Years ago, when we first heard of charter schools, just about everybody was interested: even then, nobody was denying that the public school system needed help.

It turned out that there was good news and bad news. Charter schools are publicly financed but privately managed. In addition to public money, some are helped by philanthropies.

In order to work for most charter chains, teachers have had to relinquish membership in any teachers' union. This is not simply an issue about compensation. It means that, in the event leverage is needed to effect an administrative change, there isn't any.

With Green Dot Charters, it seems to be a different story. Green Dot teachers have a union of their own, and management welcomes it. Green Dot's financing is helped by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- maybe that makes for security. Its teachers' contract offers competitive salaries and more flexibility than that of most school districts. So far, teachers seem to be enthusiastic.

Like most charter chains, most of its schools are elementary or middle-schools. It has had a number of successes on the east coast, and more recently 20 schools in Los Angeles.

But Green Dot will also try turning around a disastrously crime-ridden high school. In New York it has been successful. Now it wants to take over Locke Senior High in Watts. Locke's claim to fame is its violent crimes. There's nobody left who has a good thing to say about it, not the school district, the kids, the parents, or the teachers' union. Two years ago a kid was killed there. Nobody has recovered from that.

Whether or not a situation as serious as Locke's can be turned around at all --- or like our own McAteer, needs to be shut down in the interest of public safety ---- is up for grabs. Watts is in focus for every educational administrator in Sacramento. Stay tuned.