... it shuts down. When a traditional public school fails, it ... gets more money. Writing for the Buckeye Institute, David. W. Kirkpatrick says that the fact that a charter school can be shut down is a good thing:

"The ability to close schools that are not sufficiently successful is perhaps the most noteworthy feature of any school choice program, as it is wherever free choice is an essential component, such as in the market system, free enterprise, and capitalism in general. This built-in feature of ongoing renewal and revival is what is lacking in monopolies in general and government monopolies in particular, and is what leads inevitably to their inefficiency at best and general incompetency at worst."

This incompetence is protected due to the aggregated power of self-interest:

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the public school system has 10,000,000 employees. Since none of them wants to lose their job they pressure politicians to maintain the system by preserving the monopoly. There is no countervailing power defending the interests of students and taxpayers.

And you wonder why school reform fails."