Charter Schools ....

Given our country's difficulty in educating kids, you'd think the formula for successful schools were as hard to understand as motivic cohomology or banach space.

But creating good schools isn't like solving esoteric mathematical equations. Indeed, most of us could tick-off the qualities of a good school without much forethought: dedicated teachers, high expectations, small class sizes, and individual attention.

So if creating good schools is so simple, why can't we do it?

Well, for starters, because it costs money. And money is one thing with which we Americans, and especially we Texans, do not like to part unless we get some immediate gratification. Education is definitely not immediate: its effects take a dozen years or more to realize.

So instead we settle for short-term solutions, fad ideas and "get tough" policies that lack the funding to have any real effect.

The No Child Left Behind Act is one such policy. On its face, its purpose is noble: to ensure that all children, regardless of their socio-economic status or skin color, be assured of receiving a solid education. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. To ensure that all schools provided such an education, NCLB ushered in a new era of high-stakes standardized testing. Schools that don't meet adequate yearly progress are shut down. Tough love, academic style.

The problem with NCLB isn't its mandate to increase student achievement -that is absolutely necessary if the U.S. has any hope of competing globally. Rather, the law didn't provide enough (or, in many cases, any) cash to turn its dreams into reality.

This has left a small but significant number of students in the dust, especially those who don't learn well, or simply can't keep up, in traditional public schools.

Many of these kids have turned to charter schools to educate them, according to a recent RAND report.

When charter schools first came on the scene in Texas back in 1995, lots of folks were concerned that they'd steal the best and the brightest kids away from the public schools. That hasn't happened, according to RAND. Instead, charter schools quickly became the last stop for kids whom traditional public schools failed-this, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Now, charter schools are taking the hit in disproportionate numbers.

Here in Texas, charter schools are four times as likely as their traditional public school counterparts to be rated "academically unacceptable", and only half as likely to be rated "recognized" or "exemplary".

Looking at those numbers, it would be easy to draw the conclusion that charter schools are letting kids -and taxpayers- down.

But what about traditional public schools? Why is it they are allowed to fail students? How can TEA -whose stated mission is "to provide leadership, guidance and resources to help schools meet the educational needs of all students"- calmly acknowledge that some of its schools simply don't meet those educational needs and that charter schools exist to fulfill them?

The reason, I think, is that we taxpayers are OK with shoving the burden onto someone else just as long as we don't have to pay for it. And while charter schools do receive government funding, they rely on grants and foundations to fill the monetary gap needed to serve the most hard-to-educate students.

Some charter schools -like KIPP and the Harmony Science Academy-have done this admirably, and in the process have exposed the excuses given by low-performing traditional public schools as feeble at best, racist at worst. Others, like the Austin Can! Academy and Austin Youthworks, struggle to serve student populations comprised of kids who have dropped out of multiple traditional schools, are engaged in gangs, are pregnant or have children, are addicted to drugs, or are homeless -sometimes all of the above.

We all know what it takes to build successful schools. It's about time we do it instead of continuing to shift the problems and the blame. Maybe if we do, our kids will grow up to understand motivic cohomology and banach space - or at least the importance of a good education.