"Competition makes the participants in any system better." That's not universally true. There are places where the neighborhood public school is in "competitio

"Competition makes the participants in any system better." That's not universally true. There are places where the neighborhood public school is in "competition" with charter schools, however, the charter schools aren't required to play by the same rules (get to select which students attend, don't have to cater to special needs students, etc). The public school receives less funding, and thus is stretched much thinner due to what it has to provide.