Man, it shouldn't be so damned hard for such a no-brainer of a piece of legislation to pass, but the Legislature today approved a state budget that doubled the number of public charter schools allowed in the state, from 100 to 200.

The papers reported the cap lift on Friday, but then a bunch of new demands from the teachers union started appearing magically in the legislation and needed to be fought back. (See post below.) Note to Charter Chuck: The union bosses aren't going away, they will be working overtime to screw you and your parents/students now that the budget is passed. That's their job. You just have to watch your back, because as we saw in the last few days, they are ruthless.

Some of the details in the budget, now that the battles are over:

1.) The cap on charter schools is doubled, from 100 to 200, with half the increase (50) reserved for New York City and can be approved by any of the three charter authorizers;

2.) No reductions in charter funding;

3.) No new, higher-cost building mandates;

4.) A new notification and hearing requirement for districts intending to use part of an occupied district school building to house a charter school;

5.) Several statutory timeline and process changes, including moving the October submission “deadline” to July; a required planning year for charters issued annually on or after March 15; a 90-day “comment” period on approved charters sent to the Board of Regents (increased from the current 60-day period); and required school district public hearings on charters newly proposed, revised, or renewed (failure of a district to hold a hearing then mandates the Regents to do so);

6.) A process requirement for charter schools to demonstrate “good faith efforts” to attract and retain students with disabilities and limited English proficient students comparable to the district (rather than a mandatory number of such students, as was proposed);

7.) An added threshold of review by a charter authorizer for new charter school applications proposed in districts with more than 5 percent of its enrollment already in charter schools, to ensure a “significant educational benefit” to the students expected to attend the proposed school;

8.) New charter schools (not existing ones), approved after July 1, 2007, with enrollment above 250 students within the first two instructional years must be unionized for all staff (not just instructional staff) in separate negotiating units within the respective local bargaining organizations.

The cap lift is obviously good news, and lots of people obviously worked to make it happen. But this war has hardly even begun. Put your seatbelts on.