Nelson Smith does a nice job rebutting Ravitch's many mistakes in characterizing charter schools (which, by the way, NOBODY thinks are THE solution):

The book is actually more evenhanded in reporting charter academic performance than Ravitch's ominous Tweets had suggested. Of course she covers the negative CREDO study, but also reports Hoxby's New York work and positive studies in several other cities.  Too bad that these more positive reports, and success stories like KIPP, had to be explained away by motivation, creaming, supposed financial advantages, or other rationales -- instead of being investigated as a source of promise.

Ravitch is a sincere small-d democrat, and much of this book's argument comes back to her own notion of democracy. She objects to philanthropic support of charters and other innovation because foundations aren't elected. She opposes charters and other forms of choice because they undercut the viability of neighborhood schools, "the one local institution where people congregate and mobilize to solve local problems, where individuals learn to speak up and debate and engage in democratic give-and-take with their neighbors."

But she's viewing those neighborhood schools in a rose-tinged rear-view mirror.   Some are still quite wonderful, but too many simply fail to educate some or all of their students – the fact Al Shanker decried 22 years ago in first proposing charters. Ravitch never really comes to terms with this issue, other than calling for stronger curricula and such nostrums as "coordinated social services."  She rues that as charters multiplied, "few voices were raised on behalf of the democratic vision of public education."
An inner-city parent might well ask why keeping her child in a dysfunctional "regular" school should fulfill anyone's notion of democracy.

What's really odd is that the things she wants for our schools, especially inner-city ones, are mostly being achieved by the high-performing charter schools that she trashes with her blanket condemnation of all charter schools.  If she wants to see a rich curriculum, she should hop on the subway and in a matter of minutes she would be in one of a few dozen miraculous places – high-performing charter schools in NYC – that are doing EVERYTHING she's talking about...

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Ravitch on the Road to Damascus

Submitted by Nelson Smith on March 2, 2010 - 9:25pm

www.publiccharters.org/node/2448