Dear Editor:
At their best, charter schools bring innovation and competition to a local school system, and all signs are that the Imagine School at Evening Rose will be doing that for Tallahassee. (“Leon County’s newest charter school attracts crowd at grand opening,” Sept. 19.)
The co-founder of the Imagine Schools company, which runs 70 charter schools around the country, made a cogent point that ought to be stressed more often. The competition that charters bring to regular public schools is meant to be collegial and constructive. When changes in methods and curriculum prove effective in a charter school, other public schools should be free to adopt them. “Our goal is to make every school in the community better,” said Dennis Bakke.
That is a worthy goal. Competition in education should be welcomed, not feared and resisted.
Robert Holland ([email protected]) is Senior Fellow for Education Policy at The Heartland Institute.
Robert Holland, a journalist and author who has championed school choice throughout his career, is a Heartland Institute Senior Fellow addressing education policy.
