Linda Darling-Hammond surveys the wreckage of the privatization movement and assesses whether Betsy DeVos’s failed policies in Michigan will inflict further harm in the nation’s embattled public schools.

The article is well worth reading. It contains useful data.

However, I have some caveats.

I greatly admire Linda and her scholarship, but we have a fundamental difference about charter schools. As currently configured, I see them as an integral part of the privatization movement. She thinks there are good charters and bad charters. This is true, but the charter idea itself has been captured by people like DeVos who are hostile to public schools and equity. I agree with the NAACP that no new charters should be created until charters meet the same standards of accountability and transparency as public schools, and stop cherry picking the students likeliest to get good test scores. The good charters, in my view, should be…