Albany charter schools take a bit of ribbing in this morning's Times Union because the relatively new elementary schools don't test until third grade - and they haven't gotten to third grade yet, so it's hard to compare achievement levels with their traditional public school neighbors. This becomes problematic because the only charter school with test scores available for comparison in Albany aint exactly the one you want to prove your case about the value of chartering public schools. That said, the story also points out some of the downsides of using simple testing to compare schools, a reminder that even if/when Albany's other charters start outperforming other schools, the "yeah but's" will always be there.