Not OP but I think charter schools in NYC are a makeshift bandaid and political bandaid to address the inability to meet the needs and wants by parents of schools due to bureaucracy, infighting withing government, competing politics and educational goals, and power of teacher unions. Basically similar to outsourcing govt services to outside companies (which has advantages of not being tied up in bureaucracy and plausible deniability if contractor messes up) but in this case the government maintains control of a competing service(public school vs outsourced charter school). The existence of charter schools is due to government and political dysfunction (which seems to be worsening in NYC) so unless those disappear charter schools aren't likely either. Also keep in mind there's a lot of tax payer money out there so everyone wants it to be used the way they want it to be used.