It’s hard to recall a more cynical chapter in the story of education reform efforts in Albany than the maneuvering around Governor Pataki’s education tax credit proposal and his push to lift the cap on charter schools. The governor proposed a refundable tax credit of $500 for each child in low- or middle-income families living in districts with sub-par public schools so that they could fund tutoring or private-school tuition, as well as more than doubling the number of charter schools allowed in the state. Both ideas are now meeting with resistance.

Charter obstructionists are trying to delay action on the cap until after the budget is done. Such a delay would open the door to all kinds of mischief. As long as the charter cap is debated within the confines of the governor’s budget proposal, senators and assemblymen have considerably less scope to insert poison pills weakening charter schools. Such tactics could include giving local school boards, which often oppose the formation of new charter schools in their back yards, vetoes over the granting of charters. If the legislature fails to lift the cap during budget negotiations, a charter delayed could prove to be a charter denied.

On the tuition tax credit the governor has proposed, lawmakers are settling on a unique strategy – “expand” the credits into nothingness. Both the Assembly and Senate offer variations on the theme of offering smaller credits for so many reasons as to make them toothless as a school reform.

The illogic of this is breath-taking, for if there was a problem with the governor’s initial proposal, it was precisely that it was too small, especially after some legislators had floated ideas for tax credits of up to $1,500 a child. Instead of upping the ante, the legislature is trying to take the heat off of underperforming schools. The legislatures small, broad-based child tax credits would provide too little money to make any dent in a family’s tutoring or tuition expenses.

At least Mr. Pataki is still resolved. A spokesman, Joseph Conway, told us yesterday that the governor is “profoundly concerned” about the direction the legislature is headed. As long as these issues, especially the charter cap, are part of the budget process, Mr. Pataki has significant leverage if he chooses to use it. The trick will be for the governor to avoid losing sight of his goals as negotiations with intransigent legislators grow more intense.

In part, this is the story of how powerful teachers unions have succeeded in hijacking the Assembly and Senate to thwart pro-student policies. They’re helped by the fact that many in the pro-reform crowd, such as ordinary parents or the New York State Catholic Conference, are too busy raising or educating children to become special interest juggernauts in their own right.

This ends up as a cautionary tale about the limits of “reform by any other name” and highlights the logic of focusing the school reform fight strategically on the principle of vouchers. Absent the governor’s resolve, legislative leaders could still try to pass off a watered-down tax credit as an education “reform.” Mr. Pataki, staying true to his soubriquet “The Education Governor,” appears to be sticking to his guns, and Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have been aggressively lobbying the legislature in favor of lifting the charter cap. But the hearts of reformers have been broken many times before in New York. In the end this fight illustrates the fact that, although education tax credit proposals function much like vouchers, they are vulnerable to budgeting gamesmanship in a way that a true voucher proposal would not be and that the fight ought to be carried as one of principle.