Myths about charter schools and teachers unions

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Why are charter schools being pushed by big business interests as the solution and the best alternative to public schools, which are supposedly failing? How do we convince some of the liberals that charter schools are working in the interests of the corporate elite? Some people think charter schools are somehow more "innovative" or whatever. Where I live, we are fighting to stop public school closures, but should we also be demanding a stop to charter school openings, since they are clearly meant to replace the public schools?

From what I understand charter schools are:
1) non-union
2) more disciplinarian than public schools
3) privately managed and publicly funded
4) expelling students with failing grades
5) discriminating on admissions

Another thing that one conservative friend brought up to me was how teachers unions are supposedly preventing "bad teachers" from being fired. For example, teachers who sleep with their students. This seems mostly like an emotional appeal to me, because I can't imagine teacher's unions actually being pro-pedophilia. It's also ironic that my friend, being a Catholic, would criticize teachers unions for this when it has been shown a million times to what extent the priests, bishops, cardinals and the pope will go to cover up their abuses... is that fair to point out? Anyway, what is actually going on in teachers unions? What are the actual criticisms of what they are doing?

[Stephen Colbert]

From my understanding the major criticism of public teachers unions is that it is incredibly costly to fire a teacher who does not meet teaching standards. He or she can join a union to protect himself/herself and it costs (I've seen) upwards of $500,000 to sucessfully battle the union and get rid of him. Again, I think a lot of the criticisms of unions(that are always the bane of the general public oddly) are similar to elite business interest, the union boss more or less just replaces the corporate boss, pocketing money and not making decisions in the interest of the collective body.

What blows my mind, is this anger at slashing the budget ya-da ya-da in regards to public education... but when wall-street literally collapses we prop it up with tax payer dollars and people forget how angry we were at the bailout...

But in there minds public schools shouldnt be funded by tax dollars and should FAIL!!!!! oneone!1!!1!!!!

Sorry I suffer from internet forum ADD. That might not make sense.