From one of my heroes, Jonathan Kozol (who I was rooting for to be named Sec. of Education at one time), a wonderful explanation of why people should be opposed to the charter school expansion on the ballot in Massachusetts (and really, anywhere)

Slice it any way you want. Argue, as we must, that every family ought to have the right to make whatever choice they like in the interests of their child, no matter what damage it may do to other people’s children. As an individual decision, it’s absolutely human; but setting up this kind of competition, in which parents with the greatest social capital are encouraged to abandon their most vulnerable neighbors, is rotten social policy. What this represents is a state-supported shriveling of civic virtue, a narrowing of moral obligation to the smallest possible parameters. It isn’t good for Massachusetts, and it’s not good for democracy.