I think the charter is better, but not because of the teachers or administration. The school is better becasue the parents are more involved and place a high value on their childrens education. Just the fact that there is no bus service to the school, requiring the kids be driven to and from everyday, cuts out the parents that see school as simply free day care.
This significantly reduces discipline problems. Furthermore, it's easier for the charter to kick out kids that can't or won't behave. This is the single advantage to the charter school.
And yes there is a long waiting list for this school, people wait for years for a spot.
My point is that ciriculum for teacher education in the US is controled by the unions, whether or not the teachers are in the unions. The wierd ideas are universal, as far as I can tell, thoughout the country.
Take home work. Reading for example. The teacher assigns the kid 20 minutes a night (any book they want). I'm supposed to sign a piece of paper that they did it. It's absurd. I can say they sat with a book for twenty minutes but I can't say they read. Furthermore, it doesn't tell anyone if they understood what they read. What the teacher needs to do is give them all the same thing to read and then test on comprehension. Or better yet have them write a description of what they read. But that would mean work and responsibility for the teacher, which is the exact thing the union driven eduction establishment is trying to avoid. I look at all the homework assignments my children have, and the majority are designed in this fashion; shift responsiblity from the teacher to the parent.
My cynacism of the system may have jaded me, but it just seems hopeless; you can organize the school anyway you want, call it a charter or whatever, but it's still the same union teacher attitude.