The generally poor performance of Rhode Island’s public schools — compared with much of the rest of America — makes a strong argument for trying some new ideas.

That is why the General Assembly should rescind its moratorium on charter schools, imposed in 2004 and running through mid-2008.

Charter schools offer parents — particularly poor and middle-class parents who cannot afford private schools — choices of where to educate their children. Often, they serve students in ways the public schools do not. Sometimes, they are able to get around union restrictions that hamper excellence.

Rhode Island has 11 charter schools, and three more have submitted applications. The state’s Department of Education can begin to review those applications, so that the schools might be better prepared to get up and running whenever the Assembly allows charters to start again. Spokesman Elliot Krieger, however, says there is a question of how much staff time his boss, Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, wants to devote to reviewing charter applications during the moratorium.

Critics of charter schools fear they could weaken teacher unions or drain money away from other public schools. And student performance in some charter schools is no better than in public schools, critics say.

But serving the interests of the status quo should not override serving the interests of students. Charter schools offer a way to see what works — and what doesn’t — when students and teachers are allowed to cut through some of the red tape and focus on learning. And because charters have more freedom, problems can be corrected more easily.

Moreover, charter schools must perform — or else. Parents who do not approve of their children’s education in charter schools have the option of removing them — providing a powerful incentive to charters to do the job right. In struggling communities, where children are often trapped in substandard public schools, more charter schools would offer poor parents at least some choice.

Obviously, charter schools are a drop in the education bucket, given that hundreds of more traditional public schools exist in Rhode Island. But real success stories in charters could help bring pressure on the entire system to make long-overdue changes to better serve students. That’s a good thing, and the Assembly should welcome it, instead of maintaining a roadblock.