One thing that gets lost in the comparison between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools get to cherry pick their students. The students not accepted into charter schools are sent to public schools. Public schools then have a higher concentration of underperforming students and therefore perform worse when compared to charter schools.

If you are given the best students and money is thrown at you, you are being handed success. The rest of the schools are being handed failure. When all schools are charter schools then we will see many of them fail and be replaced by more charter schools and the problem will just be perpetuated in a different form.

I wish it were true that charter schools were all about giving students a better education. It is unfortunately not. It is part political and part financial. The political aspect comes from showing success through change (see my first paragraph to understand how that success is gained). The financial aspect goes to the higher salaries paid to administrators. The school districts are happy to pay higher salaries now to rid themselves of unions and more importantly, pensions since charter schools are not unionized. Teachers at those schools work long hours for slightly higher pay. The approach is churn and burn. They hire younger teachers who are just passing through the system on their way to their true careers after they burn out and become disillusioned about the system. Some people will make off pretty well during this growth stage, but the long term outlook is poor.