Opinion

Charter challenge

There’s trouble brewing for charter schools — and it’s up to Gov. Cuomo to make things right.

When SUNY Chairman Carl McCall tapped Prof. Ken O’Brien to run the university panel that OKs charters, he put a member of New York’s largest teachers union in charge.

Think henhouse-and-fox.

O’Brien’s a member of SUNY’s faculty union, United University Professions — the college-level branch of New York State United Teachers, which represents K-12 teachers. And NYSUT despises charters.

No wonder the charter-school movement is nervous.

But how does Cuomo figure in this?

He hired McCall, the ex-state comptroller he briefly faced in the ’02 race for governor.

Now, McCall was never a huge charter-lover. But his choice of someone from a virulently anti-charter union to run the very group that OKs charters — SUNY’s Education, College Readiness and Success Committee — takes the game to a new level.

Already, O’Brien says he won’t “let charters . . . dominate our committee agenda.” Not hard to figure out what that means.

Charter schools — public schools that aren’t run by local school boards and whose staffs are generally not unionized — have proven themselves to be highly effective alternatives to traditional schools. Early studies show far better results among New York’s charter students.

Parents love ’em.

And teachers unions hate ’em: They make traditional schools look bad — leading the unions to do everything they can to slow charter growth.

Until now, SUNY has been viewed as a national model among charter-school “authorizers” — certainly better than the Board of Regents, from whom charter operators can also seek approval.

McCall assured The Post that the board wouldn’t do anything to change things: “We’re going to support charters,” he says. “We’re trying to do the right thing.”

But with O’Brien running the show, charter operators fear the good faith they’ve seen will dry up, that approvals and needed reforms will slow.

That would be disastrous: New York needs new charter schools up and running quickly just to meet current demand.

The good news: There’s an open trustee seat that Cuomo must fill, creating an ideal opportunity for him to convince McCall to replace O’Brien with a charter champion.

Until that happens, though, the future of charters in New York will be in jeopardy.