GIVE CHARTER LEEWAY TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The issue of charter schools is under discussion in the hearing rooms of the Missouri Legislature. One bill being reviewed would designate who could sponsor a charter school, which would be, according to the bill's sponsor, free of most rules and regulations.

These rules and regulations are imposed by various state laws and by the state's own Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Charter schools, which would receive public funding, would be organized to try innovative ideas to improve graduation rates and upgrade basic learning skills.

Opponents of the charter schools point to failures at such attempts in other states. In Arizona, for example, only 25 percent of the charter schools are doing a good job, according to Gary Sharpe of the Missouri Council of School Administrators, which opposes the charter-school legislation.

But in a competitive education marketplace, some schools are likely to succeed, and other are likely to fail -- just like in the world of business. There isn't anything wrong with that model. In the end, the schools that fail would soon cease to be a drain on funding for public education. Currently, public schools that are doing a bad job continue to suck up state funding while they do a bad job, despite attempts to regulate and standardize virtually every aspect of the learning process.

Educators and legislators both need to look beyond the limits of public school districts as we know them. It should have occurred to them by now that the same freedom from cumbersome regulation that would give charter school an opportunity to succeed would also work for existing districts. Why not give them that same freedom to experiment and seek new paradigms?

School districts with poor performance records are too often seen as targets for alternative educational systems instead of victims of layers of needless bureaucracy. It would be a bold experiment to unfetter such a district except for one mandate: Try anything that works.

For example, the legislation being proposed would allow charter schools to have up to 25 percent of uncertified faculty. That means experts in various fields who do not have teaching credentials would be allowed to teach what they know better than anyone else: their life's work. It is only logical that those same experts could contribute enormously to the level of teaching in school districts that are bound up by accreditation rules which place more emphasis on following regulations than expertise in a particular areas of learning.

Instead of fighting charter-school legislation, professional educators should be working to get the same opportunities for their own districts as those being proposed for charter schools.