Governor Pataki’s new Commission on Education Reform — set up to deal with this summer’s court decision mandating that Albany send more education funding to New York City — has made Mayor Bloomberg and the Assembly’s speaker, Sheldon Silver, hot under the collar. And that’s not the only good news. While Mr. Bloomberg is upset that no one under his control has been placed on the commission, and Mr. Silver is upset that it can’t be made up entirely of teachers union representatives, there may be another reason for both men to object. As opponents of educational choice, they must be dismayed that at least five out of the 16 commissioners named on Wednesday have publicly supported or been open to the idea of school vouchers. Though the commission will be reporting back to a court that is obsessed with money as the cause of and solution to all of our educational system’s problems, it is raising eyebrows around town that Mr. Pataki seems intent on addressing our city’s educational problems from a more holistic perspective.

Voucher proponent Thomas Carroll, president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, for one, noted the prevalence of school choice advocates on Mr. Pataki’s list. One member, Reverend Floyd Flake, is a well-known voucher proponent, not to mention a former congressman, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a the senior pastor of the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church. Another appointee, Frank Macchiarola — currently the chair of Mr. Bloomberg’s Charter Revision Commission — is also a voucher proponent, who told the New York Post recently that: “We should be open to all alternatives. A voucher program is an important way of getting youngsters out of schools that don’t work.” Another voucher supporter appointed by Mr. Pataki is the former New York City Board of Education president and Giuliani appointee Ninfa Segarra. Ms. Segarra has long supported the right of parents to get their children out of failing schools. Besides, as she told the Post in 2001, “The public school system could use the competition.” New York’s secretary of state, Randy Daniels, is another voucher supporter who has been appointed to Mr. Pataki’s commission. And one other commissioner, the president of the Public Policy Institute of New York, David Shaffer, while not supporting vouchers in all circumstances, has certainly been open to them as an option for parents with children in failing schools.

That makes at least five sets of ears sympathetic to the principle of choice for parents who can’t afford private school for their children — parents, in other words, trapped in a failing public school system. These, on a commission tasked by the governor not only with ascertaining the cost of what the state’s highest court termed a “sound basic education,” but with looking at ways to reform “state and local laws, rules, regulations, collective bargaining agreements, policies and practices to ensure the effective and efficient provision of educational services.” It sounds like a broad mandate to us. As education expert Sol Stern, author of “Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice,” told The New York Sun,”There’s no difference between low productivity and not having enough money.” The question, as he said, is “What kind of bang are you getting for your buck?” The chairman of Mr. Pataki’s commission, the former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, Frank Zarb, is likely to understand this.

“Productivity is a funding problem,” Mr. Stern said. But he also added that “There are interests — the unions, the bureaucracy — that don’t want anyone to think like that.” The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, who has her own spot on the commission, falls into that category. One can only hope that the balance of the commission will be ready to think creatively. The Court of Appeals has bound their hands some, at the behest of the liberal Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which is behind the drawn-out litigation. The New York State Constitution mandates only that: “The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated.”But the court has directed the state to come up with a number for what it costs to provide a “sound basic education,” which the court defines as “a meaningful high school education, one which prepares [young people] to function productively as civic participants.” This is purely judge-made law, a subversion of our legislative system. How sweet it would be if the governor’s commission were to put the court on the defensive, showing that a “sound basic education”can be provided for far less than we currently spend — as it is provided by the Catholic schools in New York City — and that the problem isn’t a lack of money, but a lack of choice.