The latest scheme to siphon public dollars into private education has dropped with a notable thud in New York City. Charter colleges, an odd application of the charter school idea, has floated and flopped in Colorado, Massachusetts and Virginia. On Oct. 23, the conservative think tank Change-NY invited interested parties from the State and City University of New York systems to attend a forum on the idea. The final analysis: This show won't be going on the road.

The idea first surfaced in Massachusetts in 1997 when Stanley Koplik, chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, proposed it as a way to get around tenure and collective bargaining. A paper published by the Massachusetts-based Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, "Charter Colleges: Balancing Freedom and Accountability," defines the concept. Charter colleges are "publicly owned institutions managed independent of most procedural controls imposed by state bureaucracies and higher education systems." They are not new institutions, but existing ones given license to innovate once they are freed from the pesky regulations governing most public institutions. Koplik's idea died for lack of public and political support.

At the forum, which was held at the University Club in Manhattan, an audience of 100 faculty and administrators heard from speakers who ranged from supportive to cool on the idea. In turn, Change-NY and trustees heard much opposition from the audience, which included many CUNY faculty senate and union members. Speaking of Change-NY and the university trustees who put on the conference, Professional Staff Congress/AFT president Barbara Bowen warned: "Their conference should be seen for what it is: an attempt to legitimate themselves as academic policymakers when their real purpose is to divert public money from public control."

In a pre-conference news story in the New York Times, CUNY board trustee Herman Badillo and chancellor Matthew Goldstein went on record as being opposed to the idea. Neither New York's mayor nor its governor--who depended on Change-NY support to get elected--would buy in. At the conference, the state comptroller's office noted that state law already provides public universities with the freedoms that charter college proponents say they seek.

Among those who weighed in with support was activist SUNY trustee Candace de Russy, who expressed longing for a charter college proposal modeled on the St. John's College Great Books curriculum. Another obvious fan was luncheon speaker Benno Schmidt who is chairman of the Edison Schools, a for-profit school management company, and vice chair of the CUNY board of trustees.

Proponents are unlikely to find advocates in the New York Legislature, says one elected official. In a letter he fired off to SUNY chancellor Robert King before the conference, state Rep. Edward Sullivan, chair of the Committee on Higher Education, said the idea was "lunatic" and "nothing less than a plan to steal a college from the people who own it.

"If there are those who would like to found a college outside of SUNY or CUNY, who in the world is stopping them? Do it," he said. "Of course it will take hard work, imagination and perseverance--qualities not evident in the quick-fix notion of chartering an already existing college."