DETROIT — Government bureaucrats who think they know best what people should buy and drive need to spend some time at the Detroit auto show.

If they did, they’d see that people spend about as much time looking at hybrid and electric cars as they do flossing.

That was evident again Monday when the international media descended upon Cobo Center to kick off the North American International Auto Show. They flocked to the new Corvette Stingray and kicked a lot of truck tires.

Occasionally, someone stopped to see what was plugged in.

Therein lies the state of the automotive industry in America. Despite what environmental activists and some members of Congress want, consumers are king and they’re still mostly interested in sedans, SUVs and trucks.

“Ultimately, it’s the market that matters,” said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor and chairman and co-founder of AutoHarvest Foundation. “The consumer is the voter.”

The numbers back that up. Ford Motor Co., for example, sold more F-150 trucks last year than any other vehicle in its portfolio and the truck has been the nation’s No. 1 selling vehicle for almost every month of the last 30-plus years. For 2012, three of the top five best-selling vehicles were pickups.

Ford sold more than 645,000 F-150 pickups last year, and in the month of December alone sold more than 2,200 a day. By comparison, Ford sold 245,922 Focuses last year. 

Auto executives I talked with Monday said they expect most consumers will continue buying big, with a move among first-time buyers to smaller vehicles. But even those buyers trade up to bigger vehicles as they get older and earn more.

However, to a person, the executives I spoke with said that if the government’s long-term fuel restrictions are not adjusted, consumers will see the price of cars and trucks increase by far more than the $2,500 the government estimates the standards will cost.

By 2025, vehicles will have to meet an average of 54.5 miles per gallon, double the current standard. That will add $5,000 or more to the price of new cars and trucks, depending on the make and model, executives said.

Automakers are working to meet fuel rules that were designed without regard to market or consumer demands, and they'll continue to do so. But the industry and the economy will be much better served if government gets out of the way and quits driving blind.

A new study taking race, poverty and other areas into account when measuring performance shows that students in Michigan public charter schools do better academically than their conventional public school counterparts.

The students who took advantage of school choice had academic growth 82 percent above the state average in reading and 72 percent above the state average in math.

The report from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) followed more than 85,000 charter school students in 273 schools and took into account grade level, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language learner status, special education status, gender and prior test scores on state achievement tests.

Michigan public charter school students had larger learning gains than any other state that the organization has studied.

"These findings show that Michigan has set policies and practices for charter schools and their authorizers to produce consistent high quality across the state," said Stanford University's CREDO Director Margaret Raymond. "The findings are especially welcome for students in communities that face significant education challenges.”

The study showed that 35 percent of charter schools did better in reading gains than conventional schools and 42 percent made better gains in math. The majority of charter schools (63 percent and 52 percent, respectively) did about the same compared to conventional schools. Only 2 percent of charter schools did worse comparatively in reading gains and 6 percent in math.

It also showed that public charter schools are helping close the racial achievement gap: black and Hispanic students were significantly better performers in charter schools than in conventional schools when compared with their white counterparts — though all three races made large gains in charter schools. Low-income students also did better in charter schools compared to those in conventional schools.

Public charter schools also enrolled a higher percentage of minority students, students in poverty and English language learners than the traditional public schools. The percentage of students with special needs was only slight different, making up 9 percent of the public charters versus 11 percent in conventional schools.

“This report supports our internal data and shows the Michigan model is working, and it’s leading to significant improvements for children, especially at-risk children who are historically underserved,” said Cindy Schumacher, executive director of The Governor John Engler Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University.

The methodology showed that the average student gained two months of additional learning in math and reading with the largest gains taking place for students in Detroit.

Not all the results were positives for charter schools: Students designated as special education and English language learners in charter schools had gains slightly lower than those in traditional public schools.

The study followed students for six school years, from 2005-2006 through 2010-2011.

In late 2011, the Michigan legislature voted to expand and eventually lift the cap on the number of public schools that can be chartered by public universities.

A previous CREDO study looked at charter schools in 16 states in 2009 using the same methodology but with much less data found that only 17 percent of charters did better academically than conventional public schools, 46 percent did about the same and 37 percent did worse. That study has been cited by a variety of charter school opponents, including the Michigan Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers - Michigan.

To see the full report, visit http://credo.stanford.edu/.

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See also:

Michigan Capitol Confidential Charter School Coverage

New Report Card Compares High School Test Scores and Adjusts For Economic Status

Charter Schools Average Smaller Class Sizes

Inaccurate Claims Buoy Attacks On Charter Public Schools - 'There is no such thing as a "for-profit" charter school in Michigan'

Charter School Demand Continues to Rise

Parents Pin Hopes on Charter School Lottery