In recent years, Indiana has gone overboard for charter schools, believing that they held the secret to raising the test scores of low-income students.
But blogger Steve Hinnefeld analyzed the passing rates by income levels and discovered that public schools outperform charter schools in Indiana.
He wrote:
“I merged Department of Education spreadsheets with data on free and reduced-price lunch counts and ISTEP-Plus passing rates. Then I sorted by free-and-reduced-lunch rates and focused on schools where 80 percent or more students qualified for lunch assistance. Results include:
“For charter schools: Average passing rate for both E/LA and math, 48 percent; passing rate for E/LA, 62.3 percent; passing rate for math, 62.5 percent.
“For conventional public schools: Average passing rate for both E/LA and math, 57.2 percent; passing rate for E/LA, 64.1 percent; passing rate for math, 68.1 percent.
“The data set includes only schools that enroll students in grades 3-8, who take ISTEP exams; it excludes high schools and many primary-grade schools. I also tried to screen out nonstandard schools such as juvenile detention centers and dropout recovery schools.”
He also reported that fewer charter schools get high grades from the state than public schools.
Not what you would call a high-performing sector, despite the boasting and promises.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Same thing in Milwaukee… http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/voucher-students-post-gain-in-math-reading-still-lag-public-schools-b99243092z1-254382141.html
The arrogance, dishonesty and impunity of the so-called reformers is such that they don’t need no stinkin’ facts.
but once again you are arguing with data, and Indiana, under mitch and later through his tool tony, never based their ed policy on data driven analysis–it was all about the rhetoric and the money. Odd thing, G. Wallyn and others in the DOE of Indiana used to, pre-tony, post such analysis and breakdowns of data by school and school corp online at the IDOE site. We worked with the journalist association, schools, parents and business groups to make sure data were understandable and useful. Under tony, those presentations were buried then disappeared becuase the data did not support the ed policy. Just remember, mitch and tony passed out copies of the racist c. murrays ed policy book and said it was a well thought out model that should be considered for adoption by Indiana. It fits right in with the common core system of tests and using outcomes to direct one into a career path that will create a real life Star Trek episode.
In a related Indiana note, after a year of scrutiny within the confines of new state-mandated evaluation systems, the vast majority (88%) of teachers were rated Effective and Highly Effective. Our State School Board says this number is be TOO HIGH. Really? We earned these ratings by jumping through every hoop our school corporations gave us. We proved ourselves on countless rubrics and competencies according to state demand even though we (and our administrators) already knew how well we taught day in and day out… and there’s something wrong with the evaluation system because too many of scored WELL?
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/state-and-regional/indiana/school-board-members-say-teacher-ratings-unfair/article_153536e7-dc4d-5b9d-b0af-83070b7ee941.html
As if they would complain about too many effective doctors or any other profession?
The goal isn’t to improve teachers. It is to REDUCE.
Interesting. So they are going to try to get their statistics to support their preconceived notions: too many students are performing poorly on the I-STEP. Therefore, we must have too many incompetent teachers. Watch for updated evaluation protocols.
The crime rate is too high. Therefore, too many police officers must be incompetent.
Houses still burn down. Therefore, too many firemen must be incompetent.
People die in hospitals. Therefore, too many doctors and nurses are incompetent.
People get cavities in their teeth. Therefore, too many dentists must be incompetent.
Huh?
This is simple common sense. Well prepared teachers, with degrees in our subject matter and / or education have developed a repertoire of educational practices that can help all children to succeed. We are seasoned by years of experience and work collaboratively with our colleagues to improve our practice. We see a wide range of students and have learned how to tailor curriculum to students’ interests and needs. In high poverty school districts, we know how to leverage what few resources are available for optimum effect and supplement materials from our own pockets.
The spurious paradigm of lazy, greedy, stupid public school teachers has become so widespread that even we have to remember it is fallacious.
Fallacious indeed.
The shameful part of the whole thing is the public schools get slammed (or ignored) when they’re doing really difficult, solid work with the endless promotion of and pom pom waving around the charters.
It always struck me as unfair and it still does. It’s also a lousy way to inspire or motivate people to CONTINUE to do good work.
These schools are just toiling away in obscurity surrounded by this entirely negative national narrative where they’re endlessly “compared” unfavorably to charter schools (whether that’s accurate or not, it seems).
I’m amazed they’re doing as well as they are after a decade of either neglect or what amounts to a policy of punishing sanctions at the state and federal level. It has to be hard to keep on working in that atmosphere.