The plot to destroy public education...Part 347

This blog post (via Diane Ravitch) comes out of Louisiana, where a GOP-led government has done evem more to destroy public schools than their doppelgangers here in Pennsylvania, thanks to a Tavasco-hot of creationism and science denialism thrown on top. Still I think it's a great summary of overthing that's gone wrong -- over-reliance on testing and on unproven charter schools or (even worse) cyber charters, with new forms of segregation and many other problems.

The piece called "A Confederacy of Reformers" (question: why not go with "dunces"?) concludes:

What I am seeing is a purposeful plot to destroy public schools, and to profit from the destruction. These folks say they are data conscious and want to rely on "data driven decisions" but if that were true the data already readily available shows that everything they are doing is having the opposite effect of what they are purporting to provide. There is too much coordination for this to be accidental, and they are too successful for me to believe they are simply not competent enough to understand the data that disproves everything they claim. These groups have gone out of their way to spin the data, falsify the data, or simply hide or destroy the data to prevent people from seeing what is going on. These groups are fully aware of what they are doing – destroying public education in our country. Some of them are doing it purely for profit driven motives, but there is more going on here.

There's a lot more, and some of it is going on right here in River City Philadelphia. So stay tuned.