There are 26 charter schools operating in Utah, with four more set to open this school year. They are part of the public-school system but organized by parents or other groups, often focusing on specific subjects such as the arts, science or math. All purport to adhere to higher academic standards than their traditional counterparts.

But a comparison of National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores that the federal Education Department was none too eager to report shows charter schools nationally are having even less success teaching children than the public schools they were organized to compete with.

Fourth-graders in charter schools throughout the country were about a half-year behind their peers at traditional public schools in both reading and math, the data show, even when influences such as income, race and ethnicity were factored in.

The comparisons debunk the theory that taking children out of public schools will improve their learning. In many cases, children are put in a new school environment that is no more successful than the one they left.

The test scores shouldn't be seen as a vindication of traditional public school systems, but more as further evidence that education is hard. To make our education system more successful, we would be wise to focus all our resources - financial, parental and managerial - on traditional public schools rather than abandoning them.

Many charter schools in Utah are too new to have standardized test scores for comparison. Patricia Bradley, who oversees charter schools for the Utah State Office of Education, says scores of charter-school children so far are comparable with their traditional public-school peers, with particular grades in some charter schools doing better and some worse.

Whether their scores improve as the schools mature, or drop to the national charter-school levels, remains to be seen. But there is nothing to indicate children in Utah's charter schools are outperforming those in traditional public schools as proponents of "parental choice" have predicted.

The Bush administration's No Child Left Behind program allows, even encourages, parents to seek alternatives to traditional public schools that don't achieve "adequate yearly progress" as defined by NCLB on annual tests.

But draining traditional public schools of children and the tax dollars that follow them is no answer to the challenges faced by public schools or America's children.