The Education Market

The Wall Street Journal discusses the problems that the Harlem Day Charter School has had. Unlike many charter schools, it has lagging student test scores compared the population from which it draws.

Its charter is up for renewal this year, and the school's Chairman of the Board admits it won't be renewed due to their failures. Instead, the school has proposed that another successful charter school organization, Democracy Prep Public Schools, take over the school and have the charter renewed under their leadership.

While defenders of the status quo in education will use Harlem Day's failures as evidence against charter schools - notwithstanding the strong overall performance of charter schools - in fact their failure and resulting risk of being closed demonstrates another advantage charter schools have over regular public schools: they can be closed for failure due to the need to have their charter renewed every five years.

If public schools faced such a fate, they would be motivated to take even radical steps to avoid closure - and there are few things more radical than Harlem Day's proposal for its administration to be replaced by a new organization.

The result would be improved education for children in failing schools.