Fox and the BLOB

Fox Business is having a discussion on education tonight  here Their website says it will be a faceoff between their experts and “the BLOB” which they define as anyone defending traditional public schools.

The Blob?  What is this, argument by personal attack?

Your facts are very misleading.  Tripled spending?  If you take inflation and huge special education costs into account, you'll see that spending on the average student has remained the same over the last twenty or so years.   Charter schools?  When all of the research is looked at, there isn't much difference between scores at charter schools and scores at regular public schools.

As a high school English teacher for 37 years, in public, private, and parochial schools, my take is pretty simple:  kids need to read more.  Sophisticated reading skills are the foundation for all learning, and kids only acquire advanced reading skills through wide, avid reading.  So let's open up language arts curriculm to give kids choice in books.  Let's fund school libraries.  Let's give kids e-readers and an account for an on-line bookstore.  Then you would see scores soar.