State, city and union officials are scrambling to reach a deal to raise the state's cap on charter schools before the June 1 deadline -- as new data shows charter-school students outperformed regular public school students by a significant margin.
According to city's Department of Education, charter school eighth-graders bested their public-school peers by 19 percentage points in social studies and by nearly 18 percentage points in science, the New York Post reported today.
"It's more evidence that charters are providing city kids a good education, and it particularly points to the fact that they're providing a well-rounded education," James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center told the Post.
Meantime, charter school advocates are pushing to seal an agreement that would boost the number of charter schools from 200 to 460 and improve the state's chances of winning $700 million from the federal government in so called "Race to the Top" funds.
Gov. David Paterson told WCBS-880 yesterday he would "do everything" in his power to qualify for the federal dollars.
The Senate has approved raising the cap on charter schools, but the Assembly has yet to agree.
