We all know one thing for certain, competition creates stronger participants.
When a single entity, take airport security for instance, is the only option available to fulfill a required service, performance can sometimes lack.
We all know the stories of extra-long waits and lackadaisical TSA agents making our travel experience less than stellar.
But, we have no alternative. The TSA is the only option to providing security in our airports.
It was the same with door-to-door package delivery for many years until Federal Express and United Parcel Service gave some competition to the United States Postal Service.
Now each has to compete to provide the best service possible and they are all better for it.
This then would seem to be one of the benefits of a charter school. The new school would provide competition for the public schools in a given area where private schools, because of the cost of entry, can necessarily provide.
This option, were it to become viable, would provide competition for education dollars where there was none previously.
It’s easy to see why public school systems decry the formation of charter schools as they inevitably do impact the funding of the schools in the district.
There are currently five charter schools in the state and one in the Delta. Two have been rejected in Drew.
Ostensibly, charter schools should be an easy proposition. They would be populated with students whose parents take an active role in their education — a proven path to success.
But they haven’t been the boon so far many hope they would.
We at the Delta Democrat-Times are proponents of whatever solution there is to providing a top-quality education for every student in Washington County.
We believe educators, whose top priority is quality education, should be working for the same goal as well whether is be vouchers, charter schools, public schools, private schools or parochial schools.
A top-quality educational option in our community is the only remedy for our poor economic state and we must be behind whatever it takes to produce it.
