Outstanding article, now all we have to do is get a voucher system, and get rid of teacher's unions and our children will flourish.

Are you being facetious? If not, then have you looked at how well voucher systems have [not] been serving Milwaukee? What about when a voucher covers less than half of a private school's tuition? Who pays the rest? If a family can't pay the difference (even if the voucher covers more than half), then they don't get the use of a voucher? No matter how hard you try, you cannot squeeze and extra 1-3 thousand per schoolchild out of a family earning perhaps $10-12 per hour in at least 2-3 FTE jobs (if they are lucky enough to find that many jobs), and also have them commit the time necessary to get their children into a charter school that requires parent participation at a high level. And if the parent is a single parent? Who makes it to the required parent meetings, possibly for several different children?

Most private or semi-private charter schools that do accept kids for only the voucher amount they can bring in, do no better (and some do worse, in academic measures) than a standard public school that is already operating in a remotely kept up building. The Milwaukee system has existed for years now, and has been the beneficiary of university researchers, mentors, etc. In most cases (according to recently released studies, referred to on this site), the voucher and charter schools have no better success than public schools with experienced teachers. IN some cases, the children perform worse.