Chancellor Joel Klein a year ago told about 300 business leaders at a breakfast meeting, “Charters can stimulate innovation in a system, and create opportunities for choice… We need to create an environment in which charter schools can be supported and thrive.” In the last year, only modest progress has been made on that front. Mr. Klein found space for a small number of the schools, in underutilized public schools, but no significant amount of resources has been redirected toward providing poor parents with more choice in their children’s education. So, a year after Mr. Klein affirmed his support for charter schools, it is encouraging to see the initiative he is taking in establishing a non-profit organization to facilitate tax-free donations to these publicly funded, privately run institutions.

It’s not that donors were unable to make donations to individual charter schools in the past. Many, if not most, are already nonprofit organizations themselves, and some, such as the Knowledge Is Power Program Academy in the South Bronx, already undertake significant private fund-raising. But the schools, which are funded at about two-thirds the level of traditional public schools and receive no building funds, could use more capital and do not all have their own fund-raising machines. The prospect that a new 501(c)(3) raises is that the city’s efforts to raise private funds — an effort currently headed up with impressive results by Caroline Kennedy — could bring in significant resources to help children escape the failing public school system.

This is a bold step for Mr. Klein. Private money going to public schools, in the view of Tweed Trust stakeholders, should only go to projects that rearrange the Trust and enrich it — projects like breaking up bigger schools into smaller schools. With Mr. Klein’s new non-profit, the next time William Gates has $51.2 million burning a hole in his pocket, he could give it to an organization that might fund start-up charter schools — new entrants into New York City’s education market that will be giving the old monopoly system a run for its money. Maybe such competition will help get some of the old system in better shape as well.

One of the biggest problems Mr. Klein’s program could cause would be if it were to start pushing the number of charter applications toward the limit under the current state law. Only 100 charters can be granted statewide under that law, and 51 of those have been used up. With luck, Mr. Klein will create a situation where our leaders at Albany find they have to reevaluate this restriction and expand the number of charter schools they permit the people who elect them to establish in the first place.