In a shockingly rare move, Néw York’s Board of Regents refused to approve a batch of charters recommended for renewal by Néw York City.
Regents’ chair Merryl Tisch has expressed her desire to expand the charter sector. But each of the schools delayed or denied had serious problems, either with low test scores or an unusually harsh disciplinary policy.
The flap last month over an Albany charter proposal may have made the Regents willing to exercise oversight.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The state didn’t approve the charter for the Guardian Academy in Peekekill either. Technically the applicant withdrew, but that only happens when the application will be rejected. I count that as a victory for Peekskill. Through community organization and protest, we beat those people back, a little. It was a victory for the Peekskill public schools p.
Maybe the tide really is turning. Maybe.
Could there be a political shifting in the sands? At the moment real investment in the public schools doesn’t seem to be on the table, but is the charter movement on the decline or is this just a blip on a current trend? With the public’s lack of trust in everything and anything political, charters do look like a potential ploy for politicians to play even more games.
This denial is all posturing–much of it in reaction to the “Dr. Ted Morris” charter approval fiasco. By the Regents turning these renewals down they can pretend they are really checking on the performance of Cheater Schools. They also get a chance to make a statement about Mayoral control of public schools remember they liked it when Bloomberg was Mayor–now they want to rip it back from DeBlasio). Implied in their rejection was a message to Farina and DeBlasio–that they were not doing their jobs forwarding these recommendations to them for approval. There is a lot of maneuvering going on in NY right now. Cuomo is involved in much of it as he is concerned that King jumped ship…Tisch is zoned out on Xanax and Cuomo is the one who most likely will be held accountable for the mess that has been made of public education in NY State. In truth–all three of those pathetic characters deserve a good deal of blame for the mess our schools have to dig themselves out from!
Bullseye.
So, this means that there are more members in NY BOR who are getting aware of the problems and defying an implicit compliance with the boss mom (Tisch)? Probably that’s not always the case.
The Board of Regents and SUNY Charter Schools Institute routinely move to close (or not renew) charters. About 5% of the charters issued since 1998 have been revoked and the schools shuttered.
Isn’t it their job to provide oversight all the time and not just when things go wrong? If they had been on the job, a lot of charters would not be in existence. Time to go to work.
Interesting sentence from the article:
“Academically, several of the schools underperformed district averages, although they fared better when compared to district schools that served similar populations of students.”