Say what you will about Governor Pataki, he does not intend to become a lame duck in this, his final year in the governor’s mansion. The governor threw down a gauntlet at the forces of educational stasis in Albany yesterday when he released a budget proposal that would ease New York’s charter school cap and – there’s more even than that major step – give Empire State parents tax credits they could use to help pay tuition for their children to attend private schools, including parochial schools, if they would otherwise be trapped in failing public schools.

The governor proposes lifting the statewide cap on charter schools to 250 from the current 100. This is no mere academic question since the state is already butting up against the old limit, imposed by a timid Assembly when charter schools were first allowed in the state, to give everyone time to “study” how successful the schools were. Yet, as we have noted before, the time for “wait and see” is over now – while Albany waited, parents saw how effective charter schools can be, and as the state has come closer to hitting the cap, the clamor for more charters has been growing dramatically.

Now is precisely the time to lift it, before continued unavailability of charter slots encourages educational entrepreneurs to look elsewhere for more amenable locales in which to open charter schools. The governor has recognized this, and if New Yorkers are lucky the Legislature will, too. If any lingering doubt remains about the effectiveness of charter schools, lawmakers can look no further than New York City, where Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have made charter schools a key component of their reform the city’s public school system.

Which is why city residents can rejoice at an even more sweeping element of the governor’s plans in respect of charter schools. Governor Pataki proposes giving the city schools chancellor unlimited authority to convert old-fashioned public schools into charter schools by not counting those conversions against the cap. That’s right: The governor wants to effectively lift the charter cap in New York City.

New Yorkers who were already thrilled by the innovation – and improvement – underway in the city’s existing charter schools haven’t seen anything yet, if the legislature does the right thing by city schoolchildren.

The coup de grace will be the governor’s proposal to offer a $500 refundable tax credit to the parents of students trapped in failing public schools so that those students can attend private institutions. Currently, parents who send their children to private schools must not only pay tuition but must also write a tax check that helps subsidize the very public schools that are failing to serve their children. Tuition credits help right the scales by reducing those tax bills. And because the credits would be refundable, even parents who pay little or no tax would benefit from a government check of up to the $500 cap.

Such credits have already survived Establishment Clause challenges in the courts, meaning that parents could get credits even for tuition at religious schools. And, although it doesn’t sound like a lot, $500 can go a long way. The average tuition at Catholic elementary schools in the city, for example, is $1,800, and $3,000 for high schools, according to data on the Archdiocese’s website. A $500 tax credit will not make private schools free for anyone. They will still be too pricey for some. The governor’s proposal, however, puts a private school education within reach for many more students than can currently contemplate such a benefit while trapped in failing public schools.

Today is far too early to predict which of these proposals, if any, will survive the legislative test that awaits them in the Assembly and Senate. It is also possible that the governor could end up focusing more on other elements of his ambitious budgetary agenda and allow his education proposals to fall by the wayside. For now, however, New Yorkers will vigorously applaud Governor Pataki for his courage in advancing education reforms that are sure to be contentious. They will also eagerly await word on what Albany does for New York schoolchildren in this election year.