Guest Editorial - Hal Heiner (2/18/13) - WDRB 41 Louisville - News, Weather, Sports Community

Louisville's public schools are failing our children. Of the 41 Kentucky schools identified as persistently low achieving or failing, Louisville is home to nearly half - a situation so dire that Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday called it academic genocide. 

Louisville's problem is not uncommon for large cities but what makes it more difficult to turn them around is our unwillingness to implement new forms of education with a proven track record.  In every state in America except for eight, school districts have the ability to convert failing schools into public charter schools, but not in Kentucky! Public charter schools have the freedom to set new curriculum and give parents the ability to choose a school that fits the individual needs of their child.

But in Kentucky, the teachers union overwhelmingly opposes any effort to allow public charter schools. They make it all but impossible to replace an under-performing teacher, and their system places teachers with the least experience in our most troubled schools. 

Commissioner Holliday said the community should be outraged and I assure you many of us are.  It's time for all of us to take action and demand a change.  Call your state legislators; call your school board members, and tell them we can't lose another generation of children. 

Let's together give public charter schools a chance now.  

I'm Hal Heiner, and that's my Point of View .