On this we can all agree: New Jersey needs to revamp its charter school law in order for charter schools to fulfill their promise. The fundamental notion of charter schools requires that charter schools are allowed the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for improved student achievement.

But how we get there is a source of deep divide. The NJ Charter Schools Association is urging legislators to stand behind a single charter-school reform law that encompasses all the policy changes necessary to guarantee excellent charter school performance for kids in New Jersey.

Over the past several months, there have been four separate bills looking to change one or more facets of the current charter school law in a piecemeal fashion. This is shortsighted and inefficient. What’s more, while the NJ Charter Schools Association supports some of the goals of a number of the bills, certain provisions in these bills would actually have the opposite effect than what they intended and would fundamentally harm the progress the state has made on charter schools.

Most importantly, none of these bills ask charter schools to guarantee high academic performance for students.

The truth is, the New Jersey charter law was enacted in 1995 when we knew very little about charter schools. Today, charter schools have proliferated around the country -- and New Jersey has some of the best models for charter schools with consistent, high-achieving results for students. Some of the current proposed legislation would jeopardize much of that success, by turning the process of starting a school into the result of a political campaign and making enrollment in a charter school no longer the result of parents’ choice.

In many cases, parts of the current suggested legislation also runs counter to the Obama Administration’s guidelines for healthy charter school laws. As such, these efforts to weaken our charter school law may result in the loss of future competitive federal grants that could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here’s what the NJ Charter Schools Association believes in:

--Charter schools should guarantee high student performance in a contract with the authorizer. If they are not getting great results, they shouldn’t exist. This is the highest form of accountability there is.

--Charter school students should get the same funding per student as students in traditional schools do. If a public charter school student is doing the same work as a public district school student, it stands to reason they should get the same funding

--Charter schools are public schools, too, so they should have access to the same facilities funding, or, when space is available, to underutilized public school space. It’s only fair and is already happening in some thoughtful districts.

Reforming New Jersey’s charter school law is about more than just scoring political points. It is about improving the education we offer kids in all schools, in all communities. A comprehensive reform that balances accountability, equity, and autonomy offers the best path to that goal.