Yeah, the article is a bit weird. It's looking at something VERY specific and not really the broader "are charter schools good?" argument. The idea behind the

Yeah, the article is a bit weird. It's looking at something VERY specific and not really the broader "are charter schools good?" argument. The idea behind the article is this: people claim that charter schools, known for better academic performance, will cause public schools to increase the quality of their own academics because parents will be able to choose to send their student to the better school. Basically, the idea that increased competition will increase quality across the board. The article says that this may not be the case because academic performance isn't as significant a factor as people might think. Most people will say that, if given the choice between a Grade A school and a Grade C school that they would send their children to the Grade A school. But after looking at the actual decisions made, it appears that many people would be fine with a Grade C school if the Grade A school was 2 miles further away. Or if the Grade C school had a football program and the Grade A school didn't. In other words, if public schools and charter schools are competing, they're not actually competing on academics (since parents aren't using academic performance as a deciding factor). Instead, they're competing on other factors: location, extracurriculars, etc. And if the schools aren't competing on academics, then there's no reason to believe that increased choice will create increased academic performance across the board. At least, that's the point the article is trying to argue.