 100 more charters in New York City by removing the regional cap of 275 while keeping the statewide limit on charters at 460.
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Those ideas faced fierce resistance from progressive lawmakers, organized labor, and others who argue that charters divert too many resources away from regular public schools while evading oversight of their inner workings.
“The State Legislature should stand its ground and keep any expansion of privately run charter schools out of the enacted budget,” the Alliance for Quality Education, an anti-charter advocacy group, said in a statement released Monday evening as a deal was reportedly taking shape.
But legislative leaders have never ruled out a deal on charters as they continue negotiating a new spending plan with Hochul.
“The governor wants them. Most people in the legislature don’t want them. [We have to] see if there’s a compromise,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said of charters on Monday.
Supporters of the gubernatorial proposal have highlighted how charter schools – which are publicly funded but privately run – give black and Latino students in particular education opportunities they would not otherwise have in underserved areas.
“We cannot withhold good educational values and opportunities from any child,” said Ilyasah Shabazz, an author whose famous dad Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, at a state Capitol rally alongside a group of Democratic legislators, parents, and dozens of children.
“We must allow parents to decide where they want to send their children and provide them with all of the options in doing so,” she said.
