New Zealand School system de-constructed. Here we have a nation realizing that pumping more money wasn't improving education, and discovered that almost 70% of the money was funding administration. In one fell blow they dissolved all the boards of education in the country and every school came under a board of trustees, directly elected by the parents, and all the per-student funding was given to each school without strings attached!
They also installed a voucher system. They thought that the public school enrollment would plummit, but it didn't. Instead teachers realized that if students left that the funding would fall and they would be out of a job, so the teaching got better and the students are performing better.
The percentage of students enrolled in public school was at 85%, fell to 84% and then rose to 87% three years later.
It's time for an education revolution people!

Update: There's been noise about a NY Times article siting stats that charter schools didn't do as well as public schools. Later it was found out that since charter schools serve more inner city kids and minorities, and the public schools stats used were for all demographics, the real stats showed that charters do about the same as public schools.
The real story here is that religious schools outpace both charters and public schools time and time again. Look at the Nations Report Card from the National Center for Education Statistics.