Charter and Voucher Recap

For those with short memories or who have been snoozing for the past six month, Barbara Miner offers a nice recap on the privatization myths debunked by research earlier this year. A clip from Rethinking Schools:

A time-honored way to bury embarrassing news is to quietly release the information on a Friday afternoon in mid-summer when reporters are on long-awaited vacations or wishing they were. It also helps if attention is focused on a nationwide heat wave.

So it's not surprising that Bush administration officials chose Friday, July 14, when record-breaking temperatures were recorded across the country, to release a study that found that public school students' test scores in reading and math are as good as or better than the scores of comparable students in private schools.

And in late August, when the press's attention was on the arrest in the Jon Benet Ramsey case and the impending anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Education released a report that showed 4th graders in public schools did significantly better on reading and math tests than comparable students in charter schools.