Dr. Ravitch and the school question - can we be like Finland and Japan?

The question of how to fix public schools is a vague one until you have your own child and live in Baltimore, where schools have a reputation (not a good one). I want public education to work. I want to support it. One of the two public schools nearest to us has been failing each year, and doesn't seem to be getting better. Oh, and there is the fact that a kindergartner brought a gun to class last year. dear lord.
The charter school in our area gets rave reviews. But it's tough to get a spot. I am watching a good friend wait anxiously to see if her daughter made the lottery, knowing she can't afford public school and not keen on the aforementioned failing one.
And the question remains - what is wrong with schools? How do we make them better? I do not know and can't claim to have studied this. As a liberal person my inclination is that public schools are important and we need to support them. But I look to people who have studied schools, who have worked in schools, to find out what to do to make it so that I want - not just feel ok about, but really want - to send my daughter to one. My inclination as a mother is to get my daughter into a charter school. Do charter schools save or destroy the institution of public education? I don't know.
That is why I found this article about Dr. Ravitch so interesting.
She has reversed course from praising testing and charters, and sees the defense of US public schools as essential to our democracy. I do too - but how do we defend them? She sees charter schools as bleeding resources from the public system, and overall not doing better (it seems in Baltimore that they are doing better than publics, but I am not sure.
The article describes two basic responses to the failing public school system: returning to the old system (with new support) and blowing it up. I do not know which route to go, and I do not know what "blowing it up" looks like or leaves us with. There might be more clear answers to making the old system better; it seems obvious that the funding needs to be equalized, but that is a really tough move politically.
Ravitch draws her conclusions, in part, from comparative analysis of education systems - Pakistan's "weak and inequitable education system dominated by private and religious institutions", and nations "like Finlan and Japan" that "seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, pay them well andd treat them with respect." where they "make sure all their students study art, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects."
Of course, the socio-economic inequalities and struggles that Finland and Japan face are, well, nothing compared to those in inner-city USA. I believe that the disparity in school quality is just as great. Maybe "fixing" the school system, then, is about "fixing" some other, deeply entrenched, socio-economic inequalities in our country. sigh. What is a parent to do?

Human Development Report Rankings, Gini Index (inequality)
Japan - 10, 24.9
Finland - 12, 26.9
USA - 13 , 40.8