The Detroit Public Schools has dozens of abandoned schools sitting boarded up and rotting and draining precious revenue from the school system. But it refuses to lease them to charter school operators who want to put the buildings back into service.

It's a terrible policy that does a tremendous disservice to the city of Detroit.

The 53 closed schools are poorly maintained and monitored. Many have been opened by vandals and others and have become a danger. The closed school buildings also contribute to neighborhood blight.

But the Detroit school board has a policy against leasing the buildings to charter operators, fearing the competition will drain even more children from the public schools.

That's flawed thinking. If a charter operator is determined to open a school, it will find a building to lease, or build a new one. Locking charters out of DPS buildings will not keep them out of the city.

An open, active school, whether a DPS school or a charter, can help stabilize a neighborhood and encourage families to stay in their homes. Poor education choice is a key reason many families are fleeing the city.

And the buildings could be a source of much needed revenue for the school district. Michigan charter schools pay an average of $10 to $12 per square foot annually to lease buildings, according to the Center for Charter Schools

The likelihood that DPS will ever need the abandoned schools again is slim. The school-age population is declining, and isn't expected to rise again. The school system was built when the city had a population of nearly 2 million; today it is barely 900,000.

If the district isn't going to lease the buildings, it should at least secure them.

Thieves, squatters and vandals have found the buildings easy targets. Most have been stripped of anything of value, including pipes and wire.

Many of the schools were once beautiful examples of Art Deco or other distinctive architecture.

But after only a few months of standing empty, they become marred by graffiti and gutted for scrap metal.

The premises are littered with glass shards and strewn with discarded razor wire and liquor bottles.

The school district should not be such a willing contributor to the deterioration of the city.

Instead of allowing its closed buildings to become almost instant eyesores, it should lease them to charter school operators, giving parents more options for educating their children and sparing the city a few more eyesores.