North Carolinians are demanding more choices in where to send their children to school, and there is no better evidence that the huge number of letters of intent submitted last week by those who want to open public charter schools. Carolina Journal’s Dan Way reports on what’s ahead.

Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, a Raleigh-based school-choice advocacy organization, said with 30,000 North Carolina families on charter school waiting lists, he was not surprised to see 154 letters of intent. 

“This is proof that that demand and desire is there,” he said.

However, he cautioned: “When they open up that application packet and see what’s in it, trust me, you will not have 154 applications coming in. It’s hard work, and there will be some, I’m sure, that will pull off to the side of the road and take a break.”

Simply achieving high numbers is not the goal, he said. 

“Though we are unabashedly supportive of quality parental choice,” Allison said, “we will be an organization on the front line advocating just as fervently for quality,” and closing ill-equipped and underperforming charter schools.

And that is key: closing down those schools that trap children in failing bureaucracies, whether they are public charter or traditional public schools.