This is an informative story of a charter school looking for a home and a "cash strapped" public school apparently blocking them from buying an empty school building to avoid competition. The question arises: Is it appropriate for public schools to adopt a corporate world position, that appears to go against their primary mission to educate. This story could have benefitted from examples of detriment caused to public schools and students by the creation of charter schools in school district. Absent this information we are left to feel empathy toward the charter school and frustration with the public school. This may be the appropriate reaction, but I'm not 100% confident that it is fair.

This article describes the actions of the Saint Louis school district to prevent charter schools from using shuttered school buildings. It presents the basic facts, is pretty clearly favorable to charter schools but doesn't really discuss the overarching public vs charter shool issues.

An interesting example of a core issue to the public school vs. charter school debate in Missouri: real estate. Its 100-year-old deed restriction presents such an extreme case, I'd like to read more about if this will remain a law on the books. The article is definitely pro-charter school in tone, and adding more voices from the public school board, administrators and teachers would provide needed balance.