ALBANY — New York's Legislature is proposing last-minute changes to charter schools law that Gov. David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned Sunday will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in a federal grant for schools due Tuesday.
By proposing to raise the cap of available charters to 400, the Democrat-led Senate and Assembly are following the lead of the state's powerful teachers' union and other school lobbyists, which have long opposed charter schools as now operated.
The current cap is 200, with just six charters left.
Paterson has said that in order to qualify for up to $700 million from the federal Race to the Top fund, the state must eliminate its cap or raise it no fewer than 454. Paterson says the U.S. education secretary told him so.
On Sunday, Paterson ordered a special session to negotiate changes for late Monday, which is a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. The application must be in Washington by 4 p.m. Tuesday to be considered in the Obama administration program aimed at improving public education.
The bill in the Senate and Assembly would also give the Board of Regents — appointed by the Legislature — far more power in awarding any charters. It would limit the other entities with authority to approve charters: the State University of New York Board of Trustees, which is appointed by the governor, and the New York City Department of Education, under the mayor's control. The bill also contains accountability measures and reporting requirements that lobbyists for traditional schools long sought for charter schools operated by private companies. Such requirements are already in place for most public schools.
Charter schools were created more than a decade ago to take more innovative approaches to education, including longer school days and years, while reducing ties to bureaucracy and union hiring.
Thousands of families have turned to charter schools, often from waiting lists. That has drawn state per-pupil aid from traditional schools as well as some of the most motivated students. Public schools have long said that has drained their resources.
Senate Democratic leader John Sampson "believes this bill will enhance New York's ability to receive Race to the Top funding while increasing transparency and disclosure when public money is invested," said Austin Shafran, spokesman for the Senate's Democratic majority.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said the bill would give traditional public school families "a voice" in whether a charter is approved, while "insisting that they do more to educate English language learners and children with learning disabilities."
Currently, most charter schools lack the facilities or funding for special education and are created to serve mainstream students.
Silver said Bloomberg's opposition to the bill is "dooming" New York's chance of getting the grant, "solely to maintain their unchecked power to displace traditional public schools from existing classroom space."
Lawmakers saw the grant as an opportunity to secure changes to the charter school law it says has hurt traditional public schools, but which governors have opposed.
Paterson, the New York City mayor and the Senate's Republican minority warn the stand will cost New York students, who already face an expected cut in state aid during New York's fiscal crisis.
"It would ultimately undermine the improvement that the Race to the Top grants intend to achieve," Paterson said Sunday. "I believe the leaders' bill would harm the state's chances of winning the funding."
Charter schools in New York City have been cited as a national model of success in providing better instruction in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods.
"The bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing, plain and simple, that would destroy a charter law that is a national model — and surely weaken our application for federal dollars," Bloomberg said. "There are tens of thousands of New York City children on charter school waiting lists, and they deserve better than this."
Republicans in the Senate's narrow majority said the bill will likely fall short of what's needed to secure federal funds to avert expected cuts in state school aid that would force layoffs and higher local school property taxes.
"Senate and Assembly Democrats are engaged in a high stakes game of chicken with Governor Paterson," said Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Nassau County.
The state Charter Schools Association called the bill a travesty.
"This 'Trojan horse' legislation will not improve educational quality or opportunities for families," said Bill Phillips, the association's president. "Instead, this bill is a raw political statement of surrender in the effort to reform education that repudiates the agenda of the Obama administration."
New York spends about $21 billion a year on school aid.
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