Twelve years ago a Republican Congress and a Democrat president
came together in a bipartisan fashion and passed one of the
nation’s strongest charter school laws for the Washington, D.C.,
school system. The charter schools are publicly funded on a per-
pupil basis and must accept any student who applies (if there
are more applicants than spaces, a lottery system decides who
the school can take). While each school must take everyone, they
are also free to set their own rules for expelling students.
More importantly, the charter schools are free from union
contracts, so they have the freedom to decide who the hire and
fire. Today there are 60 charter schools on 92 campuses
educating more than 26,000 students. And as The Washington Post
reports: “Students in the District’s charter schools have opened
a solid academic lead over those in its traditional public
schools. … Charters have been particularly successful with low-
income children, who make up two-thirds of D.C. public school
students.” As President-elect B