A Huge Missed Opportunity in New York State

Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman devoted her Huffington Post column last week to singing the praises of Excellence Charter School, an all-boys school in Brooklyn, New York that seeks to combat the high-dropout rates for African American men by providing a strong academic curriculum in an environment that supports students’ social and character development. Excellence, a member of the Uncommon Schools network, currently serves 220 boys in kindergarten through fourth grade. [slideshow]

Wright Edelman is clearly impressed by the school, which she proposes replicating in thousands of urban and rural school districts nationally. She and the organization she runs have also been strong advocates for quality early education, including universal pre-k. But, ironically, the school Wright Edelman praises here is barred by law from providing the kinds of pre-k services CDF has advocated for.

How come? Under the New York state law, charter schools–independent public schools that receive state funds and are accountable to the state, but are operated by non-profit groups rather than school districts–are not allowed to offer pre-kindergarten programs. They cannot receive pre-k funding from the state the way public school districts do, nor can they contract with school districts to offer pre-k programs, the way other non-profit organizations and community-based early childhood providers may. (New York’s universal pre-k law, passed in 1997, requires that 10% of pre-k funds be used for community-based providers.) New York doesn’t even allow charter schools to offer pre-k with funds they raise themselves from private philanthropy!

This is a huge mistake.

Most obviously, this policy makes it impossible for charter schools to offer children an aligned PK-3 experience. High-quality schools like Excellence can’t start working with low-income children to close acheivement gaps until kindergarten, losing a valuable year. Even if students are fortunate enough to attend pre-k elsewhere, the pre-k program is often not aligned with the K-3 programs offered by charter schools or other public schools.

Equally important, this policy deprives New York State of a valuable potential source of high-quality pre-k capacity. Governor Eliot Spitzer has promised to make universal pre-k available to every New York four-year-old by the 2010-2011 school year. Getting there will require a huge increase in pre-k capacity to accommodate the two-thirds of New York 4-year-olds who aren’t currently in state funded pre-k. As the state seeks to expand pre-k, it must take advantage of charter schools and other providers than can align pre-k with quality early elementary programs. Many New York Charter Schools–including Excellence, the Achievement First network, or UFT‘s charter school in Brooklyn–are providing students a high quality elementary school education, and could be a valuable source of high-quality pre-k capacity as New York expands its pre-k investments. Barring these schools from offering pre-k undermines New York’s efforts to offer all children high-quality pre-k, and denies children access to a high-quality, aligned PK-3 experience.

Fortunately, this problem is an easy one to fix. New York would need to amend its charter school law to allow charter schools to offer pre-k. The universal pre-k legislation should also allow charter schools, along with school districts, to receive state pre-k funding. These are simple changes with big potential to benefit New York children.