Many charter school advocates want public schools to be run like businesses. As the free market fairytale goes, innovative charter schools force neighborhood schools to improve education, while schools that can't compete eventually close.

Three recent stories about Charter Schools and the school deform movement should make readers ask, "Is this what they mean by school reform?"

Imagine a world where a poem was judged by the number of characters per line or the font in which it was published, or a violin concerto reviewed in terms of its precise conformance to metronomic beats or the posture of the violinist. This is what we are doing to education: Trying to measure beauty with a ruler.