A little bit of clarity about what charters and mayoral academies are all about could help our state in ways beyond education. This paragraph from an article about Cranston Mayor Allan Fung’s interest in starting one of the latter puts it succinctly:

Like other charter schools, [Democracy Prep Blackstone Academy, in Cumberland] operates outside traditional rules and regulations, but it is free even from some rules that other charter schools must follow, such as those on prevailing wages.

State and federal mandates and oppressive union contracts are strangling our education system to line the pockets and stroke the vanity of adults. The very same factors are strangling our economy. Changing that reality could transform Rhode Island with astonishing speed.