Legislators in California have filed four bills that would hold charter schools to the same standards as public schools.
http://www.utla.net/news/new-legislative-push-charter-school-accountability
Expect powerful resistance from the California Charter School Association, which prefers no regulations at all, no accountability, total freedom to choose their students, to exclude the ones they don’t want, and to use public money with minimal or no public oversight.
The decision to rein in these private ventures rests with Governor Jerry Brown, who has protected the charter industry in the past, even vetoing a bill to prohibit for-profit charter vultures. Of course, as mayor of Oakland, he started two charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“But many voucher advocates say state testing requirements undermine the idea of an education marketplace where families choose the school that best meets their needs.
Part of what makes private schools different is that they teach to different standards, cover different content, and measure learning in different ways, says Patrick Wolf, a voucher proponent and professor at the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform.
“Many parents are attracted to them for that reason,” he said. “If you’re a student in a private school who takes a public school test and you score lower, you really won’t know if that’s because the private school curriculum is different, or because the private school is less effective in delivering content.”
A testing requirement is likely to dissuade at least some Memphis schools from accepting vouchers, according to lobbyists for the state’s Catholic schools.”
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2017/03/30/for-the-first-time-tennessee-school-voucher-advocates-are-pushing-for-tnready-in-private-schools-heres-why/
This from Chalkbeat. This is the objection I have to all testing. It is my class. Who has the right to tell me what is important?
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“. . . and measure learning in different ways, says Patrick Wolf,”
No they don’t measure learning in different ways. They DON’T MEASURE ANYTHING at all. They may assess, evaluate, judge, estimate, etc. . . but they don’t and CANNOT MEASURE ANYTHING in the teaching and learning process.
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
That supposedly objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
C’mon test supporters, have at the analysis, poke holes in it, tell me where I’m wrong!
I’m expecting that I’ll still be hearing the crickets and cicadas of tinnitus instead of reading any rebuttal or refutation.
Because there is no rebuttal/refutation!
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We all need to look at privatization through a critical lens. We keep hearing all the wonders and “miracles” of choice which are automatically assumed to be superior to public education. Rules and regulations will not stifle “innovation,” as there are no innovating trends from privatization. In fact, oversight and accountability should be a component of any private contractor receiving public funds. Taxpayers should have a right to know what is happening with their tax dollars. Moreover, when programs fail to get better results than public schools, contractors should lose their contract to operate as an educational provider since privatization should be about improving outcomes for students and not a profit generating scheme.
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People are making $$$$$ off of charter schools.
I know a person who thinks Gulen Charter schools are great. This person is writing a book about great things happening in schools and NOT ONE OF THEM IS A PUBLIC SCHOOL. When I challenged this person, this person told me that s/he cannot find a public school that is doing great things. HUH? DUH? I am disgusted. Of course, I have sent this person information to the contrary, but this person’s eyes, ears, and heart are closed because information does not support this person’s perspective and contradicts all this person’s unfounded notions about charters and public schools. Unbelievable. And this person calls self a scholar????? UNBELIEVABLE. This person is JUST an OPPORTUNIST.
But then, nothing surprises me anymore. I know two people who gloated about the fact that the Dump is now potus. They both called me on the phone to GLOAT. Both people are NOT RICH nor college educated. One is a former Nam vet and the other is married to a former Nam vet (who I hadn’t heard from in years and years). Are these people brain dead?
BEWARE of OPPORTUNISTS and those who GLOAT.
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My thanks to the California legislators who wrote these bills. Names noted. May Governor Brown retrieve his lost conscience and sign them into law. Holding charters accountable is, heh, heh, a Civil Rights issue of the 21st century. (A moratorium on charter growth would be a true act of justice.) Well, looks like at least a few Democrats were paying attention during the confirmation hearing, when DeVos refused to answer that Democratic Senator’s question about whether schools that receive federal funds should be held equally accountable. Now it’s got to be difficult for a Dem to go ’round saying, “I support unaccountable charters.”
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