Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that 18 new charter schools will open next month. Schools include ones focused on a music and singing, focused on studying both English and Spanish, and studying architecture, engineering and construction. Bloomberg lauded charter schools--"the right idea for the time"-- and this year, the NY Times reports one of the charter schools will be unionized (they are largely not unionized). One new charter school told the Post he left PS 183 on the Upper East Side to open a charter school in East Harlem because of the freedom they bring, "We were able to use the creativity inherent within the charter-school structure to create the kind of program we wanted."