By Elizabeth Ling, DFER NY State Director
The waning days of our state’s legislative session are often the setting for bad behavior on the part of New York’s teachers unions. This year’s post-budget session proved no exception, with the state teachers union exhibiting the highest levels of hypocrisy in protecting its turf.
New York’s teachers’ unions have long accused charter schools of not enrolling special education students at rates similar to district schools. While the issue of special education is a complex one worthy of further analysis, charter schools are nonetheless pressing forward to better address the needs of this population.
In April, Senator John Flanagan and Assemblyman Karim Camara sponsored the Charter School Students with Special Needs Act which would have greatly aided charters in serving special education students at no additional cost to taxpayers. Drawing on an approach long used by small rural upstate schools, charters sought to contract services with BOCES and establish consortia that would pool resources to provide special services to students off-site.
This bill was a no-brainer, and thus you’d think that NYSUT would be fully supportive given its previously stated concern that charters are not effectively serving special needs kids. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.
NYSUT applauded the sponsors, admitted that charter schools are not adequately equipped to serve special education and ELL students under current law…and yet strongly opposed the passage of the bill. NYSUT’s rationale can be gleaned from its memo distributed to lawmakers, in which it complains that the legislation could lead to “an explosion of charter schools.” This and its other misrepresentations were rebutted in a memo issued by the state’s two leading charter advocacy groups.