Charter schools have been shown to be problematic. Charter schools are more enclaves eschewing mainstream society, and often siphoning off funding from already underfunded shools in the same communities. There is ample reporting of the problematic issues surrounding charter schools.
Magnet schools are different thing and can be exceptional. My son is a product of an exceptional magnet school which offered exceptional HSC and a STEM academies. There are actually quite a few exceptional magnet programs in my county. They are often difficult to get into. My son was the only student from is middle school to ever get into his magnet high school. Not only are the high academic achievement institutions, graduating from them practically guarantees successful access to scholarships, apprenticeships, and colleges of choice. My son graduated a fully certified EMT and went straight to work for the county EMS – he graduates from his academy this March, going on in the apprenticeship program which will pay for his community college paramendic degree, while allowing him to continue working in his chosen field.
Half his HSCA class graduated with multiple honors. They all graduated with the a basic academic honors chord because you could graduate from the HSCA with less than a 3.8.
Meanwhile, charter school graduates often struggle to get into the college programs of their choice because the charter academics systemically failed them. My son, for example, has a couple of friends who, on paper from the school, graduated with highest academic honors. One of them had eleven chords from their school. Neither of them could get into any of their top choice state colleges. The chose their top tier choices because they're persuing careers in medicine. They schools they chose, Duke, Chapel Hill, NC State, and even Campbell University, rejected their applications. They both enrolled in the communty college to get the raft of classes their colleges of choice told them they were missing from the charter school cirriculums.
I know I'm relating an anecdotal example. However, if you investigate some of the media reports about charter school failures and other issues, you'll see that there are well founded concerns about them.
