Charters would be open to all, with students admitted by lottery, without admission requirements or exams to create unrepresentative student bodies. They could not charge tuition to supplement public funds. These requirements, however, have gone mostly unenforced. Many charters pioneer pedagogies that should be imitated by regular schools. But private schools have converted to charters, functioning as before but with public funds.
Some charters solicit extra parental contributions.
Yes, wide variation among charters made this book difficult to write, but the authors duck the most obvious contradictions. But it's hard to see village life recreated by the Edison Schools, Inc., now accumulating charters to make it one of the largest school districts in the nation. Enforcing uniform curricula, Edison needs be as hierarchical as any school system, sorely testing Tocquevillian eyebrows. This is misleading. Separating results from technologies sounds good, but it takes no moral philosopher to know that ends and means can't so neatly be distinguished.