Over the past few days, we’ve seen a flurry of blog posts about quality-control of charter schools. Specifically, bloggers have focused on reforms that would make sure the best schools not only survive, but are replicated. To advance such ideas, however, it would help if reformers were to adopt an underappreciated approach: work with teachers’ unions.

The debate over education reform keeps coming back to what’s politically feasible: Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum has posited that improved academic results from charter schools are urgently necessary, and that without such results, charter schools will no longer have political backing. He writes, “Time is running out. If charters can't start demonstrating systematically better results soon, the experiment is going to run aground.” Furthermore, he says that, when looking at reforms to the charter school system, “we need to find out if [they are] feasible in practical and political terms.”

The problem isn’t any shortage of high-performing charter schools. It’s that the average performance level is being pulled down by low-quality charters operating in states with weak accountability systems. Stronger oversight and the resolve to shut down low-performing charters are essential.

To maneuver around political opposition to charters, Matthew Yglesias, of ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress, focuses on "smart caps," the brainchild of PPI alum Andrew Rotherham. Under this approach, caps in state laws on the number of charters that can be created would be waived for charter schools operators with a proven record of success. Effective programs, such as KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), could be implemented on a wider scale. This policy would raise the average performance of charters and ease concerns that their numbers will balloon uncontrollably.

However, there is an overlooked approach to overcoming opposition to charter schools that lies not in oversight, policy and legislation, but in outreach to teachers’ unions. In many states, unions are the most powerful source of opposition to charters, and the staunchest advocates of caps. That’s why it makes sense for charter operators to think harder about how to embrace their concerns and incorporate them into the decision-making process. Making nice with teachers’ unions, and establishing new charter schools that work with, instead of against these groups is a practical way to overcome the daunting political obstacles to charter school reform.

One group that has done this quite successfully is an LA educational management organization, Green Dot Public Schools. According to its website, “Green Dot is the only non-district public school operator in California that has unionized teachers.” Teachers in these schools have a significant role in determining course curriculum and overarching school policies, along with flexible contracts that can be negotiated over time. A “relationship of mutual trust” between typical charter school organizers and teachers’ unions has led to wide support for Green Dot schools in the LA area.

Furthermore, these schools have seen overwhelming success, especially in comparison to regular public schools in the area: a full 80% of ninth graders graduated in four years, compared to 47 percent rate in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) high schools and 56 percent in Inglewood Unified District high schools. Granted, the number of Green Dot schools is tiny in comparison to the total number of public schools in America, and taking such programs to scale is a persistent problem for charter schools. However, Green Dot’s approach to teachers’ unions is a valid alternative to legislative reforms that the charter school movement would be wise to consider adopting.

Kevin Drum has a point when he says the charter school movement is doomed if we don’t make changes soon to ensure that successful schools are rewarded while failing schools are closed. However, a new strategy of working with common opponents of charter schools will be necessary to make such reforms politically viable.

Jake Rosner is an intern at the Progressive Policy Institute.