Bruce Baker, our nation’s pre-eminent truth-teller and statistical whiz-kid, here inquires into a gathering of researchers who assembled to help private independent schools chart their future course.

The president of the National Association of Independent Schools, John Chubb, is a political scientist well known for his support for vouchers and his antipathy for teachers’ unions.

From my days at the conservative Hoover Institution, where John and I served together on the Koret Task Force, a group of eminent conservative intellectuals, I have a certain affection for John. But of course, I disagree with him on almost every significant policy issue, be it testing, vouchers, charters, or every other element of the new “reform” agenda.

In Baker’s post, he questions what values these researchers will add to the world of independent private schools. Many have loudly spoken out in opposition to small classes, but small classes are the trump card of independent private schools. Many of them boast classes of 12 or 14 students, at a time when public schools see their class sizes soaring past 30, in some cases past 40 students in the same room. Too many, certainly, to sit around a table and banter with the instructor.

Reading his piece reminds me of the vast gulf between the world of public schools and the world of private schools, where teachers are not judged by student test scores, where standardized tests are seldom given except for entry exams, where schools have munificent programs in the arts and beautiful playing fields….and, and, and.

So many of the “reform” elites send their own children to such wonderful schools but then argue that Other People’s Children need regimented, scripted schools where such luxuries as they enjoy are unavailable.

What’s sauce for the Goose is not available for the Gander.