Charters enroll 59% of all public-school students in the district, and two-thirds of K-8 kids. Their advent has been crucial to boosting district-wide performance on state tests, narrowing the racial “achievement gap.”

And it’s led to higher per-pupil spending in the regular public schools and smaller class sizes. This, while the charters get by on roughly half the per-student funding.

Charters, in short, may save public education in urban communities.

Nor are the charters “cherry picking” the most promising students, as critics routinely charge. //

The only people who don’t gain from charters’ growth are the teachers unions and the politicians they fund.