Charter Schools
The benefits of sending your child
to a NYC charter school
Pexels
Caribbean Life, February 19-25, 2021 21
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 between 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 non-profit organization.
It allows the school to not
have to follow a mandated curriculum,
thus designing their classrooms and
lessons to fit the individual student’s
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 charterschool
options.
If your child is advanced and is
not being challenged enough in most
group settings, there are charterschool
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% proficient
in English Language Arts (ELA) and
46% 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% while math
proficiency rates were at 63.87%.
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.
/NYCCharterSchools.org
