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Here are some benefi ts of sending
your child to an NYC charter school
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 19-MARCH 25, 2021 15
BY JOE PANTORNO
Throughout the course of the pandemic,
many New York City students
and parents have had to adjust to online
learning while school doors were
shut. Some parents later opted to send
their child back to school buildings,
masked up and ready to learn.
Even though New York was able to
flatten the curve initially, there still
remains the question of what school
will look like for the remainder of 2021
school year as the vaccine becomes
available. However, it isn’t too early for
parents to plan ahead for next year and
beyond when school doors re-open.
The school choice movement has
provided parents in New York City and
across the United States with more options
on where to send their children.
While the only legitimate options
in the past were public, private and
homeschooling, charter schools have
become a viable and attractive option
for a child’s education.
A charter school is an independently
operated public school that usually
operates under a contract with a government
agency or nonprofit organization.
It allows the school to not have to
follow a mandated curriculum, thus
designing their classrooms and lessons
to fit individual students’ needs.
While the idea of charter schools
has been met with plenty of criticism,
there are overarching advantages of
sending your child to such an institution:
Adapting to challenges
Within today’s educational landscape
lies the growing challenge of
properly informing, preparing and developing
students who learn and grow
under different circumstances.
There are four ways children can
properly learn and retain the material
of their coursework: visual, auditory,
reading/writing and kinesthetic.
Charter schools can provide a perfect
match.
If your child is struggling with
learning disabilities that withhold
them from flourishing at public or private
schools, there are charter school
options.
If your child is advanced and is not
being challenged enough in most group
settings, there are charter school options.
Specialization with no tuition
Charter schools provide the best of
both schooling worlds.
While they are independent, they
still must have licensed teachers; students
must take state-mandated tests;
and underperforming institutions can
be closed — much like most public and
private schools.
But the ability to tweak the curriculum
and offer specific courses that set
it apart from public schooling.
The best part? Parents won’t have
to pay tuition as they would in private
school. Charters are funded on tax dollars.
They outperform public schools
Looking at the data, New York City
charter schools are putting up better
numbers than public schools.
According to the New York Department
of Education, public school students
grades 3-8 were 47 percent proficient
in English Language Arts (ELA)
and 46 percent proficient in math in
2019.
Per NYCCharterSchools.org, charter
schools in the city provided much
higher proficiency numbers last year.
ELA proficiency rates for students
grades 3-8 were at 57.3 percent while
math proficiency rates were at 63.87
percent.
Those numbers result in more
learning gains, allowing students
to learn more material in the same
amount of time as public school curriculum
allows.
Charter schools have plenty of
support
Parents’ schedules are already
packed as it is. Their wallets might not
be overflowing, either. The last thing
they need to do is participate in fundraisers
to get their public school some
extra money.
Charter schools don’t have that
problem as they are privately funded
more often than not, meaning parents
won’t have to donate more of their
hard-earned money to ensure their
child gets a proper education.
/QNS.COM
/NYCCharterSchools.org
