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State Education Commissioner David Steiner and the Board of Regents today urged the state legislature to increase the cap on charter schools in New York.

While he stopped short of asking for a specific number, Steiner roughly calculated using the Race to the Top application guidelines that a cap of 400, twice the number currently allowed under state law, would best make the state competitive in that section of the Race to the Top application.

The request comes as part of a larger effort by the Regents to create a sense of pressing need for legislative change to help the state compete for a slice of the $4.3 billion federal grant. New York is eligible for up to $700 million of the grant money.

“The crucial thing here is to say, we can’t stand still,” said State Education Commissioner David Steiner.

States earn points in the competition for grants on a variety of measures, including how friendly it is to charter school expansion and to using student test scores to rate teachers and teacher training programs. States will be judged by their policies in place at the time applications are submitted in the middle of January.

The state has nearly hit its current cap on charter schools, and a law banning the use of student data in teacher tenure decisions remains on the books. Legislation introduced in October designed to make the state more competitive for Race to the Top has failed to gain momentum. (more…)