Charter schools are an interesting step.
Yes, they syphon off the best and brightest, demonstrating the complete lack of challange and quality that public schools offer. Yes, they draw attention away from public schools, and demonstrate that students actually interested in what they're doing are amazingly successful. The sooner the leaches have to work for a living, the sooner we can all get on with learning. The next step, of course, is to eliminate the legal force used to compell attendence, so that malcontents can be ejected before they go off and start shooting, and those who are actually interested in learning can do so without having to wait for the slowest student in the class. I did my 12 years of forced labor for the crime of being young.