After the U.S. Department of Education released a long-delayed study showing public school students doing as well as or better than private school students, voucher advocate Paul Peterson responded in an entirely predictable way, arguing that the report's methodology was seriously flawed.  But Peterson's one-note tune is beginning to sound a little shrill.

In an essay titled "Cutting Through Right-Wing Spin on Public Education," Kevin Franck of People for the American Way puts Paul Peterson's latest distortions in context:

Every school day in America, thousands of teachers work hard to help students grow into thoughtful, responsible citizens. The recent NCES study shows that their hard work is paying off. Tragically there are public schools that struggle, and those schools need honest, effective, and research-proven reform. We need to continue the debate about school reform, but we must remain committed to honesty and to our public schools. But quasi-academic proponents of privatization, like Paul Peterson, are committed to neither.  (Via Education News.org)

If Peterson were ever to "rework" someone else's study and find that it is unfairly critical of public schools -- surely, that must happen sometimes -- then he might have some credibility.  But when every Peterson study comes out the same way and concludes that everybody else's research has a pro-public school bias, it's hard to take Peterson seriously. 

And, apparently, few journalists do.  His response made only a tiny ripple in the media.