Open question that wasnt really discussed in the article- Why are charter schools demonized? My local area HATES them, and I'm not sure if its politics or worthwhile. EDIT: Why did I get 5 downvotes?
Once they start operating, they are intensely focused on minimizing cost. That translates into alot of student displacement as children who are disruptive or have various disabilities get tossed back, and increases the costs and operational challenges.
They are also disruptive to orderly and efficient operations of school districts. Kids and bureaucracies don't accept change well -- bouncing these kids creates problems.
In the small city I live in, charters appeared like locusts, and led the city district to close and sell a couple of schools. As the charters attrit troublesome students and get shut down for poor performance, hundreds of kids get "dumped". That results in overcrowded and high churn schools. My local elementary school lost it's music room, half of the library and has two outdoor classrooms as additional space that had to be cleared out to accomodate disabled students and handle growing class sizes.
They're stuck in a catch-22 -- their budgets are out of wack because they need proportionally more special ed teachers, and it's hard to know true capacity and more charters open and close.