That's not central to the argument at all. The article's first argument is "only 17% of charter schools out-perform matched public schools, so it's unrealistic

That's not central to the argument at all. The article's first argument is "only 17% of charter schools out-perform matched public schools, so it's unrealistic to expect them to be a silver bullet". The schools in "Waiting for 'Superman'" are the rare few that are getting exceptional results. Yes, we as a country would be smarter if every public school was a charter school with exceptional results, but that's like saying we'd be smarter if every public college was replaced with Harvard or MIT. And that's just the first argument. Then it breaks into several more about non-school factors being responsible for the majority of achievement variance among students, and about charter school selection effects[1], as well as a lot of discussion of relevant omissions and factual errors in the movie. I'm not saying I agree absolutely with the article (I haven't seen WfS yet), but if you're dismissing it based on a fact-free first impression of a throw-away line halfway through it, you're doing yourself a disservice. [1] - Since only students with parents who are deeply involved in their education even apply to charter schools, those students are at an inherent advantage whether or not they get in.