DFP Editorial: Legislators risk Michigan's children in charter gamble

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Editorial: Legislators risk Michigan's children in charter gamble
Dec. 1, 2011 | Comments

The Michigan Legislature appears determined to prove that a wide-open school market will rocket the state's students to the head of the national class. But the experiment it is trying to inflict on children and their parents is ill-conceived and dangerous.

On Wednesday, the House Education Committee passed, with little change, a Senate plan to eliminate all caps on the number of charter schools in the state. The bill also removes the few remaining geographic restrictions, meaning any university or community college can authorize a school anywhere in the state.

Charter schools have a place in education, but the initial experiment, with a tight cap, was intended to spur innovative schools that offered choices in curriculum or instructional techniques, or perhaps focused on a specific theme, such as the arts or sciences. Instead, with rare exceptions, Michigan has gotten run-of-the-mill schools that perform about the same as comparable facilities in their home districts.

No one can dispute that poorly performing district schools are allowed to continue too long without intervention. But without firm benchmarks for success, charter schools can also drag out the inevitable for years -- failing students and parents who had faith in them even as they send profits out of state. And there is nothing to stop a company that has performed poorly from opening more schools.

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http://www.freep.com/article/20111201/OPINION01/112010383/Editorial-Legislators-risk-Michigan-s-children-charter-gamble?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p