Public schools, private schools, home schools, charter schools, magnet schools, tuition, vouchers, property taxes, Robin Hood.

Deciding on the best place for our children’s education has become as involved and complicated as channel surfing on satellite TV or choosing a toothpaste.

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When did it become so difficult? As much as the politically correct crowd would like to talk around it, the market for alternative schools is the direct result of government-forced integration of the public schools.

The demise of the public schools has followed on the heels of federal courts mandating integration about as directly as any example of cause-and-effect in social policy in American history. Parents of all races and incomes have grown increasingly dissatisfied with public schools, and so alternatives have appeared.

Enrollment at established private schools is at record highs. New private schools are opening all the time. Public schools have experimented with magnet schools, hoping to attract medal winners, rather than metal detectors. Home schooling has become a major industry (although football season isn’t quite the same when your arch-rival is your sibling, not to mention that Homecoming becomes a somewhat confused concept).

And now there are charter schools, which are schools permitted by the state legislature to operate as independent schools with greater flexibility, presumably to fill various niches in the system that aren’t adequately addressed by the other alternatives.

The Lakeridge Shopping Center at Audelia and Kingsley in Lake Highlands recently became home to a charter school and the site of a brand new neighborhood controversy.

It seems that Heritage Academy has leased the space most recently occupied by the dreaded bingo parlor. While you might think replacing a bingo hall with a school would be a good thing, it just ain’t so according to other shopping center tenants and nearby homeowners. And they just might have a point.

It has been difficult, if not impossible, for interested parties to obtain any specific information from the school owners. First, a scheduled public meeting on March 13 was postponed at the last minute until March 27. Then, on March 27, the meeting location, presumably at the school, was moved at the last minute to Grapevine (a curious alternative designed, it would appear, to minimize attendance).

Neighbors are complaining that the school’s enrollment far exceeds the size of the old bingo hall and that the kids are causing problems in the parking lot.

The school’s response, thus far, has been to hire a media consultant, dodge public discussion, and write letters in response to complaints on NAACP letterhead (apparently, the same media consultant used by Bill Clinton, Ted Turner and Jerry Jones).

As long as Lake Highlands fails to attract high quality retailers and shopping center landlords have to earn an income, we will continue having to fight strip joints, bingo parlors, pawn shops, and poorly located charter schools.

Nature abhors a vacuum. It’s up to us to fill it – or someone will fill it for us.