Some worry that such schools would skim the brightest students from the traditional public schools. Others fear they would become sources of patronage and other forms of corruption, just as school boards became when they wound up in the hands of a few in the era following school decentralization in New York City. But charter schools are not a magic bullet. In recent interviews, nearly a dozen black and Hispanic lawmakers said that charter schools offered one of the few opportunities for poor and working-class children from the inner cities to get the kind of education that students in more affluent suburbs receive. The public schools are not working.
Charter schools give parents input into their children's education.
The supporters also argue that unlike traditional public schools, charter schools can meet the particular needs of a community because such schools have the freedom to decide what subjects to teach and how, whom they will hire, what hours to open and close their doors and how to best allocate their resources. The New York Times, Feb 28, 1998.