I'll confess that I have at times thought WAY too much over the past six years or so about SES -- supplemental educational services (mostly after-school tutoring) supplied by for-profits and nonprofits under No Child Left Behind.

As I noted last week, AFT's Nancy Van Meter wrote about SES at edbizbuzz recently.  Now, the edbizbuzzer himself, Marc Dean Millot, has followed up with a smart post of his own.  The whole thing is well worth reading, but, if I had to choose a favorite passage, it might be this:

The history of evaluation in SES was hardly inevitable, but has been entirely predictable. With one plausible exception, it has followed the course of every market-based school reform since 1990. Over time, advocates and leaders of independent charters schools, Education Management Organizations (EMOs), Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) and SES providers have employed precisely the same set of talking points: “Please let us get started before asking how we are doing;” “You know, this is hard, there are no silver bullets;” “We’re about to start a study, but what’s the right measure of effectiveness for our unique offering - and do test scores truly capture our real value?;” and finally, “Evaluation doesn’t really matter to our future; it won't be interpreted fairly, and it won't change anyone's mind.”

Millot is a smart guy who is open, even favorably disposed, to the idea of a role for private companies in education, but he doesn't think they should get a pass on accountability.  Gotta respect that.