As a result, parents may vote against the charter experiment, with the likely result that the schools will be closed rather than handed to new administrators. Charter schools' uneasy balancing act between the public and private sectors also causes problems. While independent groups and private companies often run the schools, they're technically subject to the same deluge of federal and state regulations as the traditional peddlers of the three Rs. That can result in such bizarre impasses as the closed doors at the United Charter School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The feds insist that the United Charter School stay closed rather than offer options to a student body with too dusky a complexion.
Regulations requiring special treatment for kids with disabilities also offer headaches.
Such challenges have led some fans of charter schools to view their chosen tools of reform not as replacements for traditional public schools, but as spurs to innovation. Successful charter schools will make the traditional institutions look bad by comparison, the theory goes, and so drag educators kicking and screaming into the competitive modern world. The report's authors suggest that school administrators are better at protecting their fiefdoms than they are at adopting new ideas. By and large, charter schools seem to offer a better quality of readin' 'ritin' and 'rithmetic than Brand X schools have been able to sell. But regulatory tangles and institutional resistance pose pretty high barriers to reforming public education from the inside.