William Gumbert has written a series of posts demonstrating that students who attend public schools in Texas consistently get better results than those in charter schools.
In this post, he shows that the regular public schools in Dallas outperform the privately-managed charter schools.
Using state records, he finds that Dallas County schools have higher academic ratings while serving a higher proportion of students with the greatest needs.
Among the regular public schools, 92.9% received an A or B rating from the state, while 58.7% of charters were rated A or B.
7.1% of regular public schools were rated C, compared to 31% of charters.
No public school (0.0%) received a rating of D or F, compared to 10.3% of charters.
Yet, he notes, parents are regularly bombarded with solicitations to attend a charter, where their path to success in college and life is assured.
This is a well-funded lie.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Public schools are undervalued as an institution. I think the public will deeply regret recklessly throwing them in the trash.
But “quality” has dropped off the ed reform agenda.Now it’s just “choice”.
They’ll publicly fund literally ANY “school” or program as long as it is not a public school.
There’s no analysis at all of the cost versus benefit of the huge voucher expansion they’re lobbying for all over the country. They have a proposed bill in Pennsylvania that increases voucher funding 25% annually, every year. 25%!
Someone should tell Pennsylvania public school students and families there won’t be any further investment in their schools. All of the future funding is being redirected to private schools. No analysis at all of this from any of the ed reform groups. They rubber stamp all of it.
Pure ideology. Private = better than public, always. It’s a shame we can’t even get real analysis or good quality work on the push for privatization. We’ll look back and wonder why we had so little reliable, unbiased information on ed reform plans.It’s all lockstep cheerleading.
Yes, it’s all PAID lockstep cheerleading for charter schools and vouchers.
lockstep and organized to go from state to state
Wait, so now State A-F ratings mean something? I’m so confused.
Diane is using the ed reform metrics to evaluate an ed reform program. That’s completely valid. They invented and promoted the A-F scale all over the country. They should be measured on the scale they imposed.
If they wanted a more comprehensive or nuanced scale they could have created one and imposed that one- they chose not to.
The incredible hubris behind throwing out public schools and replacing them with privatized systems hastily and sloppily designed by anti-public school ideologues is just breathtaking.
I think it will be considered a catastrophic error by the US when the privatized systems are finally actually evaluated by people other than echo chamber members who are all paid by the same people promoting privatization.
50 million US students, being used in an ideological privatization experiment. Boy, I hope the overhyped and marketed and promoted privatization schemes “work” because at some point there’s going to be an evaluation of how it happened that we threw an entire public system in the trash without any real analysis or debate.
Yes, Chiara…HUBRIS!
Union teachers are better teachers for many reasons. Corporate America will never understand or care. That they are hubristic ideologues causes them to ignore the data they collect trying to prove themselves right. Corporate reformers cannot:
“reform”
“reimagine”
“change”
“pivot”
“think outside the box”
“be data driven”
“innovate”
“break down silos”
“collaborate”
“assess”
“customize”
“differentiate”
“individualize”
“personalize”
“be learner-centric” or
“have 21st century skills”.
Corporate reformers are a pretty pitiful lot, if you really think about them. If they weren’t such unctuous applesauce peddlers, I might feel sorry for them.
Here’s a typical ed reform “analysis” of “digital learning”
“After releasing the Digital Learning Now policy framework, ExcelinEd released annual scorecards for each state on their level of digital opportunity.
States and districts that followed DLN guidance offered great opportunities for learners and were well-prepared remote learning during the pandemic. For example, the big Florida districts including Broward and Dade, had robust online and blended programs and moved quickly and efficiently to remote learning. (See Episode 255, a conversation with Broward CAO Dan Gohl.)
We appreciate Governor Bush’s leadership on digital and competency-based learning. Listen in as Tom talks to Governor Bush about the infrastructure needed to support personalized and digital learning.”
There are no questions in this ‘interview’. It is essentially an advertisement for Jeb Bush’s lobbying shop and online school companies.
Is Harvard embarrassed they’re funding this junk? They should be.
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2020/06/jeb-bush-on-digital-learning-now/
“This is a well-funded lie.” Ah! Thanks for saying so unequivocally, Diane. How refreshing!
An earlier report from this blog has shown that the students of Texas public schools are more likely to graduate from college than charter school graduates. It is unfortunate that no amount of facts will stop the privatization juggernaut. Charters make money for the politically connected, and they are always looking to expand into new territories. $$$
“CP Charter Graduates Underperform in College: Although touted as “tuition-free” college preparatory schools, 39.0% of CP Charter graduates had a GPA below 2.0 upon enrolling in a 4-year public university in 2019. In comparison, only 17.5% of school district graduates had a similarly low GPA.” https://dianeravitch.net/2020/10/05/analysis-of-texas-charter-schools/