Political Whisperer
By Robert Hornak
Robert Hornak is a veteran political consultant who has previously worked for the NYC office of the Republican Assembly Leader and served as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com and @roberthornak on X.
If there was an actual contest between traditional public schools and charter schools in NYC, the results would be clear. Charters won.
Of course, there is no reason for anyone to believe it’s a contest. When it comes to providing a good education for our future generations, we should be offering an all-of-the-above approach so that no child falls between the cracks.
Sadly, too many of the city’s local leaders do see it as a contest and are solidly on the side of the largely failing traditional school system.
There are just under 1900 public schools in NYC, and of those only 285, or 15%, are charter schools, which are public schools that operate under a different set of rules than traditional public schools. And recently reported results showed that of the 100 top performing city public schools, more than half were charter schools.
If you think it’s slightly embarrassing for those who want to eliminate charter schools, it should be. But this hasn’t appeared to change anyone’s mind. When it comes to NYC politics there are a few very powerful unions that control a great deal of how the public is served. And almost none are more powerful than the teacher’s unions.
The NYC Dept. of Education has about 140,000 non-supervisory employees, including teachers (about 75.000), paraprofessionals and counselors. Unless they request to be opted out, they are automatically dues paying members of the United Federation of Teachers.
Most charter school teachers, on the other hand, are not unionized. And there lies the real issue. The power of the union is at risk. The UFT supports candidates for office, making endorsements, giving large contributions, and forcing members to do field work for the candidates as part of their union obligation.
Never mind that charter schools do a far better job with the same teacher-student ratios and for the same or less money.
This recent report by the Free Beacon looked at the 2025 results from all NYC schools and found that charters are 59 of the 100 top schools for math and 53 of the 100 top schools for English language arts. And most charters are located in Brooklyn, the Bronx and northern Manhattan in some of the most disadvantaged Black and brown communities in the city. They do not serve many kids from the Upper East Side, Park Slope, or Jackson Heights.
Not wiling to accept defeat, even as the evidence in favor of charters continues to grow, the Left led by its loudest voice, the NY Times, coincidentally recently published a news piece originally titled “As Income Gap Grows, So Do Fears Over Access to a Quality Education.” The Free Beacon report points out that for some reason that title was later changed to “Rising Costs and Competition at Top N.Y. Schools Have Parents on Edge.”
The point they want to convince people of is that income equality and the overall unaffordability of the city is making it more difficult for kids from poorer families to get a good education. That’s a typical narrative for the Left, blame the rich for everyone’s problems.
But this claim is debunked by the success of charter schools, which the NYT article mentions way down in the story, with the simple statement, “In recent years, some middle-class parents have begun to consider charter schools, which are publicly funded, enroll 150,000 students and traditionally enroll poorer families” then quickly moves on to talk about private schools.
Not much of a ringing endorsement for schools that way outperform the traditional system.
On the state tests, charter school students overall outperformed traditional school students by 12 points on math and by 11 points on English. The disparity grows to 20 points when you compare Black and Hispanic students scores from charters compared to traditional schools.
The only question that really matters is why are there schools and teachers that are failing to provide a quality education that allows children to score well on basic state proficiency exams? It’s not about money – we spend more than anyone. It’s not class size, and it’s not the students.
The answer is clear. More charter schools to allow our children the best possible chance for a bright future.
