Charter school choice alone will not suffice

John Kirtley, chairman of Step Up for Students, recently made the case that charter school choice without private school choice is a mistake, the Council for American Private Education reports.

His first objection to a “charter only” strategy is on moral grounds. Students in substandard public schools have high-performing private schools available right now in their neighborhoods and should not have to postpone a quality education hoping that someday a charter school might appear. The need is now, and parents don’t have time to
wait lest their children be lost. “It’s just morally wrong,” said Kirtley.

A second reason that “charters alone” is a poor strategy is that “the competition effect is much more robust if you have more schools in the mix, including private schools.”