I’ve been asked about a charter school for my small town. Whitewater, Wisconsin may have a public charter school next year. The Whitewater Unified School District received a grant for planning, and may receive additional funding for a school. See, Whitewater charter school on track for 2011.
Charter schools typically have support across politics, and libertarians (for example) have long supported them.
It’s worth stating, though, the obvious: a merit of charter school depends on its charter. Until a community sees what the charter establishes, there’s not much to assess.
(Implicit from the school’s charter comes a necessary, second question: who will be eligible for attendance at the school, by what process? In a well-ordered community, a sound charter offers its own, reasonable answer — via a fair process — to this second question. In a politically disordered community, the second question receives an unjust answer, or an ambigious answer that invites bias. The greater the separation between these two questions, the greater the unfairness or ignorance of a proposal. The closer these two questions, the greater the fairness and soundness of a proposal.)
I have no doubt much thought has gone into all this. There will be answers forthcoming, and only then will one be able reasonably to say what a charter school would offer Whitewater.