OPEC WITH APPLES:

THE REGENTS' KANGAROO COURT (RYAN SAGER, December 20, 2004, NYPost)

POOR kids trapped in Niagara County's failing public schools are headed for an ambush — one being set, surprisingly enough, by the state Board of Regents.

On Thursday, the Regents considered an application to open a charter school just outside economically depressed Niagara Falls City. The application is outstanding and comes with the state Education Department's enthusiastic endorsement — yet the Regents decided to defer their decision.

Implicitly, it was a cave-in to the forces trying to establish veto power over all upstate charter schools: the teachers unions, district administrators and political hacks whose power is threatened when kids are allowed to opt out of the public-schools.

The Regents claim they need to hear input from a "community forum" to be held in the next month in Niagara.

Make no mistake: That will be a kangaroo court.

The proposed Niagara Charter School has already more than met the requirement under state law to prove that it can fill its seats. Twice as many kids are waiting to get in as the school could accommodate in its first year — and when Richard Hague, the African-American pastor heading up the school, goes on the radio, more queue up.

It looks like what the Regents — especially Regents Chancellor Robert Bennett, who represents the Niagara area and is under pressure as he seeks reappointment in 2005 — really want is political cover to tell the school "no."

That is something Bennett & Co. will most likely get at any "community forum," which will undoubtedly be little more than a union rally, swamped by members of the Niagara Falls Teachers Union.

You'll never improve education until you shift power from the providers' cartel to the consumers.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 20, 2004 4:21 PM