If you think charter schools are the panacea for public education you are wrong. Charter schools do about as well as public schools. Except, they are part of the corporatization of American education (and everything else for that matter). Our country was founded on the idea of free and public education and that's the way it should be. It is not the unions that actually protect bad teachers. There are committes that have their own rules that decide what happens to a teacher. But rather than go into all the inaccuracies and misleading statements (real life is complicated folks) I want to propose that we concentrate on the principals. If a school had a great principal it will be a successful place for kids to learn and grow. On the other hand, no matter how many good teachers you may have at a school a poor principal can kill progress, I've seen it. If we could create a rigorous and well funded training program for principals I believe we would be doing the best for our students.