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Eliot Spitzer, champion of school choice?

In an interview, Democrat Eliot Spitzer explained his education policy if he is elected governor of New York (hat tip to The Chalkboard):

How would you improve the city schools, and how would you invest the money that may come as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit against the state?

I believe in competition, I believe in accountability, I believe in transparency. We need to see a significant infusion of money, but we have to pair it with increased charter schools, giving principals authority. We have to make sure we address the issue of universal pre-K and early literacy. We need to give teachers incentives to teach at low-performing schools. We have to begin to think about pay-for-performance.

If we don’t pair the resolution of this litigation with an effort to change the delivery system, then we will have missed an opportunity.

Funding the schools at the level laid out in the CFE case will cost billions of dollars. Where will the money come from?

I put on the table an $11 billion savings plan in terms of the current state budget. This is something that Controller Alan Hevesi and I have worked over carefully. Those numbers are conservative and they are real. That pays for a property tax cut as well as what we begin to do in education. There will be no tax increase. Over four years we can get to this.

A New York Democrat endorsing merit pay and choice?  No wonder it got Joe’s attention.  Two ways to look at this…

Glass half empty: This gesture is conveniently mated to an eduspending boost and a tax cut.  Is he merely tacking to the center leading into the election?  And then there’s the little matter of the UFT and NYSUT, so my gut tells me he can expect a trip behind the union woodshed any minute now.  (If it were New Jersey, they would just settle it the Tony Soprano way and take it out of his kneecaps.) 

Glass half full: Three Democratic governors have signed school choice legislation this year.  And in the most recent case, Arizona’s Janet Napolitano signed two new voucher programs into law over the strenuous objections of the NEA-affiliated Arizona Education Association, essentially telling the union to "jump in a lake".  In sum: is it possible the teachers’ union hammerlock on Democrats is slipping?

(For context on the CFE lawsuit, go to this Wikipedia entry or this rather disparaging City Journal account.)

CORRECTION: It has been brought to my attention that four Democratic governors have signed two-thirds of all the school choice legislation so far this year.  Furthermore, the new legislation they’ve signed represents nearly all the new funding for school choice in 2006 (around $87 million).   So the answer to my question could very well be "yes".