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Richard, you basically have the right idea, but create too much opportunity for intentional, and unintentional political mischief; for example through testing and judging students' success as a basis for funding.

In my book, School System Reform, I describe why we're in the existential threat mess we're in, why central plan optimization cannot and will not yield a tolerably functional K-12 system - that includes charter schools - and how to move forward to an effective system. That is, I take political feasibility into account.

The two key features of the way forward are: 1) an end to the public funding discrimination against the children for whom the assigned school is a poor fit; and 2) price decontrol of alternatives to the assigned school. A level playing field, with price formation and adjustment to inform and motivate education entrepreneurship, will yield the relentlessly improving, diverse menu of schooling options that a diverse student population needs to realize its full potential as citizens and productive workers.

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