It looks like Governor Spitzer’s next big fight is going to be with the teachers union known as New York State United Teachers, and it’s the third showdown in a row in which this newspaper is firmly in the governor’s corner. He is right as rain in the fight with the hospitals, and he has opened an important front in the campaign to reform workmen’s compensation, a point that was marked over the weekend by the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page has not – how shall we put it? – made a habit of supporting Mr. Spitzer. The fight with the teachers is being brought by the teachers themselves, who are launching an advertising campaign against the governor in respect of the governor’s support for expanding charter schools. Our Jacob Gershman has particulars on page one this morning.

The complaint of the teachers is that charter schools drain dollars from the school districts and that charter schools aren’t approved by voters but by the Regents and the board of the State University of New York. Their complaint, in other words, is that this removes local control over the school systems. The teachers are preparing to spend $125,000 on a campaign that is targeting one audience, the Legislature, in an effort to convince the legislators to block any competition arising from charter schools. They are pressing for a lot more money for the monopoly school system in return for any progress on charters, and they want to limit the percentage of students in any district that can attend any charter school. No doubt the teachers have been looking at what’s happening around Albany, where charters are having an enormous impact.

It strikes us – and we believe will be evident to millions of New Yorkers – that the teachers are faced with an inherent contradiction. The very fact that they feel threatened by the percentage of students who might end up in charter schools is in and of itself a sign that they have been failing in their monopoly, union-controlled operations, and a recognition that more charter schools would only increase accountability. Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, went so far as to suggest to our Mr. Gershman that freezing any expansion of charters should be conditioned on a freeze in the districts where they are flourishing the most, such as not only Albany but also Buffalo. The governor clearly has the high ground in this fight.

We’d like to think that, being a Democrat, Mr. Spitzer will be able to do what Governor Pataki couldn’t. It’s analogous to President Nixon recognizing Communist China (a point that was mentioned to our Mr. Gershman today) or President Clinton and welfare reform. Mr. Spitzer is in a position to prove that it takes a Democrat to do fiscal and education reform in the Empire State. It would be a sad day for the Republicans here if he manages to prove that true, especially since the state’s original charter school law is a product of Governor Pataki’s leadership. One case of “put-up-your-dukes” from the teachers doesn’t make a victory for Mr. Spitzer. He has a long way to go on all the issues — school reform, the state economy, the out-of-state migration, and the academic success of schools. Mr. Spitzer is raising spending at what might be called a Pataki rate. He’s proposed no new tax cuts, aside from the “tax shift” of STAR, and his upstate plan is reminiscent of Mr. Pataki’s in its reliance on state capital investments. But if he succeeds in the fights he’s picked so far and proves that a Democrat can do what a Republican can’t, Mr. Spitzer will be off to a tremendous start and the Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves.