No Peace for Charters

Time will tell if Mayor de Blasio will keep his vow to work with charter schools, but the Regents are making it clear where they stand: They’re as hostile as ever. On Monday, they nixed a request by nine schools to renew their charters a few years ahead of schedule. They say renewals usually take place in the year a charter expires, not years early — “to ensure the most recent data” is used in making the decision.

Technically, the authorizers in this case are the State University of New York trustees, who recognize the value of locking in renewals now and asked the Regents to OK them: Doing so will give the schools, Bronx Better Learning and eight Success Academy charters, certainty about their futures, particularly as they consider expansions.

That makes sense. Besides, these schools have earned an early OK. BBL, for example, has far outperformed other public schools in its district on English, math and science during every year of its existence.

And the Success Academy schools, as the SUNY folks note, have demonstrated “some of the highest” levels of academic performance in the state. Both BBL and Success “are likely to improve student learning and achievement in the future.” In other words, there’s no good reason

not to renew their charters now. Indeed, you’d have to be nuts, or beholden to the schools’ teachers-union enemies, not to.

Hmm, guess what: The Regents owe their jobs to Assembly Democrats (i.e., Speaker Carl Heastie), who take their marching orders from . . . the teachers unions. And the unions want pols to strangle charters — because they’re usually free of union control and embarrass union-run schools by outperforming them.

The good news? The Regents’ decision is largely symbolic, because SUNY will still have the final say. But their bid to throw up roadblocks for the charters is telling.

Over the past couple of weeks, de Blasio and charter-school leaders have been talking peace, after years of union-driven hostility to charters by the administration.

But clearly these schools, promising as they are, continue to face an uphill battle.