movement in for privatization has enabled school choice to transcend its tarnished history as an escape route for southern whites who sought to avoid court-ordered desegregation in the 1950s and 60s. we ve been talking about the state of public education with diane ravitch. joining us is pedro cabrera at new york university s stein hart school of culture, education, and human development and author of creating the opportunity to learn and unfinished business. and tremain lee, a national reporter for msnbc.com who s reporting on zis parties in mass school closings across the country. thanks for joining us. peter, talk to me a little bit about this notion of charter schools as the salvation for what is wrong with our traditional public school system. well, the history is actually interesting because charter schools are presented as a way to produce innovation by freeing schools up from some of the regulations that public schools were saddled with.