STOP THE PRESSES!!! I hope you're sitting down, but the NY Assembly, which was not long ago owned lock, stock and barrel by the teachers' unions, passed a decent – not great, but decent – bill yesterday lifting the charter cap in NYS! In a state like NY, this is nothing short of revolutionary and miraculous. I really have to pinch myself daily to see the wave of reform sweeping the country – and the key role played by a little guerilla organization, Democrats for Education Reform. HUGE kudos to its Executive Director, Joe Williams, who nicely summarizes what happened yesterday in NY in this WSJ article:

"It was classic Albany sausage-making: at the end of the day everybody got something," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, which spent millions of dollars pressing legislators to lift the charter-school cap without adding rules that it believed would strangle the charter industry.

…Once it becomes law, the plan "drastically improves New York's chances," said Mr. Williams, who has been watching similar moves among other states in the competition. "New York was far behind, but we made up a lot of ground today."

--------------------