It boggles the mind that Harlem elected officials can continue to fight what the overwhelming will of their constituants has been for years...a choice of great public schools, including public charters. This is not a question of politics, it's a question of what parents want for their kids, an excellent public school. With tens of thousands of families on waitlists for Harlem charters among others, the politicians who try to stand in the way of that parent demand instead opting for the 30 pieces of silver from the unions will certainly be on the wrong side of history. For our kids sake, lets hope politicians don't have much time left to cling to the dying status quo defending political machine that elected people like Bill Perkins in the first place.

The paramount duty of public schools is to support a democratic and economically mobile society by educating all students who walk in the door, regardless of their race, income, gender, disability, OR parents' willingness to support education. As soon as a school is allowed to say: parents need to fill out an application, parents need to sign this homework and attendance contract, parents need to volunteer x hours a year in the school, then it fails to be a public school. Yes, children do better in school if their parents are more involved. No, it is not ethical to create a two-tiered education system in which some American children are doubly punished for their parents' uninvolvement: first, through a lack of support at home and second, through being served in a "separate but unequal" school.

The only people pushing back at charter schools belong to the AFT or NEA.
It is the unions that have destroyed public education in this country beginning in the late 70's. And what else happen in the late 70's? Jimmy Carter and his Department of Education! The beginning of the end in public education in America!!

As a long-time pubic school teacher (now retired), I join with Geoffrey Canada in celebrating all great schools. And good for him for raising money to help all kids

The main issues regarding charters in Massachusetts involve a funding formula that appears to drain money from the public schools and the reticence of most charters to take on a representative share of the most educationally challenged and disabled students. And given that we have excellent public schools with unionized faculties, it is also hard to understand why charters are so anti-union.

Finally, Mr. Goldstein, a founder of the Match Charter, references charter teaching methods and the huge gains made by charter students. Charters were promoted as laboratories of innovation, ironically at the same time that our state department of education was attempting to standardize even innovative public schools. However, no mechanism was ever created to share whatever pedagogical breakthroughs charters were making.

So, many years later, I remain in the dark about that. However, I do seem to recall that some of the huge statistical academic gains, as reflected in state exam scores, made by Match students came as a result of significant attrition in the size if it student body from grades 9 to 12, with many students returning (or being returned) to the public schools.

If traditional high schools were accorded the small class sizes, generous supplies, and screened (translate: no special ed or problem students) populations charter schools have, they would probably be succeessful, too.

Where are they going to dump those kids? Right, in the public schools, who will then be blamed for failing.

Charter schools have a thinly disguised agenda: to bust teacher unions.

If Charter schools took the same cross section of students that public schools took, including learning disabled, they would not outperform public schools. Also, one must consider the very important fact that behind every charter school student, there is a parent that cares, and this is a huge factor in the success of a child in school.Many public school students don't have that benefit. Lastly, if a child underperforms or has behavioral issues, they can be expelled from a charter school. Not so in a public school, they have no recourse. I wish these facts were more widely known and articulated.

Rarely do people who complain about charter schools actually ask the parents of te charter schools why they like these schools. The "push back" isn't coming from the actual users of charter schools, who are all choosing to be there, and have thereby rejected the neighborhood traditional school that would be their alternative. The push back is all coming from "experts" or spokemen for vested interests who somehow feel entitled to second guess the choice made by charter school parents. Maybe these doubters would do better to find out why charters are welcomed by parents and work to win back customers to their favored schools the old fashioned way...by offering a better product.

Mr. Canada ends his piece: "I can tell you that the philanthropic dollars going toward charters are there because the donors are aligning their altruism with a business-world pragmatism.
If charters disappeared and the status quo remained the same, these new private dollars would simply disappear too."

If these "donors" are truly "altruistic" about helping to provide the best education for every child in this country they would have been providing these "private" dollars before charter schools' inception.I don't question Mr. Canada's passion and belief in his charter schools. I do question his "disingenous" faith in the altruistic giving of private donors, such as, the Bill Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, among others.

These "business-world pragmatists" give because they have an aggressive agenda to transform as many school districts as possible into their business model for education: 1) differentiated pay based on a quantifiable standard of performance; and 2) charter schools outside the control of the "status quo," i.e. public school teachers' unions.

Our education system isn't broken and hasn't been for decades. Don't be fooled by test scores. I'm 60 years old and I've lived through every "Crisis in Education" from the Sputnik hysteria that the Soviets would overwhelm us with superior math and science wonks, to Japan, Inc. buying up our economy, and now Singapore 8th graders making our 8th graders look foolish on TIMMS international math & science tests. Through these decades of hand wringing over why Johnny can't read, can't calculate, can't figure out a science experiment the Soviets failed to put a man on the moon, Silicon Valley came out of the garage, Japan imploded in 1989 and remains in the longest economic stagnation of any post WWII industrial economy, and Singapore and China worry that their testing drones don't know much about independent thinking that is essential to competing in the global economy.

Yes,we have an alarming percentage of children that aren't doing well in our public schools nationwide. Should we follow the money from business and political leaders who want to align their philanthropic dollars with real world-pragmatism?

Just consider all the education dollars that disappeared from states' budgets when real world-pragmatism created the financial meltdown in 2008.

A new idea for selecting the students that go to public charter schools.

No more lotteries for parents. The teachers of public schools totally decide upon which students should go to public charter schools. And the students in public charter schools can not be sent back to the public schools.

The public charter schools can even be renamed the public reform charter schools.

Mr. Kahlenberg would appear to miss the point. He complains that "lacking voice, charter school teachers are 132 percent more likely to leave the profession." But who should the system exist to serve and protect? Teachers or students?

In the very study he cites, the authors note that the higher degree of turnover at charters "suggests [that] charter schools may be leveraging their flexibility in personnel policies to get rid of underperforming teachers." While the authors speculate that this turnover may be detrimental to charter schools' performance, they offer no evidence either way.

Given that many of the charters in Harlem keep kids in school longer, maintain better discipline, hold teachers accountable for student performance, and produce better results than nearby traditional schools -- it should come as no surprise that constituents of those regular schools feel threatened. Charters may not be the full answer to educational inequity, but for students attending the good ones, they really are changing lives.

My son had a bad experience in a 2nd grade public school class. The teacher was aggressive about her math teaching. He had been in a private kindergarten and first grade (where my wife worked to help defray costs). We transferred to another elementary school which was public but better. He then self-selected a very difficult charter middle school. Many people thought he would be over-faced. He was right they were wrong. He thrived under the high stress, demanding, high level curriculum. The charter school provided a profound learning experience that could not have been duplicated at a public school. Public schools are typically mediocre, teaching to exams, teaching to the average. That charter school was brilliant.

He went to a very good public high school. He is know an honors student in a very demanding high level college science curriculum. He says the middle school, charter school, education was the basis, nothing else was worthwhile.

I knew a public school high school teacher in a huge high school in a poor section of a large cosmopolitan city. She was extraordinary and gifted. There was no child she would leave behind. Her books were inadequate. When she sought to raise money to educate her kids, she was canned by the highly-paid, overbearing principle.

I personally had a miserable experience in a public school where I was harassed, cajoled, and publicly humiliated by a 7th grade teacher. It took me decades to get over the study block and trauma. (I now have several degrees, blooming late better than never at all).

Public schools are not capable of dealing with different needs of different students. Schools are too large. We have slow-learners, brilliant students, twice-gifted (kids with both genius and handicap), and a panoply of different needs in students.

Charter Schools engendering neighborhood involvement and flexibility can better meet the needs of the students. The real question is: do we need regular public schools at all?

I understand why public schools don't like charter schools. Funds that go to huge plants and entrenched institutions are being diverted. But to serve the country is to serve the needs of the young students. The more there are thoughtful and competent charter schools, the better.

If large public schools want funding - let them earn it by serving students well.

I'm surprised nobody has discussed the huge difference between public school regulation and charter school "regulation." Government regulation of charter schools is nearly nonexistent in Arizona and some other states. Maybe people think that's good. Well, just wait until you, as a parent or student, have a very serious complaint, and you find that you are completely powerless. Then the government regulation that you once took for granted, the kind you get in public schools, suddenly becomes very important. All parents can do if a charter school pulls something outrageous is take their child out of the school. Is this a good way to implement accountability? Totally not.

Maybe charter schools could be good if they were regulated better. As it is, there is a huge amount of corruption and nepotism. Charter school administrators can hire or contract out to their relatives, children, friends, never mind how unqualified they are...and pay them salaries that are completely out of proportion. Nobody in the government stops them. They can cook their books, and they have such complete control that they can do it so that a state audit won't flag anything. Is this the kind of society we want? One of America's strengths has always been our low tolerance of corruption and nepotism.

We already had Enron, Lehman Brothers, etc. Why are we asking for more of this? There's a reason mankind invented regulation. It's because human beings and corporations can NOT be trusted to regulate themselves, especially when money is involved. And believe me, there are $$$ in the charter school business.

I find it curious that the shifting, strong interest in charter schools, vouchers and even private schools is led by caring, concerned, hands on parenting. What's left? "We have met the enemy and he is us." Let's see the "pols" and "do gooders" do to fix the real problem short of firing squads. It may be better to try to fix the problem with the caring hands on parents leading the way than running from it and leaving kids, the forgotten of their generation, to fend for themselves. I shudder to think of what will be left in the wake of the sweeping trend.

For the NY Times this is a surprisingly nuanced selection of viewpoints that ought to be required reading for the president and his secretary of education. Charter schools have their place, but they are not a "silver bullet". Indeed, there are no "silver bullets" when it comes to giving every child an opportunity to learn.

When promoting charters takes the place of proving adequate resources to other public schools as the vehicle for promoting excellence and equity, you have the current scenario. It is sad to see charter schools, many of which are as good as the best public schools, become one more "excuse" used by elected officials not to do the right thing for all our children.

"Nationally, charter critics have a legitimate point in terms of quality. It’s mixed."
Not only that, Mr. Goldstein, if I understand it correctly, charter critics have a lefitimate point in terms of miseducation. Not everyone is happy with corporate takeover of education (and everything else) and turning of ALL American schools into a training program of corporate zombies. Particularly repulsive is the use of public money for the destruction of the society. Yes, Mr Goldstein, societies do exist.

It seems to me that charter schools have motivated parents since they have decided to send their child to a charter. This level of parental involvement is unfortunately not a given for all children in public schools. This makes a huge difference in outcome, doesn't it?

Do charters have to accept all children as a public school does? I'm referring to children who have no parent involved in their education, or a child who is emotionally or physically needy?

I'm not getting an answer to these questions from the above article.

Resources [across the 'board'] are obviously finite. Human population increases for all intents and purposes are not [relative to resources]. Now for a slight detour: much of our national 'grumpiness' is due to the commercialization of all aspects of our lives [banks, mobile phones, water charges, etc...] - but to think it through, this is the reason why the US has the world's largest GNP. All of the employees and profits from the medical insurance industry [just to pick our largest economic segment] are part of GNP. For all the nostalgic discourse on education it is also just another economic segment of GNP - much employment and purchasing result from the educational process, without regard for results. So is it possible that results are not really the purpose of education? Is the actual purpose self-aggrandizement, as is so true of the medical insurance industry? Aggrandizement IS the 800lb gorilla in the room ...

When you have two young children growing up together on an urban block, and one child is recruited to a charter school and the other is not, should the non-recruited child feel inadequate? Should his or her family feel less fortunate? Statistically, is the non-recruited child subject to greater risk of failure in school, and/or hardship in life? Is this even a realistic situation (where one child is recruited and the other is not)? I appreciate all of the perspectives above, as I am no expert in this field, however there is still one thing I still do not understand. If charter schools recruit, how are children not left behind? And if charter school's students are a product of choice, are parents and guardians who are unable to pay the school's fees, with scholarships having run out, able to be included? Conversely, if public schools are a product of their city's tax base, and a city's tax base diminishes to dangerously low, are public school students any less left behind? Should the underprivileged feel any more comforted to be included in such a system that seemingly, readily regresses with each economic downturn? Any insight would be appreciated. Best.

There is no reason that a charter school would do a better job than public schools, and ample studies have proven this to be the case. The charter teachers are no better prepared than public school teachers, and with a longer day and usually no union to back them, they leave the profession in droves. A longer school day/year is a dubious proposition, and hasn't resulted in better education by any measure.

Be wary of any gains like those touted by the HCZ. You must realize how many of their students were forced out of their schools for failing to make the grade. Schools need to educate all children, not just those who produce good data.

Geoffrey Canada states, "The real question of choice is for the public school system itself: will it serve the children in our schools or the adults?" While he may be doing an outstanding job for the children/citizens of Harlem, it appears he is one adult who is being served quite handsomely - to the tune of $500,000 per year salary. Pretty good work if you can get that kind of money working in a "PUBLIC" school.

Charter schools have been around long enough that by now everyone should realize there are some excellent charter schools and some terrible charter schools. Most, however, are pretty good but could be improved with more guidance and support. In short, charter schools as a group perform at about the same level as public schools, and the argument that charter schools will solve any of the problems facing this country's public schools makes about as much sense as arguing that we can solve the problem of drunk driving by insisting that more people drive Fords.

Mr. Canada lost me at "not an intellectual debate". Anyone who thinks they have all the answers, and that those answers don't need critique, can safely be assumed to be selling something that won't stand up to critique.

Mr. Kahlenberg is more persuasive, but still hasn't made his case. The current state of the schools is not as bad as it's often made out to be, but it's far from satisfactory. We need to try something. We need to try lots of somethings. If those succeed one time in six, that's enough to learn from. If they fail three times out of eight, the question is how badly they failed and whether those failures can be ended without just going back to the status quo.

Well, finally someone has figured out the downside to these institutions. I grew up under a system of public education that was supposed to be the cornerstone of a participant democracy. Charter schools will help expand our already extant underclass. The answer is to provide better support to public schools.

Many public school apologists deride the accomplishments of charters by pointing out that they don't have to deal with the most troubled kids. That may be true to some extent, but so what? As a parent I am interested in my child's education, not the school's excuses for their failure. These people probably believe the Titanic should not have had life boats: without them at least everyone would have had an equal chance to survive.

I agree that disengaged parents and a toxic popular culture that devalues academic accomplishment are major impediments to school success. But some kids from these tough environments *can* succeed, and they deserve an safe and empowering learning environment. Traditional public schools can't offer this.

It's all about Choice like everything in America. Choosing to leave a failing school for a better one is very important when it comes to educating our next generation of leaders.

America has been wallowing in substandard public school eduction for our children too long, and if charter schools are the only way to solve this problem, and by all indications that they are working, let's increase our funding in that area.

President Obama saw the handwritings on the wall of our failing public schools and he is doing something about it by closing schools that muddle along to the detriment of our children's eduction.

Next, let's cut down our Military Industrial Complex budget in half and use the extra money to fund education, schools, hospitals, jobs, healthcare, and infrastructures.

Change. YES, we can!