ALBANY — Opening a new front in the battle over the state budget, the state’s largest teachers union is mounting an advertising campaign attacking Governor Spitzer’s proposal to expand the number of charter schools across the state.

Aimed squarely at the Legislature, the campaign represents a significant shift in tactics on the part of the New York State United Teachers, which is backing down from its long-held opposition to any new schools but is seeking to prevent the charter school movement from establishing anything more than a toehold in any one school district.

Their goal is to insulate unionized school districts from any serious competition for state money and students, striking a blow at one of the main objectives of school choice advocates, who argue that charter schools motivate school districts to improve student performance by threatening to shake loose the monopoly of education funds.

In his budget, Mr. Spitzer proposed raising the legal cap on charter schools by 150, to 250, giving the Board of Regents, the State University of New York, and the New York City schools chancellor authority to approve 50 new schools each. The cap has been frozen at 100 since the Legislature first approved establishing the schools almost 10 years ago. Mr. Spitzer also proposed giving districts with a high concentration of charter schools $15 million in “transitional aid” to offset their losses.

Union leaders say the aid is not enough, and they are lobbying lawmakers to shrink the size of the expansion and to change the law by putting a ceiling on the percentage of public students enrolled in charter schools in a single district.

In New York school districts, public school aid follows students to the public school in which they enroll, so districts lose thousands of dollars every time a student transfers to a charter school, each of which operates independently. In New York City, where less than 2% of public school students are enrolled in charter schools, the money lost amounts to a drop in the bucket. In smaller urban districts, such as Albany and Buffalo, charter schools are teaching more than 10% of public school students and diverting a similar percentage of public funds.

“You’re almost running side-by-side school systems,” the president of NYSUT, Richard Iannuzzi, said in an interview yesterday.
In Albany, 2,044 students are enrolled in charter schools, taking away $20 million from a school budget of $169 million, according to the union. Officials say enrollment could grow by almost 1,500 students in the next two years under Mr. Spitzer’s plan.

Mr. Iannuzzi, said the union is calling for the state to impose an enrollment limit of 5%, which would effectively bar Buffalo and Albany from adding any new charter schools. Mr. Iannuzzi said the cities would also be prevented from replacing schools whose charters are not renewed.

The conditions they are setting go beyond those proposed by New York City’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, which said it would not support lifting the charter cap unless the state’s charter school law was changed to make it easier for more charter schools to unionize.

At $125,000, the budget for the ad campaign is relatively small compared with the millions of dollars health care groups are pouring into a campaign attacking Mr. Spitzer’s budget.

Rather than appeal to the public with a statewide ad buy, the union is taking its message directly to lawmakers, with ads in Albany newspapers and radio stations and with highway billboards on the two main arteries leading to the state Capitol.

The teachers union, a major donor to lawmakers, holds significant clout in Albany and has in previous years defeated Governor Pataki’s efforts to expand charter schools.

Taking a cautious approach, the ads praise the governor for increasing education spending but warn that the governor is doing harm to public schools by proposing measures that serve “private interests.” The ads also criticize the governor’s plan to give parents of children attending private and parochial schools tax deductions of $1,000.

“This is the right budget. It’s going in the right direction,” Mr. Iannuzzi said. “We’re asking the governor to reconsider these two issues.
A senior Spitzer official said the administration was not expecting the campaign, saying it assumed the governor’s proposal to increase school aid by $1.4 billion would convince the union to put aside its grievances on charter schools. The official said Mr. Spitzer has not ruled out makings changes to his charter school bill.

Asked about the campaign, Mr. Spitzer said yesterday, “My view of charter schools is pretty well known. I’ve said all along they are an important part of adding creativity and new models to education.”