In the midst of a politically tumultuous month, Governor Pataki took a principled stand that may cement his advocacy of public charter schools as perhaps his truest and most lasting legacy.

On March 2, 2005, despite substantial pressure, the Pataki-appointed State University of New York board of trustees, with his blessing, closed three of the 14 SUNY-approved charter schools that are up for renewal this year. This was arguably the board’s finest moment, a tribute to the political courage of the governor and the steadfastness of State University Chairman Tom Egan and trustees Ed Cox and Randy Daniels.

When the state charter-school law was adopted in December 1998, the creation of up to 100 new independent public charter schools offered the potential for great educational innovation and a new model of educational accountability.

The five-year performance contracts that each charter school enters into with the state constitute the cornerstone of this new accountability. These contracts require charter schools to be explicit about their educational offerings and the specific performance benchmarks they commit to attain. If they stand and deliver, they are entitled to another five-year performance contract. If they fail, as these three schools did, they risk closure.

The potential of closure, virtually nonexistent among district schools, has the effect of keeping charter-school founders and staffs focused on results in a serious way. But this potential only has meaning if charter schools have reason to believe that the state’s chartering entities actually will pull the trigger. This latest round of closures will remove any lingering doubts.

The charter-school movement in New York, led by Bill Phillips, the president of the New York Charter Schools Association, has shown sound judgment in the face of these closures. Rather than taking the state university to task for closing some of his member schools, Mr. Phillips has backed the trustees’ tough decision, noting that the schools themselves dug their own holes. Says Mr. Phillips: “We mean it when we say that if schools don’t perform, there will be consequences. It’s not enough to just enroll the neediest kids.”

A few early lessons can be drawn from these renewal and non-renewal decisions by the state’s chartering entities. First, most charter schools are succeeding. In the past two years, 19 charter schools have come up for renewal by either the State University or the Board of Regents (16 this year and three last year). Only four have been closed.

Second, all three schools closed this year were very large schools managed by for-profit educational management organizations, or EMOs. As one of the individuals who advocated allowing EMOs to manage charter schools in New York when the law was being drafted, I find these results especially bracing. Not all EMO-managed schools are doing poorly – indeed, some are doing very well – but the overrepresentation of EMO-managed schools among the failing schools is a legitimate concern.

Third, success cannot be rushed. The state clearly made a huge mistake rushing through the adoption of three charter schools in 1999, following the law’s passage. At that point, neither the State Education Department nor the State University, the state’s two chartering entities, was adequately staffed to conduct the proper due diligence, nor did any of these three schools take enough planning time to do it right.

Last year, one of these schools was closed outright after amassing a record of almost total academic failure and financial ineptitude. One was extended for a probationary two years, and the third lost the authority to conduct classes in seventh and eighth grades, where it posted some of the lowest scores in the state.

In striking contrast, in Round Two, only three of the 14 SUNY-approved schools were closed. This dramatically reduced failure rate reflects the much higher standards imposed by the State University after its initial stumbles in 1999.

Fourth, the smaller, community-based nonprofit charter schools – the bulk of New York’s charter-school movement – have had a respectable track record.

Within this group, there is much diversity. Some do better than others, with Bronx Prep and KIPP perhaps the best in the state. The culture of innovation surrounding charter schools means these autonomous schools make a wide variety of academic and staffing decisions. And, not surprisingly, this variety of choices produces a variety of outcomes. Overall, most small charter schools are posting larger academic gains than their comparable local district schools.

Over time, we will learn even more because of the innovation that was allowed to flourish outside of stifling bureaucratic district structures. This knowledge of best practices will help charter schools improve further and hopefully help districts rethink some of their practices as well.

Although the decision this month by the State University to close the three failing charter schools was welcome, it is not without disruption. Thousands of children now have to choose new schools, and the local district schools – the primary alternative options – are not an enviable lot.

In the future, the state chartering entities should do a better job of anticipating failure and signaling to community groups that they are looking for additional charter school applications in areas where other schools likely are closing. Ideally, when one school closes, several more should be opening, welcoming the disrupted students. To make this proactive approach possible, the state cap on the overall number of charter schools should be lifted.

In sum, although the decision to close three large charter schools will cause some short-term disruptions, the Pataki-appointed State University trustees made the right decision. These closures – all deserved – send a strong message that charter schools will be held accountable, and hopefully will serve as an inspiration for the much larger universe of failing district schools (numbering in the hundreds) to get equally serious about results. The children of the state deserve no less.

Mr. Carroll, who played a leading role in the adoption of New York State’s charter-school law, is president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability based in Albany, N.Y.