Allowing charter schools in Maine will siphon off good students from struggling schools. It will take much-needed money away from public schools already suffering from budget constraints. It will destroy public education as we know it. And in the midst of the chaos created by the consolidation law, we can't add even more change to the mix.

No, wait. That's all wrong.

Allowing charter schools in Maine will fix everything that ails our public schools. It will raise educational achievement at all schools. It will increase graduation rates and reform public education.

As lawmakers consider a bill this session to allow the establishment of charter schools in Maine, they would do well to recognize that the reality about charter schools is likely to fall somewhere in the middle of the hyperbole from both sides.

The idea behind charter schools is that, freed from many of the strictures and requirements placed on traditional public schools, they can take innovative approaches to teaching and learning. That means different hiring practices and requirements. Different curriculum. Different hours, even, as well as shorter or longer school years. Typically, teachers in the country's charter schools don't belong to unions, and many of them don't have the certification required of public school teachers. Though publicly funded, charter schools are generally led by autonomous boards.

Yet charter schools must be accountable to the state or a local entity such as a school board. The "charter" part of the label refers to the contract, or charter, between the sponsor and the school that details just what the school's philosophy, program and goals will be, who the school serves and how to measure success in meeting those goals.

Maine is one of 10 states that has resisted the charter school movement, refusing to pass legislation to allow establishment of these experimental schools. As in other states, the objections have come both from teachers' unions and the educational establishment, who are concerned about the fact that each time a student leaves a public school for a charter school, the state's funding for that child goes with him or her. Thus, they believe charter schools could pose a threat to the viability of public schools.

Some also say that what's wrong with public schools should be fixed -- and the energy to make reforms needs to focus on those public schools, not alternatives to those schools.

And finally, teacher unions have been particularly quick to point out every failure of a charter school -- and there have been many -- as a way of fighting the growth of such non-union institutions.

The Maine legislation sets up a pilot program that would, over 10 years, allow a maximum of 20 charter schools to be established. The bill this session is largely identical to one lawmakers rejected three years ago, but this time the bill, significantly, has the support of the state department of education.

And since the last version of the bill was rejected, a lot more legitimate data has emerged about the relatively young charter school movement and its track record.

The data come both from a massive report by the Rand Corporation that studied charter school performance in eight states, as well as U.S. Department of Education studies. They show that charter schools can improve graduation rates as well as rates of those going on to college.

The studies demonstrate that charter school students overall have about the same test scores as their traditional public school counterparts, though one study showed that fourth graders in charter schools had lower reading and math scores than public school students.

Finally, there's data, acknowledged even by charter school proponents, that the management at a significant number of schools has not been adequate and many have closed as a result. Of the 5,250 charter schools opened since 1992, 657 have closed. According to the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter school group, the reasons ranged from "internal governance squabbles" to "operator accused of using funds for personal use, misuse of federal grant funds and falsifying enrollment numbers."

That some charter schools have failed on a variety of levels to deliver on their promise should not be a reason for Maine lawmakers to deny this reform movement the opportunity to take root in Maine. In fact, lawmakers need only look in their back yards to see just how successful charter schools have been in the state.

We refer, of course, to the existence of private high-school academies -- from Thornton in Saco to Erskine in South China to George Stevens in Blue Hill -- that for more than a century have educated tuition-paying public school students from towns that don't have high schools. They're essentially charter schools in all but name.

Maine should give charter schools a chance. The trick will be to demand a high degree of accountability and marry that to the freedom to innovate educationally. That's a tough balance to strike, but it is an essential one.

Editorials represent the opinion of the Editorial Board of this newspaper: Publisher John Christie, Executive Editor Eric Conrad and Opinion Page Editor Naomi Schalit.