PETERSBURG, Va. – Sometimes the mere threat of competition is enough to make failing schools wake up and take action.

The Petersburg, Virginia public school district is a perfect example.

For many years most of the schools in the district “turned in dismal academic performances,” according to a recent editorial published by Reason.com.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

In 2006 district and state officials signed a memorandum of understanding designed to boost academic results, but two years later most of the schools remained unaccredited and none made adequate yearly progress as measured by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

At that point Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell mentioned that he would like to see a charter school in the district, to give the traditional schools some competition. If students were given a choice to leave the district and take state aid dollars with them, there would be more incentive for Petersburg schools to improve.

No charter school was established, due to the immediate outpouring of public opposition in Petersburg.

“I couldn’t even get my foot in the door to have a civilized conversation,” said Corey Carter, a citizen who tried to establish a charter school in the Petersburg district. “I was blocked every step of the way.”

But what did happen was significant.

A local “Committee to Save Public Education” was formed in reaction to the threat of a charter school. And the district brought in two private companies – Edison Learning and Cambridge Education – to assist with academics.

Since then “the system has shown improvement,” according to the editorial.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“As The Times-Dispatch (a local newspaper) noted in an editorial at the time, the mere mention of a charter school was enough to shake the city out of its lethargy,” the editorial said. “Petersburg’s schools remained stuck near the bottom of the performance heap for years, and nobody ever formed a Committee to Save Public Education. Now they have. You can thank the charter school movement for that.’”

That proves that traditional public schools can benefit from the mere threat of charter schools forming in their communities. And that can only happen when state governments allow charter schools (42 do so far), and it helps when they make it possible for charters to open their doors without the approval of the local public school board.

Maybe more failing schools should close

There is one other lesson that traditional schools could take from the charter model – the treat of closure if they’re not meeting goals.

During the Petersburg debate over whether to allow a charter school, a state senator noted that many charters across the nation have not performed well, according to the editorial. It seems that even the National Association of Charter School Authorizers has estimated as many as one-fifth of the schools across the nation should be closed due to academic failure.

That’s the point. Charters are given the opportunity to do the job, and many are closed if they don’t hit the mark. That threat provides a great deal of incentive for administrators and staff to get it right within the first few years, or risk losing their jobs.

Except in major cities like New York and Chicago – where public school failure reaches a low point that most communities can’t fathom – the closing of public schools is almost unheard of.  Governments throw piles of money at failing schools and wait for years for signs of progress. Often there is no progress, but the staff still floats along in the comfortable knowledge that their paychecks will show up on time.

School boards should be willing to pull the plug and start from scratch with schools that never get their act together. That might mean partially or completely replacing the staff. And that, of course, would mean going head-to-head with local teachers unions that value their members (and the dues they pay) more than they value children and quality education.

If the school boards lack the courage to take such drastic action, parents should be given the right. They already have that in seven states that have adopted “parent trigger” laws.

The laws vary from state-to-state, but the basic premise is the same: If a majority of parents of students at a chronically failing school sign a petition, they are given the legal ability to transform the school in several different ways, including replacement of some or all staff members or conversion to a self-governing charter school.

If parent trigger laws are not an option, parents should be given government vouchers to pay for tuition at private schools. Students deserve an escape route from failing public schools, one way or another. And public schools should be forced to work hard to maintain their clientele, one way or the other.

Over the past few decades America’s public school system devolved into an underachieving monopoly. Public schools and teachers unions ruled the roost with an iron grip, and their way was the only way. If a school failed, or some teachers were lousy, so be it. Students and families had nowhere else to turn.

But competition is creeping into the education equation and public schools have been forced to take notice. The school choice movement has provided a new challenge for traditional schools, and the result is more quality instruction where school choice either exists, or looms in the shadows as an option for unhappy parents.

The public schools in Petersburg, Virginia are a perfect example.