One of the persistent ironies of reform is the impossibility of predicting the full consequences of change.

If charter schools are not more successful on average than the public schools they replace, what is accomplished by demolishing public education? What is the rationale for authorizing for-profit charters or charter management organizations with high-paid executives, since their profits and high salaries are paid by taxpayers' dollars?

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools.

Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.

Congress and state legislatures should not tell teachers how to teach, any more than they should tell surgeons how to perform operations.

The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability.

We should totally ban for-profit charters. For-profit's first obligation is to its stockholders, not to its children.