The Potemkin Village Cap Lift: What Would the Reviewers Say?

The Potemkin Village Cap Lift: What Would the Reviewers Say?

It’s interesting to me that you have folks out there that don’t quite believe that we’re going to keep a high bar…. It’s going to be a very, very high bar. People won’t believe it until we do it.
--Secretary Arne Duncan discussing the Race to the Top

“Don’t quite believe” is right. Albany still seems to think there is a way to hurt the state’s charter schools and get rewarded for it in the Race to the Top (RTTT). The latest  destructive idea is to lift the state’s nominal cap on charter schools, then choke charter school growth by turning new school creation into a centralized RFP process.

As the  Post and Daily News point out in must-read editorials this morning, that kind of fakery won’t fool anyone.

Both papers are exactly right about the raw politics: at the end of the day, there’s just no way the feds will reward a state that eliminates SUNY CSI, one of their  favorite authorizers—let alone a state that starts doling out charters through politicized central planning. As Duncansaid last month, “In the end, I want state lawmakers to lead reform, not lag it.”