The article “Are sports powerhouses on the way?” exposes the typical hysteria that accompanies charter school success. One basketball coach said, “I’ll guarantee this: My teams will never play against a charter school.” That provides another clear example of adults putting their own dislike of charter schools above the interests of children.

I hope readers will not be left with the impression that the main school singled out in the article, Thea Bowman Leadership Academy, a college preparatory school with 100 percent minority enrollment and a 52 percent student poverty rate, exists to succeed only in sports. In fact, the opposite is true as this school is one of the finest academic institutions in the state.

Not only did the school make Adequate Yearly Progress, something only half of Indiana schools managed to do, but Thea Bowman has also received the exemplary ranking on Public Law 221, the state’s measure of academic performance, each year since 2005. This is a lofty achievement for a school that opened in 2003. On that measure, Thea Bowman outperformed the state average on the ISTEP test and achieved a level of improvement of 6.8 percent. The average improvement for all schools statewide is 0.55 percent.

Since no student can be denied entry to a public charter school, and no student can be given preference because of athletic or academic prowess, arguments that charters have unfair advantages fall apart. It is time for public charter school detractors to stop the discrimination and give credit where it is due.

Russ Simnick

President, Indiana Public Charter Schools Association