Ideology doesn’t justify ignoring pertinent facts

Hardly anyone will oppose improving the education system in this country. Our most valuable resource is our population – our human capital – and anything that can be done to improve the value of that human capital should be welcomed.

How to improve the quality of schools is where the debate lies. Right now, there are seemingly infinite numbers of plans to improve education, and hammering out a solution will take time, effort and compromise.

This debate is about the future of our country, and because of this we should be having a fair and open debate with as little ideological influence as possible.

It appears that transparency may be too much to ask.

The U.S. Department of Education’s annual report card for the nation’s schools was released several months ago, and much excitement was generated about the successes of federal education reform. But buried within the report was a study that found that charter school students of various incomes, ages and ethnicities were performing worse than their public school contemporaries on standardized tests.

It’s easy to infer that the Bush administration – the champion of the possibilities of privately operated, taxpayer-funded charter schools – intentionally buried the report to protect the image of charter schools, considering its history of letting ideology trump studies. The administration has manipulated EPA reports to fit its ideology on climate change, so hiding unfavorable data wouldn’t be a new strategy.

However, the results of this study don’t necessarily mean that charter schools won’t work. There are many empirical examples of charter schools working, but hiding results that show the need for charter school improvement won’t convince anyone that charter schools are a viable solution. All reasonable ideas deserve a fair shot at success, and hiding studies from public view does nothing but hurt charter schools. Ignoring information like this actually hurts the charter school cause, considering such data could be an impetus for improvement within the schools themselves.

Washington voters will have the chance to vote on charter schools come November. Voters should be open-minded about how to approach education reform, but they should also expect the same open-mindedness from the federal government, which should provide fair and complete information.

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