Last week, Liz Benjamin, who writes the Daily Politics Blog for the New York Daily News, discussed (here) the charter cap lift and captured some interesting comments by Regents Chancellor, Merryl Tisch.

Tisch supports raising the statutory cap on the number of charter schools, which was part of the Regents education reform agenda adopted this month. The Regents never mentioned how high the cap should be lifted, and Tisch herself would not let Ms. Benjamin pin her down on a number. But, Education Commissioner David Steiner acknowledged that doubling the cap to 400 would earn New York more points on the federal scoring criteria for a discretionary Race to the Top grant, and that every point matters in this competition. The NYSUT Executive V.P., Alan Lubin, said this would be "ridiculous," perhaps without realizing details of the federal criteria. (The Chalkboard commented on Lubin's remarks and explained the federal RttT guidelines here.)

Tisch knows that charter schools usually drive the teacher unions crazy, so she always treads carefully on the subject by using vocabulary like "thoughtful" when discussing a cap lift, or doing it "thoughtfully," etc.

Context Matters: More Charters Takes Years to Approve
Tisch also made the critical contextual point, as reported in Daily Politics: "[Tisch] also noted it took five or six years for the state to reach the 200 limit and that this was done in a graduated manner - something that perhaps could be done again."

Exactly. I've made this point numerous times (e.g., here); that is, just because the charter cap gets lifted doesn't mean the new number of available charters gets awarded imminently. It takes a while, as it should, since the process for obtaining approval of a charter school typically involves years of development to meet the time-consuming and rigorous criteria established by SUNY and the Regents.

One of NYSUT's claims about the charter cap is that it supposedly increases charter school accountability. But this has not been in evidence. Rather, it is New York's statutory requirements implemented administratively by the Regents and SUNY that makes for effective accountability, regardless of how many charters are available to award. New York has always been rather stingy with approving new charters, which has contributed to higher student academic performance compared to school district averages. This also is in contrast to other charter states like Arizona and Ohio, which approved too many charters too quickly, leading to more mediocre results.

Charter Cap Lift is a Familiar Issue
Finally, Liz Benjamin further captures another important point made by Chancellor Tisch; that is, while the January 19th Race to the Top application deadline looms quickly, "lawmakers have more than sufficient time to come to a decision on the issue, and [Tisch] pointed out it's not like this whole discussion just got started yesterday." Right on. In fact, the legislature extensively discussed and debated charter schools throughout 2006 and 2007, when it last raised the cap. Charters have been ubiquitous in the news and editorials, especially since the summer when the Race to the Top discussion got into full gear.

So let's get charter and education reform accomplished, and get that award of federal money.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard