The upcoming battle over New York's public schools

For Albany watchers and other political junkies, the summer’s biggest sporting event is the State Assembly’s impending decision about whether to renew mayoral control of New York City’s schools. The vote is scheduled for the end of June, and, to insure maximum high drama, the vote coincides with Bloomberg’s third-term re-election campaign and precedes the October expiration of the American Federation of Teacher’s contract with the New York Board of Education.

With the stars thus aligned, the conditions are perfect for some serious political horse-trading between the AFT and Bloomberg. But whose interest will be put on the auction block? I’m betting that charter schools are in trouble. The AFT has consistently opposed charter schools unless they are union-sponsored, because they are not subject to the 165-page collective bargaining agreement governing New York City’s regular public school teachers. Charter schools are popular with low-income, mostly minority parents precisely because they are free from lockstep seniority requirements, procrustean work rules, and interminable processes for teacher dismissal and discipline. (Charter school teachers, incidentally are ambivalent about these rules, which are not exactly conducive to innovative teaching). Given that low-income parents are not exactly one of the state’s powerhouse lobbies, I’d suspect that their interest in charters – say, lifting the cap on the numbers of charters that can be issued -- will not be reflected in the impending deal on mayoral control.

My prediction that charter schools will be losers in Albany might seem odd, given their popularity with a broad spectrum of interests -- lefty papers like the Village Voice; Joel Klein, the City’s education chancellor; and even Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education. But my wager is these essentially ideological and technocratic supporters will be no match for the AFT. Randi Weingarten, the AFT’s national President, has long mastered the art of embracing cautious reform-style language while capping charters’ numbers and cutting their budgets behind the scenes. If Bloomberg wants to run up the score against William Thompson in the upcoming mayoral election (and, of course, he does), then he would be wise to roll over on Klein for the AFT.

Just in case it is not obvious, I am rooting for the charter schools. But, not being a chump, I am betting dollars to rupees on Randi Weingarten and the AFT.