Lance Hill of New Orleans responded to blogger Mike Deshotels, who noted the double standard for charter schools and public schools. Public schools must meet standards, but voucher schools do not? Lance writes:

Mike, excellent post on the contradictions of the Louisiana accountability
plan.  

This isn’t even a policy debate: it’s a debate on simple logic.   Imagine a
hospital that graded doctors on mortality rates. If a hospital administrator
transferred all the critical care patients into the maternity ward, suddenly
the maternity ward doctors would go from an A grade to an F grade.    

If  a policy defies simple logic, there has to be some motive for it other
than its declared purpose.  In this case, I believe the hidden agenda for
grading teachers and schools is to use it as a means to privatize schools
and control the labor force.  The corporate reformers don’t care that a few
good schools and teachers lose out:  it is acceptable collateral damage.  I
predict that once control of public education is transferred to the private
sector,  then meaningful assessment policies will be implemented.  Indeed,
in the 2005 Gates-funded draconian “Tough Choices or Tough Times” report
which advocates “contract schools” and also advocates abolishing high-stakes
testing.  It is implicit that this federally-imposed plan would only
possible if public education were privatized and controlled by state or
federal government. 

Skills Commission member Anthony Carnevale’s dissent. This is the only
dissent I found on the net-amazing given some of the commission members.
It’s also a good short summary of the report’s recommendations:     
http://bit.ly/QpJfMy

Skills Commission 2005 Report. A little-read report but a blueprint for what
is happening all around us:
http://bit.ly/ObCVCL

The proof that the “accountability” plans are, in truth, “power and control”
plans is that the Jindal/White voucher plan initially imposed no
accountability standards for voucher schools nor performance standards for
teachers.  Why?  Because the non-public schools are already in the private
sector.  Vouchers were simply another way of undermining public schools so
the state could privatize them.  What at first appeared to be a double
standard-regulation for public schools but not for non-public schools-now
makes perfect sense as a means to an end.   

Lance Hill