If Maine is ever going to give char-ter schools a chance, LD 1640, an amended, limited, permission-driven document, is the best way for all sides to determine how the schools would work and what their effect would be on public schools. The state Senate, expected to consider this legislation today, should support it and allow this 10-year pilot project to proceed.

The reasons for opposition to charter schools are repeated often – they drain funding from public schools; they cherry pick students, taking the best and leaving the rest in worse shape; they erode public support for schools; they distract from possible innovations within public schools. These are honest fears, so any attempt to allow for charter schools should have their potential good outweigh the risks and imbed in law steps that would control any harm that results.

LD 1640 has both. It would allow up to 20 schools in the state, established with federal funding, at the chartering approval of either the local school board or one of the six universities within the University of Maine System that offers a four-year degree in education. No approval from these public entities, no charter school.

The focus of these schools would be at-risk students, those with high absenteeism, who have fallen behind their peers or who have other special needs. But no more than 10 percent of any school administrative unit’s students per grade may be enrolled at a charter school under this plan, and the schools themselves are expected to meet the goals of Maine’s Learning Results as well as the federal No Child Left Behind.

Unlike voucher programs for schools, public charter schools, which are nonsectarian, do not require admission tests or added tuition. Only the per-pupil funding allocation follows the student under this legislation, just as it does in Maine communities where students have a choice of schools.

Even with the limitations under LD 1640, the charter schools would maintain their flexibility by having the ability to choose which grades to teach, the length of the school day and school year, the organization of the day, whether to organize curriculum around a particular project or focus it on a back-to-basics method. Teachers, who would have to be certified by the state and meet standards under NCLB, may find that partnering with businesses or colleges, as charter schools sometimes do, provides them with new opportunities for presenting material.

In states such as Colorado, Wisconsin and Minnesota, small public schools have seen the benefit of the charter-school model and converted the entire school, a change that this bill would allow.

Charter schools aren’t an assault on public schools but a chance to provide alternatives to students who do not thrive there. The large majority of states already allow for them. The pilot program for these schools under LD 1640 is a thoughtful way for Maine to decide for itself what will work here.