Opinion

Stop choking charter-school funding

Another year, another bid by the teachers unions’ lapdogs in the Assembly to strangle charter schools — this time, by cutting their access to public funds.

Since 2009, funding for charters (but not regular schools) has been frozen, with only a few, small one-time increases. That freeze is now set to expire, but the Democratic-led Assembly wants to keep it going.

Despite the handicap, the mostly non-unionized charter schools outperform the union-run regular ones. So the unions want to starve the competition.

The pols’ excuse for doing so? Funds for charters come “at the expense of all children in public schools,” says Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Cathy Nolan — ignoring the fact that charter kids are public-school students.

“I think it’s up to the Assembly to have a fair balance,” Nolan also says. Um, “balance” requires more funding for charters, which have always gotten less per student.

And the gap’s been growing. Over the past three years alone, the city’s overall schools budget grew 16 percent, but outlays for charters rose only 3.7 percent, notes New York City Charter School Center CEO James Merriman.

Today, charters get as little as $15,215 per student, the city’s Independent Budget Office reports, vs. $20,078 at regular schools — a whopping 32 percent more.

To please its union masters, the Assembly is also pushing a host of other anti-charter measures: e.g., more paperwork requirements, less aid for their buildings, etc. And it’s resisting Gov. Cuomo’s call to lift the cap on the number of charters in the city.

Cuomo and the Republican-led Senate so far have sided with charter kids over the unions. Hope they don’t cave now.