Our Views: Charter schools deserve a chance

Gov. Robert Bentley has said it before, and he’s saying it again: Alabama needs charter schools.

The education establishment is broken, he says, and schoolchildren area suffering because of it, mainly in inner-city systems such as Birmingham.

Charter schools are not a panacea for all that ails public education, but they are a good start. These schools are publicly funded, but usually privately run — sometimes converted from private schools. They’re often run by a separate board outside the normal system. The plan varies from state to state.

As expected, the state public education monolith is howling, from the Alabama Education Association on down. They see charter schools as a threat to their existence. Experimental and untested, they argue.

If that’s the case, why are they working so well in post-Katrina New Orleans, where more than half the children attend charter schools? Or the Harlem Success Academy in New York City, where admission is so highly sought that they hold a lottery to pick incoming students?

No, charter schools are not perfect. There have been issues with accountability, finances and such, but those have been few and far between. And the test scores and other educational measurements of charter school students generally exceed — often by a great deal — those from traditional public schools.

Our state’s public education system is broken, and it’s beyond what just throwing more tax money at it would fix. The flaws are much more fundamental and deep-seated.

It’s high time to give charter schools a chance.