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Setting aside my personal feelings about Murry’s other work, I wish you had actually engage the substance of his argument here: parents have the right to choose the education that is best for their kids, and this is an inherent good.

You are correct that this isn’t the argument most charter supporters make. It is different, and deserves to be evaluated differently.

Thanks for this thoughtful response to one of the most preposterous columns I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I thought the Murray column was just more of the usual — charter advocates blast public schools over their test scores, and then when the charter schools don’t produce better test scores, they’re suddenly all “test scores are meaningless — who cares about test scores?” But your view adds a new dimension.

Murray’s skepticism about standardized test scores may contradict someone else’s praise of test scores, but that doesn’t equal hypocrisy — charges of hypocrisy make sense only regarding specific individuals.  

Standardized test scores aren’t an either/or (like Murray seems to think they are), or the final arbiter of student or school achievement.

They are a hugely important starting point, one piece of a large assessment puzzle. Discount them at the system’s peril, and overemphasize them to all of our doom.

Mr. Buck,

It’s a matter of intellectual consistency. There is a set of arguments upon which the policy of charter school is primarily based, and it has not included this sort of “the government set up MORE choices for everyone” argument.

Yes, there are many who believe that choice is good, in and of itself. One of the arguments in favor of charter schools is that middle- and upper-class families can afford to choose where to send their kids to school, either with private schooling or by moving to another district, whereas working- and lower-class families cannot.. The statistics that Prof. Pallas cites suggest that this is not a problem in Frederick County. Long existing avenue for choice — avenues whose existence is used by many to justify charters — are available to this population.

Another major argument in favor of charter schools is that there are certain populations that our public schools serve rather poorly, both historically and currently. This include minority and low SES families. But Prof. Pallas points out that Frederick County has a low poverty rate, a high average income and a relatively small minority population. This is not full of underserved populations.

Clearly there are those who believe that charter schools are good — if not by definition better than traditioanl public school — across the board. I think that you might be one of them. There are others who are in all circumstances opposed to them. But most people — including most policy-makers — are a bit less dogmatic about it. They don’t have strong opinions here and are differently swayed by different arguments. They look at historically underservered population who lack the options of which others have long taken advantage and turn to charter schools as a response.

Think about what John Roberts said of arguing in front of the Supreme Court. He would craft his entire presentation to the swing voter(s) he needed to win his case, virtually ignoring those he already had and those he knew he could never get. Mr. Murray’s argument might work for you — in the absense of the context of his other writings, of course — but it does not work for those who are not yet on his side and might be convincable. (Of course, it won’t work with the hard core opponents to charter schools, but likely nothing would.)

As for his and your preference that some families be able to opt out of traditional public schools to build a more rigorous curriculum elsewhere: I think this misses part of the public aspect of public schools. That is, they should be (at least partially) devoted to the public good, as joint project of the community. They depend on pressure from the public for various forms of accountbaility (moral, political, etc.). When those who might be able to pressure them to be better (e.g. with a more rigorous curriculum) can go elsewhere, they walk away from their obligations to their fellows in their own communities. I understand that that many people do not see that as a problem, but it strikes me as a betrayal of one of the most fundamental building blocks of American values, one upon which liberal AND conservatives have long agreed.