Chester Finn has an opinion about exam schools

With thanks to the indomitable Jackie Reis for catching the Education Next report before I'd seen it!


I see that we're getting a report in tomorrow's paper on a new article in Education Next on exam schools (which itself is a summary of a forthcoming book).
Well, Chester Finn has an opinion on exam schools, doesn't he?
Let's see...he's compared the population of exam schools to the population of students in the country, not in their sending population. Yes, Mr. Finn, that would give us a population higher in minority students than that of the country, as most exam schools are in urban areas...with higher proportions of minority students. What an atrocious excuse for analysis!
Dear me, what a use of quotation marks: "affirmative action," "special ed," "elitism," and--shudder--"contract scale"...
In sum, though, Mr. Finn is forced to come to the same conclusion that the other (few) research articles on exam schools have come to: we don't know that we add value for the kids who are there, 'though they do improve the perception of the district.