SACRAMENTO, CA - Last month, California's Legislative Analyst (LAO), the state's nonpartisan fiscal and policy advisor, issued "Assessing California's Charter Schools.'' This report should lead legislators to strengthen and expand the state's charter option, now entering its second decade.

Charter schools are deregulated public schools that gain freedom from many regulations in exchange for meeting the goals of their founding charter.

According to the Legislative Analyst these schools are a "viable reform strategy - enhancing families' choices, encouraging parental involvement, increasing teacher satisfaction, enhancing principals' control over school-site decision making, and broadening curriculum without sacrificing time spent on core subjects.''

Those are all desirable outcomes in a state where about half of even the best students need remedial math and English their first year in the Cal State system of universities. Charters schools are cost effective, and they match the output of traditional public schools with less state and categorical funding.

Approximately one third of all charter schools are "non-classroom based.'' This means that charter schools help to alleviate the facilities problem, outlined in the new PRI study No Place to Learn: California's School Facilities Crisis. Nothing in the California constitution dictates that learning must take place on elaborately landscaped campuses. As noted educator Marva Collins has noted, buildings do not teach children.

Charter schools, the LAO found, are less likely to report using a salary schedule to determine teacher pay. They are also "significantly less likely'' (32 percent versus 83 percent in the broader system) to engage in collective bargaining agreements with teacher unions. This is why teacher unions hate charter schools. They want teachers to be assigned by seniority, and don't like the idea of principals matching teachers with student needs.

Teachers, however, are more involved in decision making at charters, participate in more professional development, and believe that they are treated with greater respect. Both teachers and principals work an average of five more days per year than their counterparts in matched traditional public schools.

The LAO also found that 'start-up'' charter schools are more common than conversion arrangements. This would seem to indication that innovation and motivation are alive and well on the local level, along with dissatisfaction with the status quo.

The LAO study has other facts worthy of attention but one must keep the bigger picture in mind. An economic analogy may help. During an economic downturn, politicians promote special 'enterprise zones,'' with lower regulations and taxes. If this works in special areas, why not make the whole economy an enterprise zone?

Charter schools give parents and students a measure of choice in education and as studies show, this has worked for their benefit. Why not expand the choice zone to the entire system? There is certainly room to grow.

In California, charter schools serve only a paltry 2.2 percent of the entire K-12 enrollment. That means not enough students are benefiting from what the LAO calls a viable reform that enhances families' choice.

Legislators should make it easier to start charter schools and work toward full educational choice for all. That's a basic freedom every child deserves.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is editorial director at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He can be reached via email at klbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.