There will now be a final exam for people who propose public school privatization. The Texas legislature will allow low-performing schools to be taken over by nonprofit groups with proven track records for turnarounds of schools that consistently fail to meet standards. While it is not clear that such organizations actually exist, the Texas Education Agency is supposed to "qualify" some for takeovers. Apparently, TEA is considering The Gates Foundation and The Dell Foundation, but nobody I know can recall any schools that either of these two philanthropic foundations has managed.

Many people thought that the showdown would occur when Edison Schools received contracts to run failing public schools in several cities. That experiment proved that private management did not significantly improved academic results. In fact, in a number of cases, Edison was fired for poor performance. In other cases, Edison convinced school boards that Edison needed more money per pupil than the neighboring public schools, exploding the dual myth that private schools operate for less money and that they produce better results. In spite of the inability of the  Edison schools to demonstrate the claims of privatization supporters, it has never dimmed their rhetoric. They continue today as if Edison never existed. For example, earlier this year, John Stossel claimed in his ABC 20/20 Special that private schools operate for substantially less money with better results. While Stossel can certainly talk, you have to wonder if he can read. He is the quintessential example of the old adage that you can't learn anything with your mouth open.

Nevertheless, it is exciting to have another showdown because up to now, most studies have been fraught with ambiguity due to the fact that they have tried to compare children with similar demographics in private versus public schools. Getting that right is a daunting, inexact task.

Now we might be able to compare, once again, the performance of low-performing schools under government management and then under "turnaround" management. If turnaround management can significantly lift these unfortunate children's academic achievement, I will be the first to applaud and support more of them. But I suspect that the results will follow Edison unless a lot of hocus-pocus is played with the data.