PITTSBURGH – Conventional wisdom says that allowing charter schools to compete with traditional schools for students and resources will result in the destruction of public education.

Those assumptions are being proven wrong by the renaissance underway in Pittsburgh Public Schools, caused – in part – by the district’s 31 area charter school competitors. Instead of being the bane of PPS’s existence, the charter schools are spurring the district into becoming leaner, more efficient and, ultimately, more effective for students.

Pittsburgh school officals understand that the “landscape has changed and that we need to be more competitive in the new world,” Lisa Fischetti, chief of staff and external affairs for Pittsburgh Public Schools, wrote in an email to EAG.

“ … [T]he increasing array of other educational options (e.g. charter schools, cyber charter schools, and potentially vouchers) did help to move the needle in terms of our culture shift,” wrote Fischetti.

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Now, more families in America have options such as charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, homeschooling, online learning, attending school in another district, and more.

It appears that the Mississippi Legislature is finally poised to allow the creation of charter schools – and by that, I mean real charter schools, not the counterfeit kind that exists in our current law.

But charter schools ought to be only the starting point for expanding options for parents in Mississippi. Our state Constitution won’t allow vouchers at this point, but other options are available, especially for parents who can’t afford private schools or can’t afford to move to a different district or who can’t home school.

Let’s make 2012 “The Year of School Choice” in Mississippi.

Opponents point to studies that show charter schools are no better than regular schools.

Supporters want a more permissive law. But lawmakers will have to decide whether only the state will grant charters or whether others will also be able to create such schools. Also to be decided when the Legislature convenes next week: whether to only convert failing schools or allow new charter schools to be founded.

For many of the people most involved in the debate over charter schools, the question is not whether Mississippi will get a new charter school law, but what the law will look like.

The assumption is that Republicans, having gained control of both houses of the Legislature and holding the governor’s office, will loosen the state’s current law, which supporters of nontraditional schools deride for its restrictions.

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Mississippi’s public schools, based on the accountability levels released last week, are showing some improvement.

Across the board, there were more good schools this year than the year before, and fewer substandard ones.

Despite that improvement, there are still hundreds of schools in this state that are not cutting it. More than four in 10 of the public schools are rated less than successful, and almost one in five are failing or close to it.

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CLARKSDALE — Riding around the city where he makes a living as an attorney, businessman and entrepreneur, Bill Luckett mentions the college term paper he wrote about Mississippi’s low educational ranking back in 1968 and laments that the state’s ranking “hasn’t risen much in the 40-year interim.”

In Coahoma County, the Coahoma County School District is rated as “failing” by the state. The Clarksdale Municipal School District is rated as “at risk of failing” along with the Coahoma County Agricultural High School.

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MISSISSIPPI AND ALABMA legislators ought to pay a visit to Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy. Urban Prep Academy for Young Men is a public high school where all the students achieve above-average academic results. But the school isn’t located in a quiet, rural Lake Wobegon-like setting where all the children are above average, socio-economically speaking.

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HATTIESBURG, MS (WDAM) - A bill that would allow for the creation of charter schools in Mississippi and establish a separate program for failing school districts is awaiting the governor’s signature.

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Charter schools are not going to miraculously turn around every failing school in Mississippi.

Certainly, though, they are an innovation worth trying, since very little else has seemed to work in those schools which have proven themselves chronically unable to deliver a basic education to their students.

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Mississippi lawmakers are sending a charter school bill to Gov. Haley Barbour.

But his spokesperson says he hasn’t decided if he’s going to sign it.

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Lawmakers sent a watered-down charter school bill to the governor among a host of legislation and headed home for a short hiatus with plans to return April 20 for budget talks.

The charter school bill would allow those with children in chronically underperforming schools to petition the Department of Education for a restructuring.

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