EDITORIAL UNCHARTED TERRITORY CHARTER SCHOOLS GET A BOOST FROM UNLIKELY ALLY.

IT'S been a long, hard road for charter school champions in California.

But the journey is starting to look smoother because of the backing of an unlikely source - state government, which has traditionally been in the pocket of teacher and administrator unions who want to preserve their hold on public education. The result has been slow growth by charters, which must scramble for every resource while having their success repeatedly questioned.

Yet a new report from the State Legislative Analyst recommends steps to aid the growth of charters by eliminating the limit on the number allowed across the state, an arbitrary ban created to keep the innovative, upstart schools in check.

Currently, there are 471 charter schools in California, 49 of them within the Los Angeles Unified School District, with a statewide cap of 750. Charter supporters expect they would hit that limit within just a few years.

In making her recommendation, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill noted what those involved in the charter school movement have known all along: Charter schools' students perform at least as well as those in traditional schools, but they use a lot less state money doing it.

In addition, charter schools are built to serve the particular needs of students and the communities, and aren't cookie-cutter institutions imposed upon a neighborhood by a monster bureaucracy.

Not surprisingly, the growth of charter schools scares the pants off of union officials who fear losing control of the schools. They characterize charter schools as private schools paid for with public cash.

In a sense, they are right. Private schools have customized, often much better education for those who can pay for it. The difference is, with charter schools you get all the benefit without the cost. And any community that wanted a charter school for its own could do so.

How can that be something to complain about?

The motivations of those opposing the charter school revolution are transparently self-serving. It is heartening to see that some in Sacramento are beginning to see that charter schools have a real role to play in the reform of our state's lagging educational system.