Given how hard it is to build a successful charter school, it’s not surprising that many fail to excel.  For those that are truly awful, they need to be shut down (just like truly awful regular public schools).  Jay Mathews is correct in calling for closing failing charter schools, but I’m not sure why he thinks Obama is better positioned to do this vs. closing the far greater number of failing regular public schools.  In both cases, the decision to close a school is made at the state or local level:

Many fine people, including President Obama, are trying to make public schools better, but I don't see much progress. Cities like New York, reporting impressive achievement gains, seem to have trouble with their data. The results from great charter schools are neutralized by the results from bad ones. New ideas are everywhere, but most are bloodless, hard to understand, difficult to visualize.
Here is one idea that is starkly different: Mr. President, you have to be the Grim Reaper, the Terminator. Get out there and start closing schools that don't work. I know a way you can do it that will win applause from everybody.

The trick here is that I do NOT want you to close regular public schools. There are plenty of them that are doing a terrible job -- too many, actually, for even a president to tackle. As a constitutional scholar, you know you don't have the power to shut them down anyway. That's the job of the states and cities.

But there is now this peculiar kind of public school called a charter school. It uses tax dollars, but is independent of school district rules. There are only 5,000 of them in the country, compared to more than 90,000 regular public schools.

The beautiful part of my plan is that you have been a huge charter school supporter.

 

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Mr. President: Be the bad guy, start closing schools.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/12/mr_president_please_be_the_bad.html#more