In one of my early columns for this publication, I wrote about a Reno City Council meeting’s hearing on whether to approve a site plan for a proposed charter school in my neighborhood. While all politicians claim to be pro-education, the reality of their votes is that we still suffer from a cultural inertia that gives too little thought to the importance of a well-schooled populace. The Council capriciously declined to approve the application, unnecessarily condemning hundreds of kids in South Reno to overcrowded classrooms and overwhelmed teachers for years to come.

Fortunately, the school in question, Doral Academy of Northern Nevada, persisted. They found another site plan just outside the city limits, where ground will be broken in November. And in the meantime, they partnered with a nearby church to get started. Looking for an alternate to the ever-growing cattle-call that was our neighborhood elementary, we decided to give this new school a try.

The last couple of years, my daughter, old for her class due to her birthday being just on the wrong side of an inflexible legal bright line, had been bored to tears. Rather than help jumpstart a lifetime love of education and learning, the one-size-fits-all traditional system was souring her on the very idea of school.

This year, my kids are already thriving far beyond our previous experiences. This week (you’ll forgive me if I brag just a little), my daughter skipped up from second to third grade. Really, though, They were able to do this because the principle had the autonomy and freedom to make a decision with parents about a student, without fighting against a massive bureaucracy that (as massive bureaucracies do) reflexively resists such an individualized approach. In other words, Doral corrected an error made by the traditional school district and overly-rigid state law.

Doral is doing exactly what charter schools and other school choice options should do – providing an option for those that traditional public schools are under-serving. And by opening an escape valve for our overcrowded schools on a much faster (and affordable) schedule than union-beholden lawmakers allow traditional schools to be built, the kids who remain in those traditional schools also stand to benefit.

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My experience with a charter school is new and positive, and so I read with interest the dueling opinion pieces this past week regarding a different type of charter school altogether – Nevada Connections Academy, an on-line school with dismal graduation rates. Dr. Richard Vineyard defended the school, complaining that graduation rates are an imperfect measure of its worth.

I think he’s right.

My friend Jason Guinasso, the chair of the State Public Charter School Authority, disagreed, noting that any public schools – charter schools included – must be held accountable for their end-product, pointing out that graduation rates isn’t just a metric, but pretty much the metric.

I think he’s right, too.

How do we reconcile these two views?

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Since I was a high school student myself, one often frustrated with troublemakers who wasted time and resources, I have believed that failure in education should actually be an option. If a high school diploma is to have any value, it must carry the risk of not being obtained if you don’t put the effort in to earn it. Taken alone, I don’t want to give up on any student (or kid who ought to be a student). But when a punk takes time and resources away from a more dedicated pupil, or worse, a student who may be struggling but nonetheless still wants to be there, I want him gone. He’s not being “left behind” at that point, he’s choosing to stay behind, and too often we let this disruptor stay too long, dragging other kids down with him.

But when a kid like that leaves his traditional school, what then? He’s still around. All too often, he will become a functional ward of the state – at best confined to welfare and public housing, and at worst doing life on the installment plan as drug use and habitual petty criminality starts to define his lifestyle.

Say my case-in-point troublemaker is expelled for fighting and selling drugs behind the gym. I’m fine with that, but what if he gets religion a year later, or even two? He’s too late to graduate on time, and so he won’t help anyone’s graduation stats even if he comes back as a model student. So now what?

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A common argument against school choice is that charter schools in particular “steal” all of the high performing kids, and have more ability to reject those who can’t or won’t perform at that level. Those kids, it is argued, would do just as well in any other school, and so charter schools can’t claim some sort of superiority over the traditional public schools, and therefore, we should just embrace the lowest common denominator as the standard for all our kids.

But this argument relies on an “us vs. them” view of school choice that doesn’t – or shouldn’t – reflect reality. The truth is that diversity and options in various educational approaches benefit everyone, which is why support for charter schools ought not be synonymous with opposition to traditional public schools.

While my kids and thousands like them will graduate from high school with their classmates, regardless of where they go to school or when they start, they will nonetheless be better off having gone to a school that recognizes their individual learning needs – in my daughter’s case, for example, the need to have academic challenges that keep pace with (or just ahead of) her abilities and talents. This is the sort of success charter schools usually – and with reason – tout. It’s why I like our charter school so much. Meanwhile, kids thriving in traditional schools have even more space and individualized attention, lifting them higher as well.

But giving the quitters and failures a chance to return as prodigal sons, even if it’s not “on time,” is also worthy. Better yet is providing alternatives for kids falling behind in the traditional system before they quit or fail. Usually, those kids won’t fit in a traditional school framework for a number of reasons.

Guinasso is right, in that our primary goal should always be graduation, and no other single metric comes close to the importance of sending young adults out into the world with a base level of education we define by a high school diploma. But public school options where we recognize late is better than never, and where success is judged accordingly (and yes, held accountable even so) are also worth supporting. Once again, diversity and options in education – something Nevada should be expanding, not contracting as we did earlier this year – will be a net gain in the longer fight to build a culture in Nevada that more thoroughly values an educated populace.

Orrin Johnson has been writing and commenting on Nevada and national politics since 2007.  He started with an independent blog, First Principles, and was a regular columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 2015-2016.  By day, he is a deputy district attorney for Carson City.  His opinions here are his own.  Follow him on Twitter @orrinjohnson, or contact him at [email protected].