They are helping to strengthen public education. But charter schools are also attractive to groups that seek to replace public schools with private alternatives. In states from California to Massachusetts, when these groups have failed to pass tuition-voucher bills, they have shifted their energies to passing charter school laws. The answer lies in their peculiarly permissive notion of what a charter school is. For advocates of private alternatives to public schools, these permissive charter laws are a strategic masterstroke.
Christians can enjoy the control they exercise in charter schools even as they push for vouchers.
And that's not the only problem with permissive charter laws. They also allow anyone to found a charter school, including people without previous experience as teachers or school administrators. They allow charter schools to hire uncertified teachers and to maintain restrictive admissions policies. And, in a number of states, charter laws fail to provide for even the most rudimentary public oversight and accountability. For example, in Mesa, Ariz., a private Christian school converted to public charter status this year but continues to teach creationism in its science classes.