New York schoolchildren shouldn’t have to move to Arizona for a shot at a quality education. Yet that southwestern oasis would offer a better chance of attending an innovative charter school than the Empire State. While Arizona, population almost 6 million, boasts 509 operating charter schools with 13 on the way, New York City – with a third more inhabitants – is home to only 47.

The Empire State, the chart herewith illustrates, is far behind when it comes to charters, especially when one compares the number of charter schools to the num ber of students in the state. Nor is that number likely to grow much any time soon. As The New York Sun’s Deborah Kolben reported on Thursday, only 16 charters are still available in the entire state. New York’s children are being held hostage by an arbitrary rule that threatens to undo the progress students have already gained.

Charter schools are public schools that operate free of the rules and restrictions that govern ordinary schools. They are generally organized by community groups, educators, or charter-school specialists, and serve as laboratories for educational innovation. Some charter schools might look a lot like traditional public schools but use different curricula than are required in the city system at large. Some take a radically different approach. Some are tailored to the special needs of students who would otherwise be overlooked.

Looking at just a few of the charter school descriptions available on the Web site www.insideschools.org, one sees enormous and exciting variety. The Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School screens students into academic groups to make sure they receive the right kind of instruction and allows parents to monitor grades daily via the Internet. The Family Life Academy Charter School in the Bronx caters to Spanish-speaking youngsters whose parents want them to be proficient in English without losing their ties to their culture. The Bronx Charter School for the Arts blends extensive fine arts opportunities with its core curriculum.

If legislators in Albany fail to change the charter law soon, all that progress will be in jeopardy. The 1998 law limits the number of available charters to a paltry 100 across the state. That quota will be filled soon, since 42 applicants have filed the paperwork to compete for the remaining 16 charters by the September 30 deadline. The president of the pro-charter Center for Education Reform, Jeanne Allen, warns that a failure to lift the cap soon could endanger this reform by discouraging educational innovators from applying for charters in coming years. New York risks missing out on creative new schools that set up in friendlier states instead.

Some have argued for caution in lifting the cap, suggesting that New Yorkers would do better to wait to see how charter schools perform. But while lawmakers wait, parents have already seen. Thus the enormous demand for alternatives to the public schools. About 12,000 students attend the 47 charter schools in New York City, and the waiting list for the charter schools across the state totals 10,000. It’s long past time for Albany to get out of the way and let New York parents have the educational options enjoyed by parents in other states.