To the Editor:

Joseph H. Crowley, who has a history of making excuses for underperforming public schools, has predictably joined what economist Thomas Sowell calls the war on charter schools (“McKee is right, but has it backward,” April 8).

Crowley takes issue with Governor McKee and, in effect, your recent editorial (“Moratorium is the wrong solution,” April 1), for opposing a proposed moratorium on new charter schools. This moratorium is being sponsored in the General Assembly by Democrat Sens. Sandra Cano and Ana B. Quezada (“Charter School expansion would leave most children behind,” March 4). Their proposal comes as no surprise. The Democratic Party often acts as if it were an agent of the teacher unions. And the teacher unions oppose the expansion of charter schools. Charter schools, though part of the public school system, threaten the inordinate power that teacher unions exert over K-12 education in our state. The relative independence of the charter schools threatens that power base (as would a private school voucher program, also opposed by establishment Democrats).

The senators insist they have a moral obligation to ensure that every student, in every school district, has the opportunity to receive a quality education. But they cannot serve two masters. By limiting charter schools, Democrat legislators confirm their allegiance to the teacher unions. But they crush the hopes and dreams of students seeking a better education outside the traditional school system. There is nothing moral about that.

A. H. Liddle Warwick