> They don't work.
I think that's a stretch.
> There are some good ones, but there are also some good
> public schools.
But when a new charter is started, it's not because they want to replace the "good" public school; it's that the "good" public school isn't big enough. They want to replace a random *bad* public school so that there are (nominally) two good schools where there once was only one. They want to do what the local district has *failed* to do! The usual alternative is to *move* taking your kids, your tax base, and your enthusiasm to help with a child's education to the suburbs. Nice outcome!
Not having an alternative is not just bad for the teaching profession: it is a big part of what has been gutting the cities over the last 4 decades. All the people I know who are involved in charter schools are specifically doing it for that reason: they want to stay in the city, but the local district has failed them and their children.
> It's a phony reform that is a poor substitute for more
> egalitarian funding and income redistribution.
... which I'm all for, but just don't see it happening anytime soon. And this is all about time: if you have a school-age child, you simply can't wait another 10 years for something wonderful to happen. It will be far too late for you by then.
New York City may actually be a special case, due to the large number of world-class schools. I'd be interested to see what you think about this issue if Ivan were 7 and you lived in, say, Buffalo ...
/jordan
ps-to-Joanna: In re curriculum developers "making the big bucks" -- when was it exactly that big city school teachers had anything to say about their curricula? This is not a change from charters, it was a change in the 60s! Also: many charters don't have the money to buy the fancy-pants curricula, due to the fact that they receive on average 2/3 of the funding that "normal" schools do ...