Amazingly, three of California’s major gubernatorial candidates agree on one thing – we need more charter schools.

Steve Poizner, who co-founded the California Charter Schools Association in 2003, wants to create local charter school districts. Meg Whitman campaigns on a promise to lift the cap on the number of licensed charter schools permitted. Finally, recently announced candidate, Attorney General Jerry Brown, when serving as Mayor Brown, helped establish the Oakland Military Institute, a college prep military-style program that claims to place twice as many students in higher learning programs than nearby public schools.

California was the second state to pass a charter school law in 1992. Currently, nearly every state permits charter schools to co-exist with public schools. Conservatives like charter schools because they are founded on a model of accountability, tend to be exempt from collective bargaining laws, represent a model of privatizing a traditional government function, and offer competition and choice to the public system.

Liberals like charter schools because they frequently offer specialized programming directed towards targeted populations and often allow for more direct community participation. For example, higher rates of Black and Latino students attend charter schools than their local public schools.

Given the political weight the gubernatorial candidates have thrown behind the charter schools, that public perception is