helping out the charter schools? nahhh....

From Andy Gammill in the C-J...

Gov. Mitch Daniels called Friday for a law to force public school districts to transfer unused school buildings to charter school start-ups looking for space. Daniels said school districts in the state are withholding completely empty buildings from charter schools that are looking for property. Doing so, he said, unnecessarily costs taxpayers money when those charters have to buy or build new schools instead of moving in to the empty ones, since taxpayers paid to build both.

"People say they should sell them," he said. "Sell them? Hell, they should give them away. The public already paid for them."

I love the fire in that statement!

Can you believe we need a law for something like this? (More broadly, if I understand this correctly, charter schools do not receive funds for capital expenditures.) It's entirely predictable in terms of political economy. But why don't these people just do the right thing and release the buildings? And can you believe that people question the motives of agents in economic markets more than political markets?