We have had at least ten years–in the case of Milwaukee, 22 years– of listening to boasting about how choice and competition will change everything. Charters and vouchers will close the achievement gap. They will prepare students who are college-ready. The bottom five percent of schools will be in the top twenty percent of schools. The graduation rate will rise to 90 percent in X years. On and on.
All too often, gullible policymakers choose hope over experience.
At some point, the bills come due.
EduShyster asks a simple question: how are the graduates of “no excuses” schools doing in college? Did those years of filling in the blanks and obeying without question prepare them well?
This is an amazing article. EduShyster has great sources and gets surprising information. Consider this nugget:
“In each of the four school years for which SAT and AP data are available on the [state’s] website (school years 2006-2007 through 2009-2010, City on a Hill’s SAT scores were lower in every single subject than those of both Boston Public Schools and New Bedford Public Schools…When one looks at City on a Hill’s AP scores, its ability to prepare students for the rigors of college appears even more dubious.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I live in New Orleans and I think when they say college ready and work ready, they really just mean work ready. Hotel work, fast food work, restaurant work.
What “work ready”really means to them –ready to accept that they have no right to a living wage working in those industries.
i always go back to herber gans’ work, as dated as it is, it’s still true. http://www.sociology.org.uk/as4p3.pdf
everyone has a “function.”
My school has received several students who were counseled out of charters. One student was in a charter for two years and when they entered into our high achieving public school, which is in a middle class area of New York, their skills were sorely lacking. One charter told this parent that there are no disabled children, but disabled public schools. Well, after a year, this LD student is making progress in our “disabled” public school. The article above speaks the truth. Ironically, for schools that game the system by taking supposedly better students, they still lose.
These “college prep” schools should be sued for false advertising. The vast majority of graduates are nowhere near ready for a college campus. I think it’s a crime because the kids have no idea how difficult the college coursework will be in comparison to their level of preparation.