Colorado’s innovative charter schools have been raising the bar for public education in our state — and setting the pace nationwide — for over three decades. They also have been winning parents’ hearts and minds along the way.

The wildly popular charter school movement now serves some 137,000 K-12 public school students at 268 public charter schools across Colorado. Charter students in fact account for over 15% of total public school enrollment in our state.

Charter schools haven’t been the only game changers in public education, of course. There also are all-online programs and homeschooling. Both work well for some students and further complement Colorado’s public education landscape.

What all such choices have in common is they give a meaningful option to families stymied by failing neighborhood schools.

Amendment 80 on this fall’s statewide mail ballot would ensure the right to such educational options, placing that right in the state’s constitution. It would do so not merely to celebrate the obvious strides of school choice — but to protect them.

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For that reason, the Gazette editorial board enthusiastically endorses Amendment 80 on the November ballot and urges a YES vote.

While there is broad public support for charter schools and other forms of school choice among Coloradans — regardless of race or ethnicity, socio-economic status or political allegiance — there remains narrow but influential opposition. And it carries clout.

Teachers unions and other special-interest political groups resent and resist any erosion of the public education establishment’s control over schooling. They have been willing to tap their member networks and deep pockets to attack charter schools and other forms of school choice relentlessly — and continue to do so.

Earlier this year, legislation that had the backing of the state teachers unions and other behind-the-scenes power players would have dealt a death of a thousand cuts to charter schools. Supporters of school choice, including Gov. Jared Polis, were able to stop the bill, but it served as a reminder that school choice opponents lurk in the dark recesses of the Capitol building.

The same goes for local school districts. Even as parents demand more charters and other options, and those whose children already benefit from school choice watch them flourish — some school boards, egged on by the unions, cast a jaundiced eye at charter schools. They view them as competition — which they are, in a good way — and resent it.

The aim of Amendment 80 is to move charters and other kinds of school choice out of harm’s way once and for all.

Colorado’s Common Sense Institute makes clear what’s at stake in a new report issued just last week. The report’s summary statement pretty much makes the case for the value of charter schools.

“The charter sector overall has outperformed district-run schools, has produced higher college matriculation rates, and has narrowed gaps between more affluent, white students and low-income students and students of color,” the Common Sense report found. “In addition, charter school students tend to fare better in their postsecondary achievement as well.”

The publicly funded, autonomously run charter schools are able to give kids a leg up in many ways.

Charters are less burdened by the often-inane edicts and ingrained inefficiencies of centralized school district bureaucracies. They are unshackled from cumbersome and costly collective-bargaining agreements with teachers unions and can hire and promote from a wider range and deeper pool of educators. And they offer a vast array of curricula; there are charter schools focused on arts while others stress the applied sciences. Many emphasize character building in ways on which a lot of neighborhood public schools, regrettably, gave up long ago.

School choice works. It’s worth celebrating — and protecting. Vote YES on Amendment 80.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board