Newark chooses

Newark is onto something: The city's moms and dads are making clear they want charter schools for their kids.

That was not the message of the city's recent election for mayor. Now-Sen. Cory Booker, who favored more school choice, was succeeded by Ras Baraka, who, like Mayor de Blasio, has been a strong opponent of charters.

Baraka's victory was taken as a sign that Newark's population was turning against charters.

The reality happily is otherwise. This year Newark introduced a "universal enrollment" program, which allows students to apply to district and charter schools at the same time. When the choices the parents made came in, they sent an unambiguous ­message:

Of those students applying for seats in kindergarten through eighth-grade, more than half listed charter schools as their first choice. One-third of this group named the well-known charter systems as their top picks.

Small wonder, then, that Newark's charter school population will rise to 12,000 this fall, an increase over last year's 10,869. To put it another way, more than 25 percent of a total student population of 47,000 will be in charters this next school year.

By the fall of 2016, Newark expects 40 percent of the city's public-school students will be attending charters.

These percentages put Newark well ahead of Gotham. The sad thing is that it's not because of any lack of demand on this side of the Hudson. To the contrary, the New York City Charter School Center reports 49,700 kids on a wait list for a seat at a charter school. Such is the demand here, the more charters that open, the more the wait list grows.

Which only highlights the huge gap between big-city politicians and parents. While Mayors de Blasio and Baraka obsess about pouring more resources into traditional district schools (run by their allies in the teachers unions), moms and dads want more schools where their kids can learn. Mostly, this means charters.

The growth of charters in Newark puts a city that has long been a synonym for urban despair and educational dysfunction in the beginning stages of an experiment in a new approach to schools — based on the radical idea of giving parents what they want. We wish the city well.

And if it works out, let's hope New York isn't too proud to learn from Newark.

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