Nearly two-thirds of New York City Democrats — and an overwhelming majority of black and Latinos — support lifting the state-imposed cap to open more charter schools, a new poll finds.
Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed lifting the cap to increase the publicly funded alternative schools as part of her $227 billion executive budget plan.
But she is facing fierce resistance from fellow Democratic legislators allied with the anti-charter teachers’ union, including state Sen. John Liu (D-Queens).
The pro-charter StudentsFirstNY poll of 1,094 likely Democratic voters, conducted from March 3-14 found they are strongly in Hochul’s corner — and legislators appear out of touch with their constituents.
“As you may know, the state has set a cap on the number of charter schools allowed to open, and New York City has reached that limit. That means that no more charter schools can be authorized to open, even if parents want them and the schools go through a rigorous review process,” the Benenson Group, which conducted the survey for StudentsFirstNY, responded.
Asked then if they support raising the cap, 64% of likely Democratic voters were in favor, while 36% said they were opposed or had no answer.
The poll also found a strong majority of minority New Yorkers are behind charters — 75% of Hispanics support lifting the cap, as did 60% of black respondents.
About 90% of students in the city’s 275 charter schools are black and Latino.
The poll also specifically queried a bigger sample of residents in seven Assembly Districts that have the most charter schools — Brooklyn’s AD 56 in Bedford Stuyvesant and 60 in East New York; Manhattan’s AD 68 in East Harlem, 70 in Central/West Harlem and 72 in Washington Heights; and The Bronx’s AD 79 encompassing Melrose, Belmont and East Tremont and AD 84 in Mott Haven and Hunts Point.
In these districts, 62% of Democrats were in favor of lifting the cap and 38% were not.
The poll also found 78% of respondents said charter schools are “mostly good” for students, while 19% said they were “mostly bad,” with the remaining 3% undecided.
“It’s hard to get New Yorkers to agree on anything. But in crucial districts across the city, the verdict is clear. New Yorkers — especially black and brown New Yorkers, who have been chronically underserved by our education system — overwhelmingly support parents’ right to choose the right kind of public education for their children,” said Crystal McQueen-Taylor, executive director of StudentsFirstNY.
“As budget negotiations reach a fever pitch, Albany should stay focused on the facts: a cap lift is what parents want, and students deserve.”
The StudentsFirstNY findings mirror the results of a previous survey conducted by Democrats for Education Reform in January, which also revealed that 64% of parents endorsed increasing the charter school cap.
Hochul and lawmakers are supposed to approve a new budget for the upcoming fiscal year a week from Saturday, April 1.
Lifting the charter school cap remains a contentious issue.
Mayor Eric Adams entered the fray last month, testifying at a state legislative budget hearing in Albany that lifting the cap would cost the city treasury up to $1 billion without additional state funding to pay for space to house dozens of new charter schools.
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately run schools that typically have a long school day year and school year compared to traditional public schools.
Students at charter schools largely outperform neighboring district schools on the state’s standardized Math and English Language Arts exams and many operate at a lower cost, a Post series revealed.
The overwhelming majority of charter schools are non-union and have more flexibility to operate and set their own curriculum.
The StudentsFirst NY poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.88 percentage points.
In response, the anti-charter United Federation of Teachers cited its own poll released last month that claimed: “79% of New York City voters rejected expanding charters and siphoning money from their own local neighborhood public schools.”
