Given a choice of whether to send their kids to one of the most dangerous government school systems or to a charter school.

WHEN THE morning bells ring in the Chester-Upland School District, more students in kindergarten through eighth grade are sitting in charter-school classrooms than in all other district schools combined, according to district Superintendent Gregory Thornton.

State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, a charter-school proponent who represents Delaware and Chester counties, says, “It should be a wake-up call to school administrators that when parents are allowed choice, they’re choosing another education provider over what the district is providing.”

Gee, what a surprise. It’s nice to see self-managed (although taxpayer-funded) schools given a chance to succees. However, don’t look for this success to continue on for long. Instead of distancing itself from the leviathan that is the Chester-Upland School District, forces are hard at work to coerce them into conformity.

Annette Anderson, principal of the charter school, said that it’s important for her charter and the district to support one another because the school serves students in kindergarten through second grade only. The charter plans to add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011. After that, students will head into regular district schools.

“We have a vested interest in the success of the Chester-Upland School District,” she said. “That’s why it’s not a good thing for us to be considered separate. We have to come together.”

So how to save the failing government schools? Teach courses in government beuracracy, of course!

Thornton also wants to divide the district’s high school into three, use the city’s soccer stadium and Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack as learning laboratories and start a class on Chester’s history.