You lament that Idaho's charter schools are funded at only 60-70 percent of the per-pupil cost of the state's traditional public schools and suggest their funding be raised toward parity ("New Idaho charter rules a start"). You're right, but you miss the important example set by all charter schools when they operate successfully at a cost far less than their traditional public counterparts.
Comparable private schools operate at between 60 and 65 percent of the cost of the traditional public schools. Similarly, schools abroad also operate at a cost of 65-70 percent of those in the U.S. The public schools' cost bloat exposed by this evidence is the ignored elephant in the corner of the education establishment.
When charter schools operate successfully at far less cost, they, too, expose this cost bloat. That is the real reason the establishment opposes their creation, limits their growth, and hobbles them with regulations. When charter schools become funded on parity with the traditional public schools, they will have become part of the public education problem, rather than a solution to it.
Idaho's charter schools are doing very well, thank you, while operating at a cost far less than the public schools. Too bad others in the U.S. are not doing the same.
John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, University of Idaho
Senior Fellow, The Commonwealth Foundation
