POLITICS: Here’s the next bid to undermine excellence in New York’s schools

As New York’s charter schools continue to deliver far better results for their students than traditional public schools, the special interests that feed off the regular system relentlessly work to kneecap the competition; the most likely next assault will be a stealth attack on the SUNY board that authorizes new charters.

Under the charter-school law passed in 1998, both SUNY and the state Board of Regents have separate authority to issue new charters.

The drive is to cut out SUNY so that only the Regents will have the authority — because the Regents have become a dedicated tool of the teachers unions, anti-excellence lefty theorists and other anti-charter forces.

Progressives in the Legislature have been calling to sideline the SUNY board for a while now; they might get Gov. Kathy Hochul to go along as she guards her left flank in her re-election year.

The SUNY authorizers are no band of right-wing loons; they’re academic professionals grounded in empirical support for effective educational approaches; it’s the Regents who are dominated by ideological hacks.

For a clear sign of what that means, just look at the difference in outcomes among New York City schools granted charters by SUNY vs. those OK’d by the Regents.

On state proficiency exams for English and math these last two years, students at 197 SUNY-sponsored charters have had much higher pass rates than the kids at 74 Regents-authorized schools.

In English, it’s 62% passing vs. 47%; in math, 67% vs. 48%.

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That’s gaps of 15 and 19 points in the SUNY-OK’d schools favor — a clear sign that if anyone should be sidelined, it’s the Regents.

But we’re not calling for that; from the start, charters have been about allowing the pursuit of different approaches, and it’s certainly conceivable that this trend could reverse in the decades ahead.

The central point to keep in mind is that anyone pushing to end SUNY’s role in authorizing charter schools doesn’t have the kids’ best interests in mind.