And for people such as Tim McClung, public policy director for West Virginians for Education Reform, that's a problem: He believes such rigidity stifles innovation and creativity.

State code and agency rules set in stone what schools can teach, how teachers are hired and fired and, until recently, even what times of the year schools had to be open.

Public education essentially is tied to one model of doing business, and it's not a business model that's necessarily been successful.

"There are so many people out there not only in the state but across the nation that have other ideas," McClung said.

Another model is in place in most states, but not West Virginia. Charter schools are allowed to waive some of the government regulations their advocates say bind the hands of educators. They're public schools, but they can bend the rules in return for improved student achievement.

There were more than 4,700 charter schools enrolling more than 1.4 million students in 40 states in 2009, according to one study. West Virginia may join the list of states permitting charter schools in its bid to capture federal Race to the Top funds for education.

Gov. Joe Manchin has said he will call a special session of the state Legislature May 13 to address education issues. While he has yet to release a detailed agenda, the West Virginia State Board of Education has suggested the state adopt a charter school law.

Still, while they may help West Virginia capture millions in federal funding, charter schools have failed so far to live up to their hype in many places. One of the largest studies of charter schools in the nation, which was conducted by Stanford University professors, concluded that students in most charter schools performed no better or worse than their peers in traditional public schools.

Yet charter schools don't embrace a single model of education, and the definition of a charter school can differ from state to state. Those differences can have drastic effects on a school's performance, and West Virginia can learn from what other states have done wrong, according to charter school supporters.

"To us, it reinforces that fact that state laws matter a great deal," said Todd Ziebarth, vice president for state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Defining Charters

Picture a school where students attend class on Saturdays, where arts education is stressed as much as English or math or where religious teachings take place without worries of separation of church and state conflicts.

All are examples of charter schools. They can be run by private organizations, by school districts or even by teachers. And they all receive state funding without many strings that come attached.

Charter schools are an experiment roughly two decades old, although some states have had them longer than others. Ohio has had a charter school law for at least a decade and has the fifth-largest charter school enrollment in the nation, according to the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Maryland, by contrast, adopted its charter school law in 2003 and has only 42 charter schools.

Political conservatives are some of the most vocal advocates of charter schools, but the schools also have supporters among moderates and some liberal Democrats. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama made the existence of a charter school law one of the primary requirements for states if they want a slice of the $5 billion in federal stimulus funding set aside for the Race to the Top.

West Virginia is eligible for up to $75 million under Race to the Top, although education officials estimate the actual amount may be closer to $50 million. Whatever the case, Manchin has made capturing that funding one of the state's top priorities, and it is certain West Virginia won't succeed without some kind of charter school law.

But what kind? There seemingly are as many charter school laws as there are states with charter schools.

Some states automatically exempt charter schools from a wide range of regulations from the outset, Ziebarth said. Many states, on the other hand, require schools to first obtain waivers from specific regulations through a governing body, such as the state board of education.

"That way, they are not automatically exempted, and (state officials) take it on a case-by-case basis," he said.

As a result, the question comes down to what constitutes an effective level of autonomy for charter schools. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools recently released a report identifying what the authors said were several key freedoms that result in academic success, based on interviews with officials in five high-performing charter schools.

In every case, officials cited the freedom in the hiring and dismissal processes for teachers. Principals could hire teachers from nontraditional sources, had greater input in the teacher evaluation process and could easily dismiss teachers if they were not living up to expectations.

They also had the ability to base teacher salaries outside state-mandated pay scales. Teachers could earn higher raises for exceptional student performance instead of having those raises set by a negotiated contract.

Officials also cited greater freedom to set curriculum and classroom structure; autonomy in scheduling; the financial freedom to allocate money as the school sees fit; school boards free of elected public officials; and the ability to develop what they said were unique school cultures.

But it turns out the direction the alliance is advocating is not the same direction West Virginia is moving. The proposed charter school law wouldn't exempt such schools from state laws governing school personnel, even though that is the one area advocates believe is most vital for success.

"Without that kind of autonomy, I'm not sure what you are doing creating a charter school law," Ziebarth said.

Charter in Name Only?

When state Superintendent of Schools Steven L. Paine unveiled his strategy for putting the state in the running for Race to the Top funding April 19, he made one thing clear -- he saw little chance that an actual charter school law would pass the Legislature.

Paine had good reason to be skeptical. Sen. Erik Wells, D-Kanawha, introduced a charter school bill during the regular legislative session earlier this year only to pull it after angry union officials pledged not to endorse any politician who voted for it.

With that in mind, Paine instead suggested the next best thing.

He proposed restructuring the state's existing "innovation zone" program to incorporate aspects of charter schools found in other states. Innovation zones essentially allow existing public schools to bend some state rules to improve academic performance. Using a charter school model, they could bend them further.

The one exception under Paine's plan would be state personnel laws, which could not be bent or waived.

Some charter schools in other states follow all the same personnel laws that their traditional counterparts parts follow. But for many advocates, those limitations go against the reason for creating them in the first place.

"Sometimes just calling it a charter and yet tying its hands in myriad ways doesn't make it a charter," said Amber Winkler, a research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C.

The institute rated states based on how much autonomy their laws give charter schools, and Maryland was one of two states that received an "F."

The institute didn't look at whether there is any connection between autonomy and academic achievement. The Stanford study, for example, rated Ohio's charter schools as the lowest performing schools in the areas it looked at, but they received a "B to B-" in the autonomy report.

That apparent lack of a connection is something often pointed to by critics of charter schools.

Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, said some charter schools are successful, particularly in large urban areas, but he doesn't see any widespread success within the movement. And he is wary of talk of more closely tying teacher evaluations to test performances, given there can be many factors that can affect a student's performance, such as his or her situation at home.

His alternative is to give more time for the innovation zone program to work, given it just launched this year.

"It has the opportunity to make changes and replicate them across the state," he said.

The state's other teachers' union, the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, is more receptive to Paine's plan. In a statement on its website, the AFT said it welcomes an expansion of the innovation zone schools act but not any charter school bill that diminishes "employee rights."

Still, advocates such as McClung note that despite the fears that West Virginia's unions have concerning charter schools, unions in most states have been living with them for years.

"I know when we have (a law) in West Virginia, unions and charter schools will live together," he said.