It is a bad thing if you want to have strong universal public education.
Public schools in the US are already strongly segregated by income and race since schools are typically a municipal government concern.
Charter schools add an additional layer of segregation. Now you have schools that can divert public funds, but don't have to meet the same standards, services and accessibility standards as public schools. They can play games with expulsions, special ed classifications and lottery admissions to get the student population they want.
Charters filter out students and and funds from the public school system to create another tier of schools, leaving the worst performers and students with the most special needs in public schools.
Meanwhile charter schools teaching positions are frequently non-union with lower pay and worse benefits than public schools, eliminating what traditionally was a stable rung on the middle class ladder.
Throw in the businesses that smell profit in schools with less public accountability - including real estate, outsourced operations and services - and you have serious regression in public education if you ask me.
> It is a bad thing if you want to have strong universal public education.
> Public schools in the US are already strongly segregated by income and race since schools are typically a municipal government concern.
Well, you are complaining at once about students studying outside their catchment (quality of school depends on willingness to travel), and students studying inside their catchment (quality of school depends on local tax revenues).
The truth is that every system has tradeoffs, not every flaw in each system is fatal, and there is real room to explore.
> Meanwhile charter schools teaching positions are frequently non-union with lower pay and worse benefits than public schools
From some perspectives that could be a good thing, because some places would rather be able to afford to have kids in school every weekday, than index the pension fund for a vote buy. Teachers should work in a market like other professionals. Very productive teachers can scale up, as is clear from success stories regularly seen, for example, in Korea.
It really is a matter of opinion as to how to solve this issue, and the best answer may differ from place to place.