Kathy Hochul: Best Way To Support Public Schools Is By Taking Money From Them, Giving It To Private Schools And Charters

Here is a commentary by Kathy Holhul at Syracuse.com in which she asserts overcrowding and poor building conditions in public schools are good reasons to support more charter schools and tax credits for private schools:

Many critics try to argue that alternative schools, such as religious and charter schools, are somehow hurting the overall education system by taking away resources from traditional public schools. They argue that the governor should revoke all support for religious or charter schools – effectively abandoning those students – to focus just on public schools. They claim that this would be fair, but this just doesn't stand up to reason and here's why: 

There are roughly 4,500 public schools across the state – many of which are at capacity or overcrowded, and some are even utilizing trailers as classrooms. One hundred seventy-eight of those schools are failing, and many of them have been for 10 years or more.

Now imagine if the more than 400,000 students who are currently in charter or private schools – representing approximately 15 percent of the state's student population – had to attend one of those at-capacity, overcrowded or failing public schools. Who benefits from that scenario? Surely not the public school students who would find classroom space and resources stretched even further.

Can you follow the logic?

Many public schools are overcrowded, there's not enough space to house students in classrooms so decrepit trailers are used instead - and the way to solve these problems is to take money that could go to public schools and alleviate overcrowding and build new facilities and give that money to charters and private schools instead.

This is the same Kathy Hochul that AFT President Randi Weingarten robocalled for during the Democratic primary, claiming she was an excellent advocate for public schools.

Here's some advocacy for you - Hochul says public schools are overcrowded and falling apart, so let's take money that could go to public schools and give it to charters and private schools instead.