New York State Of Mind…

There was this crazy kerfuffle in New York this week when a proposal emerged in Albany to take SUNY out of the authorizing business and give exclusive chartering authority to the state Board of Regents (never mind that SUNY is among the best authorizers in the country and that multiple authorizers and professional authorizers can help with charter quality concerns). Various explanations for the proposal were floated from teachers’ union pressure to a desire from the other statewide charter authorizer to control more board seats at charter schools as political chits. In any event, the legislator who introduced the bill has now apparently seen the data on SUNY, had a change of heart, and withdrawn the proposal. That’s for the good but a lot of people are wondering why Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch wanted to go down this road in the first place…

Update:   More here.