Handy guide to school "reforms"

For education wonks: The Education Writers' Association has produced a handy 20-odd-page PDF guide to school "reforms" such as charters, vouchers, privatization and such.

With luck, this will help professionalize some of the mindless, unquestioningly gushing coverage of some of these reforms that we see too often. While I think the coverage in our local press has been pretty good &mdash the "it's a miracle!" Chronicle gushfest over now-fizzled Edison Schools was a lapse that probably taught them to apply skepticism a little more intelligently &mdash it's still disconcerting to Google a charter operator, such as Envision Schools, and watch the breathless hype roll onto your screen.

By the way, I've been meaning to praise some of the Chron's charter-school coverage for leading to important legislation to curtail abuses. I keep procrastinating because of the effort of checking the numbers of the bills and digging up the links.

&mdash Caroline