Richard Iannuzzi, the head of the state teachers union, NYSUT, told the School Boards Association blog, On Board, that Arne Duncan "may be refining his position" on tying charter caps to a state's chances of being awarded "Race to the Top" funds.

Mr. Iannuzzi noted that Secretary Duncan's remarks last week at the national charter school conference, warning against allowing too many second-rate charters, is a sign that lifting the cap may not be so important for states to obtain funding from this program.

Nice try, Mr. Iannuzzi. But there is no such "refining" going on here.

Secretary Duncan's position in favor of lifting charter caps and focusing on quality rather than quantity in the number of charter schools is entirely consistent, and reflects the exact position of President Obama.

The President in his comprehensive education speech last March, said the following:

Right now, there are caps on how many charter schools are allowed in some states, no matter how well they are preparing our students. That isn’t good for our children, our economy, or our country. Of course, any expansion of charter schools must not result in the spread of mediocrity, but in the advancement of excellence. That will require states adopting both a rigorous selection and review process to ensure that a charter school’s autonomy is coupled with greater accountability – as well as a strategy, like the one in Chicago, to close charter schools that are not working. Provided this greater accountability, I call on states to reform their charter rules, and lift caps on the number of allowable charter schools, wherever such caps are in place.

This is visionary and sensible. New York has this very kind of system in place -- except its cap remains. It should be removed once and for all, as it serves no purpose after 10 years when the charter movement itself has matured and proven effective.

Know that when the state closes in on the charter cap, NYSUT will again be on the opposing side of charter schools as it was in 2007 when the cap was doubled, over its objections. Keeping the number of charter schools from expanding denies more children the opportunity given to thousands of students throughout the state.

But Mr. Iannuzzi wants no more -- that much he tells us in yet another reminder that he works for adults, not children.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

For New York to get federal "Race to the Top" funds, the head of the state teachers union opposes lifting the cap on charter schools, while the outgoing Education Commissioner says we shouldn't be "unduly influenced" by the U.S. Secretary of Education.

This was all part of an informative piece by Marc Humbert today for On Board Online, the weblog for the state School Boards Association (here), on New York's chances of obtaining federal "Race to the Top" funds from the U.S. Department of Education.

Humbert was a long-time reporter and columnist on New York state politics for the Associated Press. He picks up on Education Secretary Arne Duncan's comments earlier this month that New York's chances of securing funds from this program are at risk because of the cap on charter schools and prohibitions on evaluating teachers, in part, using student test scores.

The article quotes Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, outgoing Education Commissioner Rick Mills, and NYSUT president, Richard Ianuzzi, among others.

In a nutshell, Chancellor Tisch is careful in her remarks and somewhat complimentary of the state's charter school record.

Mills, whose last day as Commissioner is today, has said as little about charter schools as an education leader can say in 14 years and doesn't disappoint in this article. The commissioner doesn't think the $5 billion "Race to the Top" funding amounts to much, but thinks the state is well positioned.

Mills also doesn't think we should take Secretary Duncan too seriously, as Humbert writes: "New York shouldn't be unduly influenced by Duncan's remarks, said Mills."

Then there is charter school nemesis, Richard Iannuzzi, the head of the state teachers union, who argues that New York shouldn't lift the charter cap, saying it "provides the only semblance of accountability."

Mr. Iannuzzi reveals his ignorance on the enormous level of charter school accountability, beginning with the charter itself, which cannot exceed five years and must be renewed accordingly.

Iannuzzi also showed his interest in having no accountability when it comes to scrutinizing his member teachers using test data since NYSUT's position is to ban the use of scores when making tenure decisions for teachers, which they got the legislature to do for them last year.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

The state Court of Appeals today ruled 7-0 in favor of the charter school position that the Office of the State Comptroller lacks state constitutional authority to audit charter schools.

Yes, folks, the New York State Constitution means what it says. The Comptroller's Office has limits as to which entities it can audit, and charter schools are not among them. Article V of the Constitution limits that office's auditing power to political subdivisions of the state, which are governments and their agencies. By contrast, charter schools are established as non-profit educational corporations carrying out a public purpose. Importantly, the Court also held that audits of charter schools are not "incidental" to the auditing powers of the Comptroller, which became the main legal argument of the Comptroller's side.

This is an important case that should remind everyone that there are limits to governmental and bureaucratic power, and that auditors cannot do anything or audit anyone they please. Whatever one thinks of charter schools, this case translates to any other non-profit or for-profit entities doing business with the government or carrying out a public purpose, be they a social services organization or construction contractor.

Charter schools have plenty of oversight, including the Regents via the state Education Department, and SUNY and the NYC Department of Education. They get regular monitoring visits, submit numerous reports (including financial), and face an extensive renewal process at least once every five years. There is no oversight void by striking down Comptroller audits.

Today's High Court ruling reverses the Appellate Division decision from January and reinstates the initial Supreme Court ruling in favor of charter schools, issued back in April 2008. To the credit of the Court, they weren't buying the vapid argument of the Appellate Division, which largely took a pass on the constitutional issues involved.

How This All Started
This case may never have been brought had the Comptroller's Office not overreached. After conducting audits of several charter schools, often the findings were trivial and embellished. That approach under Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli was not unique; his predecessor Comptrollers approached auditing the same way, regardless of the entity, to justify their function, pose as the protector of the taxpayer, and elevate their role in public. That's what elected officials do, after all.

By the summer of 2007, the Comptroller's office decided to conduct so-called "performance" audits of charter schools that went beyond financial issues that the Comptroller was charged with carrying out. The 2005 law directed the Comptroller to conduct fiscal audits of school districts, charter schools and BOCES. No such performance audits were envisioned by this law, which was sponsored by the Comptroller himself when he was a Long Island Assemblyman. More galling was that the Comptroller's office admitted that only New York City charters were getting this additional performance audit treatment, not school districts or BOCES.

That was too much. Charter schools (or school districts, for that matter) do not need the Comptroller's office passing judgment on their academic performance, teacher quality, attendance rates, or any other programmatic issue. There are plenty of others to properly do so. No matter. The Comptroller's folks were uninterested in reconsidering their position and dismissive of the concerns of charter schools.

So charters turned to the courts. In reviewing the legal options, it turns out that the Comptroller didn't have constitutional authority to audit charter schools, financial or performance related. This limitation on the Comptroller was most recently upheld by the Court of Appeals in a 1996 case involving the auditing of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and was used as a key precedent in the charter school case.

NYSUT on the Wrong (Losing) Side Against Charters
It should not be forgotten that the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) once again opposed the charter school position and sided with the Comptroller, in another example that contradicts its shopworn sound-bite of supporting charter schools. NYSUT was the only outside entity to file an amicus brief in the case, taking the Comptroller's position against charter schools. No surprise there, and a reminder of the anti-charter school politics of that organization, supported in part by the sweat equity of many dues-paying charter school teachers.

Charter schools won an important state constitutional case today that reaffirms the proper balance of governmental oversight and accountability envisioned by the writers of the state Constitution. It also should be a reminder to government officials in any bureaucracy to understand and appreciate their legal limits and proper role.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

Several publications, including the New York Times and New York Post today report on a charter school teachers contract between Green Dot Charter School in the Bronx and the United Federation of Teachers.


The deal is conceptually simple: More money with more accountability. Teachers get between 10 and 14 percent more pay over the next three years than their NYC district comrades. However, they don't have tenure or seniority rights, or set departure times.

Outgoing UFT president, Randi Weingarten, who shortly will assume her national union leadership role full time, agreed to relax these work rules and got a nice pay bump for her members in return.

On the surface, at least, the charter school did not make any concessions on its ability to manage for academic results, including adjusting schedules and replacing ineffective personnel to ensure children's learning is not shortchanged. This is a critical feature of charter schools in that they must improve and sustain high achievement as they come up for charter renewal at least once every five years. And, they receive less funding on a per pupil basis and cannot afford long, costly labor disputes with overly protected staff.

Well done for both sides!

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

The Syracuse Post-Standard today published my op-ed responding to their June 8th editorial that was critical of the charter school lawsuit to stop audits by the State Comptroller's office.

The op-ed is linked here.

The arguments made in support of this lawsuit should be familiar to Chalkboard readers and charter school operators. Fundamentally, they come down to two points:

1) The state constitution (Art. V) limits the auditing powers of the state Comptroller to political subdivisions of state, which charters are not -- a point since conceded by the state itself.

2) Charter schools have sufficient oversight and monitoring by the Regents and SUNY, and the school district authorizers. Each of these authorizers is subject to Comptroller audits, which can include auditing their role as overseers of charters.

One more point not made in the op-ed, but worth repeating: Charter schools as a whole are not "incidental" expenses of the school districts, which are subject to Comptroller audits -- an argument made by the state to justify full-blown audits of charters. Rather, the Comptroller's "incidental" reach into charters is arguably limited to the extent to which the Comptroller is examining school district payments of charter school invoices based on resident student enrollment. That, in sum, was the argument made by Justice Rose in his dissent to the majority opinion by the Appellate Division last January when it ruled against the charter school position.

We await the Court of Appeals ruling on the appeal by charter schools, which was heard on June 2nd. The final outcome of this case may arrive as early as next week.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

The state Board of Regents today unanimously approved a new charter school for Albany -- the Albany Leadership Charter High School for Girls -- the 10th for that city.

The Regents have not approved a new charter school for Albany in more than five years, when they approved the KIPP Tech Valley Charter School in 2004, which was previously approved by the SUNY Board. Until today, only three of Albany's charter schools got the blessing of the Regents, with the other two being the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys and the Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls. These latter two schools were approved directly by the Regents back in 2000 as their answer to SUNY's approval of the ever-dismal New Covenant Charter School.

For the last five years, the Regents refused to approve any new charter schools in Albany, but they've opened nonetheless because of SUNY's ability to override the Regents' refusal and proceed.

SUNY's statutory ability to override the Regents came under fresh attack this year when the new Chancellor of the Regents, Merryl Tisch, publicly came out for legislation to strip SUNY of this power to approve charters on its own (see here for more discussion). The Senate sponsor of this legislation since "withdrew" her bill, effectively killing any chances of enactment.

One of the issues that came out of this debate on multiple charter authorizers, that is, Regents and SUNY, was the Regents' periodic hostility to charter schools, which has been ramped up in recent years. The non-approvals in Albany are a good example, hence, the importance of an alternative charter authorizer like SUNY.

Now, all of sudden, the Regents decide to approve a new charter school for Albany in complete disregard of the recurring opposition of the school district and teachers' union, which they otherwise heeded for five years. Even Regent James Dawson, a reliable "no" vote on charter schools, went along today and voted yes.

On the merits, the first public all-girl high school for Albany is a no-brainer. The Albany Leadership Charter High School for Girls is a small, safe alternative to the Albany High School; which is a low-performing, unsafe place with a high drop-out rate and a low percentage of students graduating on time with Regents diplomas. And, the city already has a similar single-gender charter high school for boys, the Green Tech High Charter School. The new Charter High School for Girls will have a 200-day school year, and is partnering with the Young Women's Leadership Foundation, which supports highly-successful all-girl public schools in New York City.

Perhaps the Regents decided to lay aside politics and union and district opposition pressure and follow the merits by approving the charter school.

Regents' Ulterior Motive?
On the other hand (or in addition to the merits), I suspect the Regents would like to eschew their reputation as unfriendly to charter schools, and this was a first step in that direction. The immediate concern may be Washington: for New York to get due consideration for the federal "Race to the Top" funding, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan is sending word that hostility to charter schools doesn't sit well.

More long term, I suspect the Regents ultimately want control of chartering in New York. They don't like SUNY's role and never have. Chancellor Tisch was most obvious and public about this position, but she represents the long-standing view of the Regents. They've recently had to take a step back, but after another year or two of friendly moves on charters, the Regents may revisit the multiple authorizer issue in the state legislature and try and obviate the role of SUNY.

Whatever the motive of the Regents today, they did right by Albany Leadership Charter High School, and the Albany female students who will be the beneficiaries.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

"New York State United Teachers has not cooperated with requests from teachers for the creation of a bargaining committee and has not been responsive to the concerns of instructional members at the charter school."

This account, from today's Niagara Gazette, is the description from Laurie Munzert, a 2nd grade teacher at the Niagara Charter School. She and her colleagues are trying to drop the union (see Chalkboard account, below) but the union refuses to leave.

Ms. Munzert's description rings all too familiar to the description by teachers from two KIPP charter schools in New York City, who stated last March:

"the UFT sent a letter to the KIPP: Infinity Board of Directors with the goal of beginning collective bargaining on teachers' behalf; the UFT neither consulted nor informed the staff of this request. In addition, a union-initiated grievance has been filed against KIPP Academy without solicitation or support of staff. It is our belief that the active presence of an external negotiating representative could compromise the strong environment of communication and collaboration that is integral to the success of our schools. "

This bossy role-play by the union is being outed by teachers on opposite ends of the state, and they've performed a valuable public education role outside the classroom.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

What part of "Get Lost" does the NYSUT local in Niagara-Wheatfield not understand?

The teachers at the Niagara Charter School are staging a protest today outside the charter school to oppose being forcibly represented by the Niagara-Wheatfield Teachers Association, the district union local of the New York State United Teachers. The teachers issued a press release announcing the protest, which was reported in today's Niagara Gazette (here).

Last month the charter teachers were told in a ruling by the Public Employee Relations Board that the district teachers union was their representative, pursuant to the Charter Schools Act in state Education Law. The teachers claimed that they had to formally recognize the union under the state's Civil Service law (aka, the "Taylor Law").

The Charter Schools Act (which is Article 56 of the state Education Law) requires that charter school teachers in certain circumstances are automatically deemed members of a separate negotiating unit of the union representing like positions in in the school district in which the charter is located. In Niagara's case, the school's enrollment exceeded 250 in its first year, which triggered this provision.

The teachers have resisted union membership ever since, but the Niagara-Wheatfield teachers union refuses to take "no thanks" for an answer. Instead, the union by law is its "representative" in collective negotiations and will extract dues from the teachers for this unwanted service.

This is truth being stranger than fiction. The Niagara Charter School teachers already are competitively paid, have a great working relationship with the school's administration, and have raised student test scores each year of the charter. They accomplished this without the help of the union, and certainly don't need to pay the union for something it can get on its own for free.

The Niagara-Wheatfield Teachers Union should follow the path of the UFT in New York City and buzz off, and leave the Niagara charter school faculty to its own devices. They are not wanted. The UFT let go of its representation of KIPP Infinity teachers, likely because they feared a PERB ruling in favor of the decertification petition by those teachers (a different proceeding than what the Niagara charter teachers filed and lost before PERB).

Charter Schools Act Union Provisions A Sausage Mess
The union provisions in the Charter Schools Act represent a classic example of legislative sausage-making since they were the result of negotiations between then-Gov. George Pataki, who proposed no union mandates, and the state legislature that wanted union charter schools as a sop to the powerful teachers union.

The whole compromise is flawed and constitutionally suspect. For instance, charter schools and school districts by design are competitive with each other; that is, they compete for many of the same students and the public funding attached to those students. This is why school districts and unions have long opposed charter schools - they want the public dollars to remain with them rather than go with a student to a charter school.

Yet, the same law establishing this competitive design provides that the same union represent "like positions" in a competing entity. This conflict of interest in the union statutory mandate was never more obvious than this year during the state fiscal crisis when the teacher unions urged the state legislature to freeze the charter funding formula -- hurting their own dues-paying union members in charter schools.

Why did the union bosses hurt their own members? Because that same formula freeze saved $50 million for school districts which employs a lot more of their teacher union membership. The choice was easy.

Niagara teachers also have a choice to make. They can go the KIPP Infinity route and petition PERB to decertify the NYSUT local. They also can file an Article 78 proceeding in state Supreme Court on First Amendment, free assembly grounds; or they can go to the same Charter Schools Act which also provides "reasonable access" to a challenging organization to represent them instead of the Niagara-Wheatfield Teachers Association.

Of course, the Niagara Charter School teachers should not have to take so many steps, costing them time and money, for trying to exercise their liberty as professionals.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

Several publications, including the Daily News and New York Post this morning, and Gotham Schools (here) over the weekend discuss the implications of the stalemate in the New York State Senate on mayoral control of the New York City schools, which expires June 30th.

Joe Williams, Executive Director of the Democrats for Education Reform, and I are quoted in the Gotham Schools' story.

The state Assembly earlier this month passed legislation to continue the structure largely as is, with the NYC Mayor controlling the majority of appointments on the Panel of Education Policy.

The new Senate Democratic leader, Sen. John Sampson, opposes mayoral control and wants changes. The problem, however, is that even if the Senate went into session (a big if), Sen. Sampson is not in position to affect changes based on the 31-31 split and assuming all his fellow Democrats agreed with his changes. Moreover, Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, reiterated his disinterest in returning to Albany to amend his very reasonable bill to accommodate the Senate.

The Speaker's position is exactly right especially given the fact that there is no way of knowing if the Senate will do anything, including gavel in, much less enact a separate bill.

Gov. David Paterson, not to be left out of the discussion, is talking about calling for a "special session" to bring the legislature back to Albany this week to enact the mayoral control legislation and other bills requested by other local governments. The Governor can make the legislature return to consider his agenda of bills, but he can't make them vote on anything.

The saga continues.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

Last March The Chalkboard reported that teachers at KIPP Infinity Charter School in Harlem submitted a unanimous petition to the state Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to decertify membership with the United Federation of Teachers union. Last Friday, the New York Post reported here that the UFT agreed earlier this month and had "voluntarily withdrawn" from its representation of the Infinity faculty without a protracted PERB hearing.

In effect, KIPP Infinity's teachers told the UFT to take-a-hike, and UFT complied.

The UFT doesn't "voluntarily" do anything like this, so the safe bet is that the union was going to lose before PERB. Cheating the hangman avoids a PERB decision that could be seen as humiliating the union.

It's hardly humiliating for teachers to choose not to be unionized; most teachers in charter schools in fact have done so. Certainly the UFT would not want to see this trend continue with more charter faculty decertifying, especially after the union and its state parent, the New York State United Teachers, ramrodded a charter school funding freeze through the legislature for the 2009-10 school year.

The KIPP Infinity teachers have shown that the union is supposed to be the servant, not the boss, and that if you are unsatisfied with such representation, you don't have to stand for it. You can drop them.

This was not the first charter school to kick out a NYSUT local. The Western New York Maritime Charter School faculty in Buffalo effectively fired NYSUT and formed their own school-based teachers' association. This means that their dues truly go towards "representing" them before charter management and doesn't subsidize the union's anti-charter school legislative agenda in Albany, unlike the teachers at every NYSUT/UFT charter school.

At least one other charter school's faculty recently manifested impatience with NYSUT's behavior, that being the Charter School for Applied Technologies, which conducted a protest last month before the union's headquarters in downtown Buffalo.

As long as NYSUT takes an adversarial stance toward charter schools, teachers deserve better and can do better, as KIPP Infinity and WNY Maritime have shown.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

Last week the State University of New York's Charter Schools Institute celebrated its 10th anniversary by hosting a luncheon at the Grand Concourse Charter School in the Bronx. The Institute is the administrative arm of the SUNY Board of Trustees to implement the Board's responsibilities under the New York Charter Schools Act.

The Institute was actually founded in January 1999, just weeks after the state legislature approved the Charter Schools Act, which authorized charter schools and empowered SUNY to approve and oversee up to 50 new charters. (School districts and the Board of Regents were authorized for another 50 schools; in 2007, the legislature doubled the respective numbers of charter schools for a combined total of 200.)

SUNY chose June as the time to have the ten-year celebration to coincide with its annual renewal ceremony to recognize and congratulate those charter schools receiving a maximum five-year renewal without conditions. It was a delightful two-hour event with SUNY Board Chairman, Carl Hayden and newly-appointed SUNY Chancellor, Nancy Zimpher speaking. A pre-taped video of Gov. David Paterson was shown, where the Governor acknowledged that he opposed the Charter Schools Act in 1998 as a state senator but changed his views by 2002 and has supported charter schools ever since.

Students from the several charter schools receiving five-year renewals also performed splendidly, including the choir from Grand Concourse Charter School.

Other SUNY Trustees were in attendance, including Robert Bellafiore, himself a former Institute executive director; and former SUNY Vice Chairman, Randy Daniels, who spoke powerfully of education empowerment and excellence and the role of charter schools in making that a reality for thousands of students throughout the state.

Charter Schools Institute Beginnings

The Institute's creation was the brainchild of its first Director, Scott Steffey, at the time a SUNY Vice Chancellor; and two SUNY Board members, Edward Cox and Randy Daniels. Trustees Cox and Daniels were named co-chairmen of the SUNY Charter Schools Committee while the Institute was empowered to administer SUNY's new charter school responsibilities apart from SUNY's large central administration bureaucracy, which played no role. This was a brilliant move that enabled the Institute to operate efficiently and independently while having direct accountability to the SUNY Board.

I was the first staff person hired by the Institute in January 1999, and served as its Vice President overseeing the review and approval of new charter schools until 2001. We processed more than 150 applications in the first two years, resulting in nearly two dozen charter schools approved. As these numbers show, we said "no" to a whole lot of applications for charter schools by establishing a rigorous, non-partisan and professional review process.

Nearly all the charter schools approved in these early years continue their superb performance today, including Tapestry in Buffalo, Eugenio Maria de Hostos in Rochester, Bronx Prep, Roosevelt Academy and many others. The process, however, wasn't perfect as some schools were since closed while others given conditional renewals. These closures do, however, also reflect the high standards and rigor that the Institute has demanded from the beginning.

National Recognition
The Charter Schools Institute has an overall impressive ten-year track record. It's certainly made its share of mistakes (yes, even when I was there!) but now has received national recognition by the current U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. More impressive to me, however, is the Institute's stated willingness to further improve itself and not stand still -- the very thing charter schools must do to survive and thrive.

The current Institute Director, Jonas Chartock, appointed just last year, announced at the ten-year event that the Institute is exploring ways to streamline its review and oversight process, which is more essential to overseeing its 64 approved charter schools, and growing. This is particularly important to allow charter schools to operate independently and mitigate the bureaucratic penchant for oversight to become superintendent-like micromanagement. Chartock also announced the establishment of an Institute policy center to provide more data and research for policymakers and charter schools alike to access.

New York State's charter schools have been well-served overall by having multiple charter school authorizers, the Regents, SUNY and school districts. The SUNY Charter Schools Institute has confirmed the wisdom of that design in the Charter Schools Act.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

The Senate Republicans yesterday offered the 31 Democrats a power-sharing "bipartisan operating agreement" stipulated on Sen. Pedro Espada as the Temporary President and the Majority Leader position occupied by Republican Sen. Dean Skelos. Both those positions control the calendar of bills getting a floor vote and also select committee chairs.

The document reads that committee chairs will be named "on a bipartisan basis" and that staff allocations will be spread evenly among senators.

This is a reasonable, good-faith document that should be the basis of negotiations. The obvious problem for the Democrats is that they refuse to recognize the Senate vote earlier this month that installed senators Espada and Skelos to their respective leadership positions. As long as both individuals control the calendar and committee assignments, it's hard to imagine the Democrats budging, regardless of how bipartisan the leadership would be in running the Senate.

Since the 31 Democrats must harbor special feelings for Sen. Espada for his joining with Republicans, and were unable to persuade him to return (as they did with Sen. Hiram Monserrate), what if he was not the Temporary President? If, for example, Brooklyn Sen. John Sampson, the new day-to-day head of the Democratic conference, or Sen. Malcolm Smith, the recognized Senate Temporary President, served in that position with GOP Sen. Skelos serving as Majority Leader, this "bipartisan" agreement actually could work.

Sen. Sampson and Sen. Smith have been appointed by their Democratic colleagues to leadership roles and Sen. Skelos was been given a similar role by his fellow Republicans last year. Sen. Espada, by contrast, has gone back and forth between sides during his Senate career, though the Republicans did vote for him this month to be Temporary President.

Two Options to Organize the Senate:
1) Senators Sampson or Smith, along with Sen. Skelos, could make the Senate work under this proposed agreement since it's hard to see the Democrats accepting their former colleague, Sen. Espada, in any leadership position despite the fact that a 32-vote majority put him there -- a vote that the court refuses to invalidate.

2) Alternatively, a bipartisan operating agreement could have a leadership trio of senators Espada (remaining as Temporary President), Skelos and Sampson or Smith to decide bills getting a floor vote, member committee assignments (including committee chairs) and staff allocations. In effect, any one of the three could veto a decision or recommendation by the other two. This would be as bipartisan as it gets, with no "majority" or "minority" conference since there really is neither in a 31-31 Senate with a vacant Lieutenant Governor position. While three people leading anything would be cumbersome and contentious, it would be movement, nonetheless.

It seems the only worse thing than either option is the current situation: stalemate and inaction.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard

Reminder: The Chalkboard blog is hosted by the NY Charter Schools Association, but the views expressed on this blog do not reflect the views or positions of the Association. The views expressed on The Chalkboard are solely those of the author(s).

Senate Democrats have proposed a power-sharing plan with the Senate Republicans allied with Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. The plan would create a six-member conference committee of the whole with equal membership from both sides and a rotating leadership.

Espada and the GOP are uninterested in discussing any power-sharing role until the Democrats formally recognize the new leadership voted in last week, that of Temporary President, Sen. Espada, and Majority Leader, Sen. Dean Skelos.

Until something gives, the state Senate is deadlocked and nothing will get done.

The 30 Republicans and Sen. Espada claim leadership of the Senate, but will have difficulty implementing anything administratively, much less pass legislation, absent cooperation from the 31 Democrats.

Now Sen. Espada is claiming the state Constitution gives him, as President of the Senate, the authority to cast two votes to break a tie or reach a 32-vote majority: one as a senator and the other as the presiding officer in the absence of the Lieutenant Governor. This is a dubious claim, but based on the somewhat ambiguous constitutional language and even Black's Law dictionary. If he and his GOP colleagues attempt to conduct Senate business with Sen. Espada casting two votes, the courts could no longer punt on the issue and would have to intervene since it involves constitutional interpretation rather than just Senate rules.

Whither NYC Mayoral Control of Schools?
With 31 votes on each side, both sides need to reach a power-sharing agreement if they are serious about governing. At the very least, leadership from both sides should meet as a temporary conference committee and agree on which bills they should pass, pass them, and go home. This reasonable position was basically articulated this morning by Democratic Sen. Eric Schneiderman. The problem, he reminds us, is that the "list" of bills is technically generated by the Temporary President of the Senate, and that's the rub. Neither side is willing to agree on who occupies the office.

The list of bills to act on need not be long or controversial and could address time-sensitive, local government issues such as continuing mayoral control of the New York City school system, which expires June 30th. The state Assembly already crafted a bill to accomplish this which it will pass today and which has the support of Mayor Bloomberg (who strongly supports charter schools). This same measure has been introduced in the Senate by Queens Republican Sen. Frank Padavan.

"When there is a tie, it's incumbent on all of us to move toward a temporary coalition government," Bronx Democratic Sen. Jeff Klein told the New York Post. He is right. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it will happen any time soon.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard