The Chalkboard: Reaching the Charter Conversion "Cap" - in the Year 7558 A.D.

The Chalkboard: Reaching the Charter Conversion "Cap" - in the Year 7558 A.D.

The New York State Education Department released its federal Race to the Top application today. In the charter school discussion, this factoid read surreal to me:

"[t]he total number of charter schools that currently may form in New York are 4,540 conversion schools plus 200 non-conversion charter schools, or 4,740. This represents approximately 104 percent of the total schools in the state that are allowed to be charter schools."

Whew! Feel better now? Who needs a cap lift? Hey, we can do 4,500 more charters! Sure glad the Department put its best foot forward to the Feds!

This will not impress Washington. The problem with this description of the charter cap is that it is a legalistic absurdity based on the existing provision that places no cap on the number of charter schools that are converted from district schools. As a practical matter, this conversion discussion should have been reduced to a theoretical footnote.

As to the charter cap, the application also makes the preposterous claim that even though state Education law includes one, "such a cap does not prohibit or effectively limit the number of high-performing charter schools in the state" (p. 223). Does State Ed. expect anyone to belief this? Why include this sentence?