"Let's not forget a sizeable chunk of money being diverted to the city's charter schools, a concept I think just hurts the regular school system." - this is SO true. It's like everyone 'heard' that the public schools are so bad but don't actually look into it. We fell into that trap. Our child went to a private pre-school and then to a charter (like most families we knew). But now we, and 90% of the families we know do did the same thing, have switched to our local public school! We're much happier. We found the charter we were at to be lacking resources, and high teacher turnover rate (more so than public schools) was making the few good programs inconsistent. For example music was terrible, then a new teacher made it suddenly great, then left and it was terrible again.

So maybe it is just the bubble I'm in, but perhaps this is changing? I get that some kids need smaller classes or are otherwise better suited to something outside of the normal school system. But generally, it drives me crazy when people just go to the charters without questioning!!