Charter Schools Bring Competition to Education

An often overlooked way to improve our troubled education system is to increase the number of and funding for charter schools. These independent schools are designed to provide tuition-free public education for students and their parents, liberate teachers and administrators from red tape, and allow more innovation in the classroom. In exchange for this flexibility, charter schools accept high accountability, knowing that they can be closed if they fail to live up to their promises.

 

Today, charter schools serve 1.2 million students in 40 states and the District of Colombia, with many more families clamoring for their children to be admitted. Despite this success, they still face many challenges, including underfunding, legal hurdles that keep schools from opening, uneven quality, and political opposition. How can we turn this situation around? A new report from the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce (ICW) explains how.

 

ICW makes the case for business support of outstanding charter schools and suggests that the private sector can help by (1) building a robust supply of high-quality new schools in the communities that need them, (2) providing some of the human talent necessary to operate the schools, (3) addressing some of the critical operational challenges the schools face, (4) helping charter schools define and improve quality standards, and (5) advocating for charter-friendly public policies with state and local lawmakers.

 

Despite its fundamental importance to our society, we’ve lost our way on education. The statistics don’t lie: 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. Seventy percent of eighth graders cannot read at grade level. Fewer than 10 out of every 100 low-income students will ultimately graduate from college. And if that’s not enough, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2008–2009 ranked the quality of primary education in such countries as Estonia (11th), Tunisia (21st), and Slovenia (24th) ahead of the United States (25th). Something must be done to reverse this trend.

 

Businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to hire the human talent required for success in a competitive global economy. Too many of our public schools are producing students who are unprepared for higher education or jobs in the 21st century workforce. Failure to reform our public schools, many of which are good, will result in lost jobs, lost opportunity, and economic stagnation. Introducing competition into public education will go a long way toward reforming the system. And charter schools, working alongside business, can lead the way.

 

To read the report or to learn more, please visit: www.uschamber.com/icw.