A personal, nuanced view of charter schools

by David Safier

Commenter Susan gives as clear a presentation as I've read of the reason parents should have a number of public school options, including charter schools.

It's a complex issue for me. I am an ardent supporter of the public school system. I went to several parochial and public schools myself, so have a broader experience of the range of options than many do. I believe every child should get a quality, free public education. But the education appropriate for one child may not work well for another.

My strong theoretical support of public schools was challenged when I became a parent. My daughter had special needs. Her kindergarten year was the first year of charters in AZ. I was delighted and conflicted when her outstanding Montessori school got a charter and the tuition went away. The district school would not have been a good fit for her at that age. In 4th grade she moved to the wonderful local public school and stayed in district schools until 9th grade. Our local high school is very good, but huge. My child wanted an academically challenging and small school and found one where she was in a graduating class of 30. Of 13 years I had a school-aged child, 8 years were in charter schools and 5 in district schools.

I'm still a supporter of public education and abhor the diversion of tax dollars to private and parochial schools, but see the value of the choices offered by a few high quality charters. I would like to see more oversight of charters because they are not all good and honest business people. That's about as close to "anti-government" as I'm likely to get: the government should be monitoring all these charters and slowing the proliferation of bad charter schools.

Transparency. Oversight. Closer monitoring of charter schools. Call it what you like, that's what will improve the quality of charter schools. When taxpayer money is involved, parents, journalists, educators and legislators need to know what's going on behind the schoolhouse doors.