Reformers love to test and rate and grade and rank everyone and everything: students, teachers, schools, etc.
They love school report cards–where schools are assigned a single letter grade–because it sets up the D and F schools to be closed, then privatized.
This enables them to churn the schools and introduce the principle of constant disruption, their favorite state of being.
Disruption, you see, is supposed to create innovation and improvement.
In reality, it produces teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum, teacher attrition, student push-outs, and unending anxiety for everyone, as they watch the axe poised over their heads.
But what is most embarrassing to the “reformers” is when their beloved charter schools get grades no better than the public schools.
That is what happened with the release of the latest state-created reports cards in Ohio.
As blogger Plunderbund reports,
“After 15 years of charter school expansion, the new Ohio school report cards provide the strongest evidence yet that this method of using charter schools to supposedly reform education in our state is a complete failure. The latest results from the state make it clear that the large urban districts are not dramatically improving and the charter schools that are supposed to be transforming educational practices while being given every advantage (including a greater amount of state funding) are doing no better.”
Plunderbund reviews the data and concludes:
“Look, we’re not saying that the urban schools are knocking it out of the park – they wouldn’t be under attack so much by politicians if they were showing dramatic improvement. But the reality is that the charter school experiment in Ohio has failed as a method of public school reform and it’s time to pull the plug.
“Ohio’s children need a better plan than the one drawn up by our legislators and their donors.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Toledo Blade was very good on this, I have to say. Their headline was much like yours, Diane. Plain language.
It’s fairly remarkable how their tone has shifted, from fawning deference to reformers to straight reporting, because the Toledo Blade was on the public-employee bashing bandwagon in 2009-11 with the rest of media and all the school reform lobby shops. The reform union-busting agenda was trounced in Ohio: they lost by a huge margin when we put it on a ballot. That seemed to wake media and politicians up.
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If I could just add, advocates for public schools in Ohio can now determine exactly how much state funding they have lost under “reform” and Governor Kasich.
I was at a school meeting last night and it’s 1.5 million reformers have pulled out of my district, every year since 2011. We don’t have any privatized schools. This is money from the state for public education. It’s a huge sum for us. It’s not a wealthy area. The median income is 32k and our schools are old, the grammar school was built in 1917.
People in the district were not aware that reformers had cut funding to our public schools, I could tell by the reaction from parents. Plunderbund is correct. Reformers cut funding for public schools and showered money on failing charters. Your school board will know exactly how much was cut from your public school.
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And from the Cincinnati Enquirer
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130827/NEWS0102/308270023
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The shearing of piglets continues : A lot of squealing, and little wool.
The crafters of “Conventional Wisdom” convey their actions as a
“Purpose-Driven Science” to secure the “Greater Good”. Promoting
Social Purpose, as their goal, to justify their existence.
In reality, the real measure of their “Social Purpose” is whether they
are producing the society we want to live in.
At some dim level many can see the truth, but as long as they ignore
it, they can rationalize their complicity.
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The charters need to be shut down. I saw a logo for OHIO BATS. It had a bat over the state of Ohio. I loved it.
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