Joe Williams with an op ed in the NY Daily News giving well-deserved kudos to Dems in the NY Senate and calling on them to finish the job:

After losing out in round one, New York now has another shot at winning $700 million in federal education funding through the Race to the Top competition - thanks in large part to the Senate Democrats in Albany.

And frankly, had it not been for the leadership of Senate Majority Leader John Sampson and his fellow senators, there's no way New York would even still be in the race for federal dollars.

Now we just have to finish the job.

It may come as a shock to any New Yorker who's read a newspaper in the last year that the Senate Democrats have us this close to winning the federal money (think: the embarrassing Senate "coup" or the current budget stalemate), but the truth is that the Senate stood up for the state's students and pushed through reforms that were widely unpopular. Unpopular with whom? Entrenched special interests, particularly the teachers unions (primarily, the city's United Federation of Teachers and the New York State United Teachers).

Moreover, they demonstrated that Democrats in New York can be the primary drivers of education reform - something Republicans typically lay claim to.

For that, again, they deserve tremendous credit.

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