Charter Schools Flourish; In Other News, Earth Continues to Revolve Around Sun

To some opponents of charter schools, a proliferation of charters in your city is almost as bad as a natural disaster. So what happens when charter school growth follows a disaster in quick succession? Chaos, right? Not according to this editorial in the Times-Picayune (thanks to Edspresso for the link):

Just as encouraging is the finding that scores jumped from 2007 to 2008 within all school types, including campuses run by the Recovery School District, the Orleans Parish School Board and dozens of independently run charter schools.

[…] the quality of education New Orleans’ children are getting is improving. And for the first time, parents have numerous educational choices.

This diminishes the credibility of those who predict imminent doom and gloom with the opening of each new charter. As the editorial points out, it’s not possible to prove that charters directly caused the rising test scores and other positive developments in the New Orleans education market. But it conclusively shows that progress is possible even with a bunch of new charters in town — and charters don’t have to mean the end of life as we know it.