Everywhere you turn these days -- "Oprah," Time magazine, the nightly news -- someone is talking about education reform. The subject of charter schools is especially hot because of the national release this week of "Waiting for Superman," the heart-wrenching documentary by Davis Guggenheim, director of "An Inconvenient Truth." It follows five children hoping to win a lottery for admission to a top-notch charter school.

Among the leaders of San Jose's East Side Union High School District, however, there seems to be little recognition of the intense demand for high-quality charter schools. Last week, its board approved one application from Redwood City's Summit Public Schools -- which is featured in the new film -- to open a 400-student school, but it inexplicably failed to approve a second identical application on a 2-2 vote, apparently grasping at a questionable interpretation of state charter law.

Summit's expected appeal to the county board of education seems likely to succeed, so the second school