POLITICS: Charter schools offer hope AND deliver excellence in NYC’s toughest neighborhoods

Charter schools deliver results for kids in the parts of New York City where “the system” has given up: It’s just obscene that supposed progressives like Zohran Mamdani keep selling out the charter sector to win the support of privileged special interests.

The Post reports today on the stunning difference in The Bronx: Students at public charter schools excel on state K-8 reading and math exams, in stark contrast to the sad scores at Department of Education schools.

Counting all 99 Bronx charters, 68.6% of students passed the reading exams in grades 3 to 8, vs. 43.6% in Bronx traditional public schools — a 25-point difference.

In math, it was nearly a 26-point gap: an average 69.2% of charter kids passing vs. 43.3% in regular “district” schools.

Students at the highest-performing charters were simply amazing; 95% or more passing in English and math at the four South Bronx Classical Charter schools; 90%-plus at the several Zeta Charter Schools, the five Success Academy schools and nearly as well at the Icahn network of seven schools.

Citywide, per an analysis by the New York City Charter School Center, charters led district schools by 11 points — in good measure because regular public schools aren’t as terrible in the other four boroughs; indeed, a handful are nearly as high-scoring as the better charters.

And no, the college-oriented approach of the Success network and others isn’t right for all kids — but for a lot of lower-income families, charters offer the only access to a school culture of high expectations, academic excellence and accountability.

And the sector’s smaller independent schools focus on serving other kinds of kids — with some specializing in dual-language learners, children with autism or other special needs and so on.

Another key difference: A (very) few charters fail as badly as the worst Department of Education schools — but the terrible charters get shut down fast while DOE failure factories keep going year after year.

The city’s 285 charters enroll about 15% of all public-school students, 150,000 kids in all. Almost 90% of charter students are black or Latino; 83% come from low-income families; 19% have special needs.

For these demographics, in the city’s toughest neighborhoods, charters do exactly what everyone says public schools are supposed to do: offer real opportunity to all children.

Teachers unions always claim to care about the kids, yet serve their own interests above all else; they relentlessly use their vast power in Albany against the charter sector.

That’s why the Legislature refuses to lift the cap set in law to let more charters open in the city, why charters get far less per-pupil funding than other schools.

And why Mamdani has promised to be hell on charters, looking to kick them out of their school buildings and otherwise squeeze the whole sector.

With all the talk about “affordability,” it sure seems like the mayoral race should acknowledge that charter schools make hope affordable in the city’s most vulnerable communities.