Many North Carolinians may be familiar with the controversial – and increasingly evident – academic, financial, and governance failings of a number of North Carolina charter schools . This should come as no surprise: more than a few observers predicted that the legislature’s peremptory style, and its dogged determination to ignore facts, evidence, and the rule of reason in the governance of our public schools, virtually assured the corruption of public charter school initiatives in North Carolina. In most places, being called out for bungled lawmaking, especially in education policy, might encourage a bit of humility and self-restraint from legislators. Not so on Jones Street, where the public good is frequently sacrificed to hubris, and power-mongering all-too-often supplants the wise restraint of good governance. And so when many existing charter school schemes were scrutinized and found wanting , and rumblings were heard that many new proposals might not pass muster eve