“Give charters a chance in Mississippi”
Editorial
Commercial Appeal
December 11, 2012

The battle over new legislation to make it easier to create charter schools in Mississippi may be rejoined when the Legislature reconvenes next year.

For the future of the state’s children, legislators should allow charters. Charters are not a panacea for improving student proficiency in core subjects, but when structured right they have helped children achieve academically. Charters generally are exempted from most provisions enforced on regular schools, allowing them to use innovative teaching methods.

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and legislators saw the impact charters can have on students during a recent tour of the KIPP school in Helena, Ark. They left impressed. KIPP: Memphis Collegiate Schools is among charter schools in Memphis that are helping students achieve academically.

Legislators on both sides of the political aisle have expressed the same reservations about charters that have been expressed elsewhere: They take financial resources from cash-strapped school districts. They cherry pick the best students. They diminish local control. They do not work any better than regular schools.

School districts like DeSoto County, where students are performing well, have a hard time seeing how charters can do better. We will give them that point. But about 30 percent of Mississippi’s school districts are failing or at risk of failing. Children at those schools deserve a chance for a better education.

Charter schools would provide those students with another tool to get that chance.