In the fall of 2005 I had just left my extremely high-paying job at New York's Hometown Newspaper to promote my book on the intersection of politics and education, when I got a phone call from Bill Phillips, of the New York Charter School Association.

He had heard that I was going to be doing some freelance writing and wanted to know if I had any interest in doing some blogging on education for this web site. The idea was intriguing, especially since Bill made it clear to me that he was looking for someone who would push the envelope a bit - to try to light a fire within some people in the charter school world.

Since I didn't work for NYCSA, it was an interesting chance to try to inject some attitude and personality from the outside into an institutional blog, or at least one hosted by a statewide association's web site.

At one point, when we discussed the concept, Bill made it clear to me that if he was 100% comfortable with what I would be posting every day, I wouldn't be doing my job correctly.

There were days since then when I'm sure Bill wondered what he had gotten himself into. Posting several times a week, I managed to occasionally get myself into trouble, occasionally had way more fun than I deserved, occasionally made points that I felt wouldn't get made elsewhere, and occasionally made mistakes/went over the top/etc.

There were two posts in all that time that I pulled back after I published them: one which involved a joke (which wasn't actually all that funny in the final analysis) involving a charter school organization, and one which used the words "Pataki" and "fart in the wind" a little too close to one another in the same sentence. Both were unquestionably unfair and so I yanked them upon further review.

But Bill and his team always lived up to the arrangement we had, and our shared goal to try to make education reform in New York State a little bit more fun. I will always respect them for that (especially Bill, since he was the one who took the hits when I went out there on the edge from time to time.)

As Alexander Russo scooped me earlier this week, I am going to be stepping down from doing this blog to start work for a group called Democrats for Education Reform. If I do my job correctly, you'll be hearing a lot from us in the coming months and years.

This Chalkboard blog will take a hiatus for a few months, but will be back up and running by the start of the next school year as part of a revamped NYCSA web site. I think you'll find it groovy, from the ideas I am hearing.

The entire blog thing is fascinating. It was funny to watch the traffic go through the roof when we fought with other blogs. You people love watching train wrecks! (Truth be told, though, you'd probably be disappointed by the courteous behind-the-scenes emails exchanged by a lot of the usual blogging combatants.)

I've said this before, but there were times when I posted things that I thought were brilliant, only to discover that I was indeed the only one to feel that way. Other times, I posted things I thought were nothing, and they took on lives of their own. The web, it turns out, is a pretty cool - if unpredictable - place to push a debate. Thanks to everyone for checking in here from time to time, and for contributing ideas and feedback. It has been a blast.

Until we meet again, Charter Chuck...