Or death by regulation?

People like Leo Casey at the UFT often suggest that charter school supporters should be happy just to have asinine caps on the number of quality public charters lifted -- even if by doing so you start forcing charters to accept the same kinds of regulations that seem to have screwed up crappy traditional public schools over the years. (I.E. Bad policy should be good enough, because it is good enough for the UFT.)

So this seems to be turning into one of those situations. The state budget appears to allow for the creation of 100 additional charter schools. Yeah! But nobody seems to have a firm handle for just how many poison pills have been thrown in by the teachers unions -- pills designed to grab your throat and hold it, tightly, until your face turns blue and your charter school stops breathing entirely. They want your schools to be as crappy as theirs -- seemingly in the name of equity.

Seriously, ask your local legislator what role some of these poison pills have in terms of making charter schools better. Forced unionization for teachers if the school hits 250 kids in the second year? It is easy to see how that helps the struggling teachers unions, but how does anyone argue that it helps kids, the schools, or the overall quest for quality? They can't. But in New York, it seems, you don't even have to try.

Why do we even have a cap at 100 more schools? Why do we want to hold public education back from trying to get better? It is really astonishing when you think about it.

The NY Post goes off on Eliot Spitzer this morning for only getting half the job done on the charter school front. The Daily News also is wondering whether or not the final budget language will be worth popping the cork.

Charter Chuck, we've still got a lot of work to do.