Ravitch says Obama and Duncan are wrong about charters

Education gadfly/watchdog Diana Ravitch has this to say about "education reform" in her blog: "The Obama administration is using its unprecedented billions to advance a strategy of deregulation and deprofessionalization. This strategy will push American schools into untested waters, with thousands of untried leaders, and with results that are far from certain. This is not a reform strategy, but a risky strategy."

And this: "Overall, public schools continue to outperform charter schools. The public schools' performance is significantly better overall and in cities, and among students who are not eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (the federal measure of poverty in school data). Among other groups—those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, whites, blacks, and Hispanics—the test scores of public schools and charter schools are not significantly different."

She doesn't like the fact that the federal government is violating the promise of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (which morphed into the No Child Left Behind Act under President Bush): "the federal government would never interfere with state and local control of schools."