In today’s Post, I look at a couple of mildly disturbing developments within New York’s charter-school movement:

NEW York state’s decade- old charter-school experiment is a success - so far. Yet these schools can lose hold of what makes them special - if teachers, administrators or bureaucrats lose sight of their responsibilities under a charter system.

Measured against traditional public schools, charters have performed above and beyond - boosting the scores of the mostly low-income and minority students they serve all across the state.

But this month the State University of New York’s Charter Committee made what appears to be a serious error - and it’s set to ratify it today.

…

SUNY … has chosen to punt on a tough choice. As one of two state bodies that grants charters, it gets to decide which schools “live” - and which close. Last week, it chose to grant a reprieve to a chronically poor-performing charter: New Covenant in Albany.

Along with the reauthorization of a failing charter school, this month has also seen the unionization of a successful charter school — a development not likely to help the school in remaining successful.

[archive copy of this column here.]