Charter Schools Defined

Terrence O. Moore is the principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools, the number one ranked public school in Colorado and has written a wonder piece on charter schols, available at Edspresso. In addition to defining charter schools and debunking some of hte common myths and misunderstanding about charters, Moore discusses choice and how choice holds schools accountable in ways that traditional public schools are not held accountable.

Opponents of charter schools must oppose them on one of these principles: their independence, their public funding and openness to the public, their reliance upon choice, or their accountability. Realize that these are extremely compelling, indeed extremely American, principles to oppose. If we study the arguments of these opponents, we shall find that their criticism boils down to their fear of competition and to charter schools’ receiving public funding based on the number of students they have. In short, these critics are monopolists. They want regular public schools protected from competition at all costs. I suppose there is an argument for monopoly, but we must wonder whether critics of monopoly would practice what they preach in other matters in which we take choice for granted. Do the critics of charter schools wish to be forced to buy Fords simply because Ford has fallen on hard times and could use the business or be required to buy HP computers though they might prefer Apple or Dell? If they go to church, do they wish to pay tithes to the church located closest to their house, though it is Catholic and they are Protestants? What if they do not go to church? If they live in Fort Collins, Colorado would they agree in all cases to send their children to C.S.U. and not to U.N.C. or to Colorado College or to The Citadel or to M.I.T.? Would these public-school apologists as parents agree to have their children go only to the closest pediatrician or dentist? Might they agree to being Denver Broncos fans even if they grew up in Pittsburgh or Dallas?

Choice is as American as apple pie in most everything except for schools. Indeed, Americans who do not like apple pie can always eat cherry or rhubarb without being thought un-American. Parents who send their children to charter schools, on the other hand, are often looked upon as some kind of traitors. Americans have accomplished wonders to make themselves the freest people who have ever lived, but in this one domain, the one that philosophers such as Plato considered the most important, they are substantially unfree, both in their practice and their thinking. Consequently, charter schools constitute a “rebirth of freedom” in an important human endeavor, the formation of children’s minds and souls, that has remained unfree for far too long.

So choice, for opponents of charters, is okay, so long as it is a choice defined by them.