Four months ago I called on the Governor and the State Education Department to enact reforms which would make New York competitive for Race to the Top funds, and I am delighted that the Board of Regents is taking action to make some of the necessary changes I have proposed.  Chancellor Merryl Tisch and the Board of Regents deserve great credit for their leadership and willingness to take a stand on these important reforms.  As a result of their leadership New York is in a much stronger position to be awarded as much as $700 million in federal funding.

President Barack Obama earmarked $4.35 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for education reform as part of the Race to the Top (RTTT) program.  This program is a state-by-state competitive grant process to promote: world class standards and performance assessments; more effective teachers and more equitable distribution of highly-qualified teachers; strong data systems; and the turnaround, restructuring, and reconstitution of low-performing schools.  New York State was initially considered ineligible for the program because of existing laws capping the total number of charter schools allowed and a prohibition against using student test scores to evaluate teachers.  Today’s actions by the Board of Regents to ensure New York State’s competitiveness in the grant awarding process includes: pursuing state legislation to raise the charter school cap; focusing on strengthened student performance; and changing regulations that will create greater operational flexibility for new and transforming schools.

In mid-October I introduced what has been described as the most comprehensive education reform bill in New York State history (A.9219/S.6251-Klein).  Among the recommendations in the actions by the Board of Regents today, several are part of my legislation, including:

• Raising the charter school cap to facilitate the creation of new charter schools;
• Encouraging authorization of single Board governance of multiple schools with a common management entity;
• Including the provision of pre-K education by charter schools,
• Strengthening equitable funding for charter schools,
• Creating access to facilities financing for charters; and
• Authorizing charter schools access to BOCES services.

Now that the Regents have acted, it is incumbent upon the Governor and the legislature to act quickly, as the deadline for Race to the Top applications is fast approaching.  As the state’s fiscal crisis continues and we face budget deficits into the billions the opportunity to receive hundreds of millions in federal monies to improve our education system is necessary to ensure that the children of this state receive the academic enrichment to which they are entitled.