School district report cards

Recently the newspaper published report cards for school districts around the state. 

As I expected the district, in an urban area, where I live did not fare well at all.  There are many reasons for this which I will get into later.

Thinking about it lead to a variety of thoughts which I will most likely address in future posts but the first points to come into my mind went something like this:

If the reason for these grades is to show which districts are doing a good job of educating children then why, as a society aren't we also looking at the following:

Charter Schools
Catholic Schools
Private Schools
Homeschooled Children
Any other education options that I may have left out.

If the point is an examination of the quality of education then where is the examination of education in it's other forms?

One could argue that the public districts are scrutinized because they rely on public money (tax dollars) but Charter schools also rely on public money.  Many Catholic schools take tax money in various ways (for instance, those Catholic schools taking vouchers for tuition for children in districts that have been declared in emergency status).  Homeschooled children are often given materials which are provided for free by public dollars and take advantage of things like homeschool gym which is provided by local community recreation centers.  

I cant address this with schools which are completely private right this moment but if we as a society are truly concerned about the quality of education then no entity claiming to educate children should be exempt from such a report card. 

Additionally, a true sampling of how well a district is doing educating children should take into account a statistical model where a sampling of children from each district based on a fair socio economic basis.  For example 5 impoverished children in the district, 5 not as impoverished and 5 better off families. 

This would be to take the impact of socio economic status out of the equation. 

I cant see this ever happening but if it could it would provide a more accurate reading of how well the districts educators are actually doing in their jobs.

What if, what if......