Every year the media goes batshit crazy with education….they have endless shows and talks on the subject…..and each time we hear that the future of American education is charter schools….personally, I think it is a cope out by those who hate the idea of a public education…..but of course they trot out their paid consultants, think tanks, to do some creative writing to support their position….we hear about the highly successful school in NYC or the one in New Orleans…..but are these institutions the real future?

USAToday did a piece on two separate reports on charter schools……

• Compared with students in regular schools, children attending charter schools perform no better in reading and worse in math, according to a Department of Education study of 150 charters.

• Not so, according to a report from Harvard researcher Caroline Hoxby, who weighed results from charter schools in 36 states and found those students ahead in both reading and math.

What looks like conflicting research, though, is actually a matter of measuring the wrong things. Lumping all charter schools together is mostly useless. Charter schools range from experiments aimed at rescuing dropouts to programs providing performing arts students a school to sing or dance at. What’s to compare?

Parents considering charter schools need better advice than these apples-to-oranges studies. A better guide comes from independent education researchers who say the most successful charters:

The most talked about characteristic is the….INNOVATION……but take a closer look….

Often, what’s innovative about charter schools is not new teaching techniques but how the schools are run. The founders of the five Green Dot charter schools in Los Angeles organized a teachers union and pushed decision-making, including hiring, to the classroom level. That attracts talented teachers and raises salaries — the payoff from using half as many administrators as traditional Los Angeles schools.

The studies lumping charters together point to a problem: Not all charters are successful, and far too many low-performing charters are allowed to continue operating. Instead, mediocre learning results should be grounds for shutting some charters down.

Once again when the nation chooses to have the “education” discussion maybe they will focus on education and not some pie in the sky crap that is only as successful as its weakest linbk…and there are numerous weak links….

Our education is in deep do-do and the best we can do is a system controlled by a lottery…….explain just how this will make everything alright….I am sure that some millionaire somewhere will tell us this is the answer…….there are answers….but they are NOT found in the charter school BS!