Charter Schools and Teachers' Strikes
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2019
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ray Domanico joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss charter schools in New York City, the growing protests by education workers across the country, and Democrats' weakening support for charters.
In teachers' unions protests from West Virginia to California, activists claim that the growth of charters has come at the expense of district schools.
New York City's charter school students significantly outperform their state and local peers, and minority children from struggling families benefit most: over 80% of charter students are low-income, and 91% are African-American or Hispanic. But under current state law, only seven more charters can be created in the city before a mandatory cap on their number is met.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Ten Blocks Podcast. This is Seth Barron, associate editor at City Journal. |
| 0:06.1 | Brian Anderson is traveling this week. Coming up on the show today, I talk with Ray Domanico about |
| 0:11.5 | charter schools, teacher strikes, and more. One announcement before we get started, if you're a |
| 0:16.9 | listener in the New York area and you follow policy developments in the city and state, |
| 0:22.0 | why not subscribe to our newsletter, The Beat? You'll get insights on housing, education, |
| 0:27.4 | homelessness, infrastructure, and more. Delivered to your inbox three times a week. You can find it |
| 0:33.0 | at thebeatMI.com. That's it for now. My conversation with Ray begins after this. |
| 1:12.6 | Hi, everyone. Welcome back to 10 blocks, the official podcast of City Journal. This is your host for today, Seth Barron. New York City is the country's largest school district with about 1.1 million kids attending public schools. 10% of those kids, however, attend charter schools, |
| 1:18.7 | which have been around for about 20 years in New York. Charter schools, both locally and nationally, |
| 1:24.2 | have been very much in the news lately, and I am joined today by an expert on the subject to talk about it. Ray Domanico is Director of Education Policy at the Manhattan Institute. |
| 1:30.2 | His latest issue brief for MI is called Lift the Cap, Why New York City Needs More Charter Schools. |
| 1:37.9 | Thanks for joining us, Ray. Happy to be here. Ray, what's the cap? Why is there a limit on charter schools in New York? |
| 1:47.0 | So ever since the legislature first allowed the creation of charter schools in 1999, |
| 1:55.0 | there has always been a cap because at first they were viewed as sort of an experimental approach. |
| 2:00.0 | That cap has been lifted a number of times in the intervening years, |
| 2:04.5 | but currently the city is up against its cap. |
| 2:08.0 | There are 236 charters in New York City. |
| 2:11.0 | Right now there are seven slots open, but those will be taken by the end of this year. |
| 2:16.2 | So unless the legislature acts to either raise or |
| 2:21.0 | eliminate the cap on charter schools, there'll be no ability to create more charter schools in the |
| 2:25.6 | city. Well, what's the controversy? Who's opposed to charter schools? Largely, teachers unions are |
| 2:33.1 | opposed to it. There are some advocates for public education, |
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