They have the power, through competition, to improve them. Charter schools are not exclusive closed-door bastions for the privileged. They must have open enrollment, like any public school. They will not require increased taxes. Simply allowing charter schools to be formed will create a new dynamic in our public school system, an alternative, competition, a necessary jolt to the monolithic educational establishment that is so difficult to move.
Charter schools can be one step in the right direction.
Initiative 729 is the way to get them. Initiative 695 passed easily last year, and its promoters probably realized that through their populist tax-cutting zeal they were ruining the state's plans to expand and improve the highway system and ease traffic congestion, something voters want and the state needs. Their remedy is Initiative 745, which mandates the state spend 90 percent of transportation funding on roads. This is supposed to fix the problem 695 created. If the state spent less money on wasteful transit systems and bike paths and such, and spent that money on highways, that would fix the problem.