Ed Reform - Improving Ed or Accessing Public Funds?

Is Education Reform about improving educational opportunity for all students or does it cloak in fancy phrases an on-going endeavor primarily designed to access by private companies the $500 billion spent on public education?  That the focus of Walt Gardner’s most recent posting on his “Reality Check” blog, carried by Education Week today.   


Gardner points out, “As a result, what is happening is not educational reform in the sense of improving public schools but instead in the form of their privatization.”  “…I don't believe that failing schools can be improved by the methods advocated by mega foundations.”   


He goes on to say, “My skepticism is well founded.  Almost eight years ago, venture capitalists in Silicon Valley began investing in educational management organizations ("Venture Capitalists Are Investing in Educational Reform," The New York Times, Feb. 16, 2006).  They obviously did so because they saw money to be made. I expect the trend to accelerate in the years ahead as the campaign to privatize schools gains traction.” 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/business/16sbiz.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 )   

A recent study by Christopher & Sarah Lubienski, Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2013), “concluded that underserved students get no particular benefit from attending private schools.  When similar students are compared, public schools actually provide more academic growth. The only reason that scores at private schools are higher is that their students come from more advantaged backgrounds.”  

Here’s the site, if you wish to read the whole posting:http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/2013/12/is_education_reform_a_code.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS3