News that charter school students lag about half a year behind their traditional public school counterparts, the main conclusion of an American Federation of Teachers study of the 2003 National Assessment of Education Progress, has prompted recriminations from charter school critics. But the findings don’t change the benefit of allowing parents to make choices about their children’s education.

The American Federation of Teachers conducted the study because a federal government report on charter schools was postponed at a time when “public schools across the nation face being reconstructed as a charter school because of [the No Child Left Behind Act’s] premise that doing so would improve their performance,” according to the federation. The assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Bella Rosenberg, told us, “The evidence is that on every dimension…charter schools under perform.” She criticized “charter school zealots” who make “magic-bullet claims that fly in the face of the evidence.” The solution, she said, is “serious accountability and reconsideration of the NCLB provision that puts students [from failing schools] into charter schools.”

Accountability is a good idea. That’s why charter schools, which are accountable for their performance, are so attractive to education reformers. The majority of charter schools were started in the last couple of years, according to Eric Hanushek, a research fellow in education policy at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “In the first year or two, many charter schools don’t perform really well compared to what they’ll do when they have some experience,” Mr. Hanushek told us. “These schools are little small companies like a Mom & Pop operation. If the majority of them are new, you can see why they could be behind. I think a lot of them will get better. We’re starting up a lot of new ventures, a certain number of the schools will fail. But no public school ever fails for not performing – charter schools do.”

If charter schools really are under serving their students, it would be better for them to close down – and they will. That’s the whole point of letting parents choose whether or not to enroll their children. No parent wants to keep his or her child in a school that doesn’t work. What is needed to improve America’s education system, including the public schools, is more choice. “I want to see competitive pressure on all schools and I want the ones that aren’t working, whether they’re charter schools or regular public schools, to fail, and the ones that are not failing should be oversubscribed,” says Mr. Hanushek.

Most current charter school students are from precisely those families who have chosen to remove them from a failing public school. On the one hand, this means that the parents won’t go easy on a charter school that fails to educate their children. On the other hand, it means that these students would be expected to perform – at least initially – at a lower academic level than those from public schools that aren’t facing punitive action from the federal government. A former assistant secretary of education, Chester Finn, calls the American Federation of Teachers study “premature.” “Let’s see how they do in 2004, 2005, 2006,” Mr. Finn told The New York Sun.

When “people start to look at the evidence, parents will get the information they need to make good choices for their kids,” Ms. Rosenberg told us. No one suggests that a charter school will always outperform every public school, and Ms. Rosenberg concedes that some charter schools are “very good” compared to the local public schools. It’s the ability of parents to weigh the evidence and choose the best option that strengthens education overall – by pushing school administrators to compete and improve.

At the moment, thousands of New York City children are stuck on waiting lists to get into charter schools. Although Ms. Rosenberg of the American Federation of Teachers blames this phenomenon on “hype,” the fact is that parents are no longer satisfied with leaving their children in failing public schools. They want choice – and charter schools help provide it.