January 19th.  That’s the deadline for state legislative action on key elements of New York’s Race to the Top application.

The New York State Board of Regents recently gave approval to an impressive educational-reform plan developed by Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and State Education Commissioner David Steiner.

The Regents plan includes dozens of measures that would raise the cap on charter schools, overhaul teacher-preparation programs, create merit pay for teachers, institute a new data system to track student and teacher performance, and close failing schools.  (See my recent Op-Ed column in the New York Post.)

Although much of what the Regents approved requires no legislative action, some major items do, including a lift in the state’s charter-school cap, reworking the state law that governs the removal process for bad teachers, and replacing the state’s “data firewall” with a new approach that allows student results to be a central factor in evaluating teachers.

Under the reviewer guidelines for the Race to the Top program, actions taken by state legislatures after January 19th will not count for “round one” applications.  And no one knows how much money will be left for the “round two” applications filed in June 2010.  Thus, it is crucial for New York’s state legislature to act before January 19th.

If legislative approval is secured, New York would be in a highly competitive position relative to other key states.  If not, New York will be sunk.

The price tag for inaction will be from $350 million to $700 million in lost federal funds.

This loss would come on top of Governor Paterson’s school-aid cut (via an illegal withholding of 10 percent of state aid to schools), and a scheduled dropoff in stimulus dollars of $2 billion according to estimates by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Amid all of this, the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) has made the calculation that they would rather the state lose much needed Race to the Top dollars – even in the midst of the state’s severe fiscal crisis – than be forced to reconsider its long-held opposition to many of the items approved by the Regents.

Right now, however, the real obstacle is not the teachers union, but rather political inertia and dysfunction.

The Governor, after indicating he would unveil a Race to the Top bill last week, instead simply endorsed a lift of the charter-school cap but did nothing to actually advance that outcome.

Similarly, the Senate Democratic leadership favors lifting the charter-school cap, but to date has only provided rhetorical support – not legislative action on the Senate Floor.

The Governor is not set to deliver his State of the State Message until Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 – a mere 13 days before January 19th.  Action during that short 13-day window will require discussions to begin in earnest now.

Time – like the state’s cash balance – is running out.