Yesterday, Patrick Wolf published a vitriolic attack on me and on the National Education Policy Center.
This was in response to a post I had published saying that vouchers had failed in Milwaukee. They are supposed to “save minority students from failing schools,” but they do no better and sometimes worse than public schools. I cited Wolf’s evaluation, state test scores (which showed no edge for voucher students), and the fact that 75% of the voucher students in his study did not remain in the voucher schools to graduate. The 75% attrition rate appears in Wolf’s report. I did not know that he subsequently lowered the attrition rate to 56%, although that too is a pretty staggering attrition rate. I also noted that Wolf recently wrote an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune chastising his home state of Minnesota for not requiring more school choice. This caused me to question his “independence” as an evaluator of school choice, since his article advocated for more school choice. And this is why he is so angry at me.
Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, wrote this response to Wolf:
PATRICK WOLF SHOULD APOLOGIZE
The Education Next website yesterday posted Patrick Wolf’s very personal and misguided attack on Diane Ravitch (http://educationnext.org/ravitch-blow-up-on-school-choice/). He also made inaccurate statements aimed at the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), which I direct. I will, below, extensively quote some of the vitriol, because I don’t want any of Patrick Wolf’s injudicious wrath to be lost in paraphrase. Then, after those quotes and a description of how they are false and misleading, I ask the piece’s author as well as the publishers of Education Next, to publicly apologize for the inaccurate statements about NEPC and about Dr. Ravitch.
The Education Next piece is written by Prof. Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas. He heads up the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP), and has been paid millions of dollars by several jurisdictions with voucher policies to “independently” evaluate those policies. The NEPC has, in turn, reviewed several of the publications that Wolf and his team produced. Those expert reviews show the evaluations to be reasonably well executed, but the reviewers have also consistently pointed to a pattern of presenting evaluation findings in ways that are misleadingly positive – as well as a pattern of minimizing clear limitations in the data.
This brings us to a review in 2012 of Wolf’s “Report #30” of the Milwaukee voucher program (see http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-Milwaukee-Choice-Year-5). For the expert review, NEPC turned to Casey Cobb, who is Department Head and Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Connecticut. He is also Director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at UConn.
Prof. Cobb’s summary included the following:
[The report’s conclusions about improved graduation rates] should be considered alongside at least two important caveats, however. The first is a methodological concern. Roughly 75% of the original sample of 801 [Milwaukee Parental Choice (voucher) Program (MPCP)] 9th graders were not still enrolled in a MPCP high school in 12th grade. The inferences drawn about the effects of the MPCP on graduation rates compared with those in the [Milwaukee Public School (MPS)] are severely clouded by substantial sample attrition. A second concern lies in the report’s interpretation of the data. Among the most careful statistically controlled analyses, only one finding was statistically significant at conventional levels. These two limitations prevent broad conclusions being drawn about the relative effectiveness of the MPCP and the MPS on graduation and higher education continuation rates. (Emphasis added.)
This week, Diane Ravitch cited Cobb’s NEPC review, noting in particular the point about the 75% attrition. Wolf was none too pleased.
He first points to his stature as the go-to guy for people wanting their voucher programs evaluated: “I keep winning the competitions to perform the most important private school choice evaluations around the country, and regularly publish my results in the very best scientific peer-reviewed policy journals (see here, here, and here), Ravitch’s ad hominem attacks notwithstanding.”
(Regarding the ad hominem allegation here, Wolf seems to be responding to Ravitch pointing out that Wolf has publicly and vociferously advocated for vouchers, so she suggested that he might not be considered an “independent evaluator.” This doesn’t strike me as ad hominem any more than if were to suggest that his Education Next piece reads to me as smug. Readers can draw their own conclusions.)
Wolf then launches into an attack on Ravitch and NEPC, claiming that the 75% figure is incorrect. He even mocks Ravitch as innumerate and NEPC (and/or our expert reviewer) as unreliable or incompetent. Ravitch, he says, “claims that the similar Milwaukee finding of higher educational attainment from vouchers is questionable because ‘75% of the students who started in a voucher school left before graduation.’ For support, she cites a review of our study performed by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC).” He continues:
Now, professional historians cite original sources to make their claims, but, remember, we are talking about Diane Ravitch here. Is the NEPC claim credible? Let’s examine the original sources. From page 16 of our report, “the majority of students (approximately 56 percent) who were enrolled in 9th grade in MPCP were not enrolled there by the time they reached 12th grade.” Also, from page 163 of our article published in the prestigious scientific Journal of Policy Studies, “less than half (44 percent) of the original MPCP panelists examined were enrolled in a voucher school by the time they reached 12th grade.” I realize that Ravitch is no statistician but even she should know that 56 percent is not 75 percent and 44 percent is not 25 percent. It doesn’t excuse Ravitch that the factual error was first promulgated by NEPC. She should know better than to trust the accuracy of their “reviews” when primary source material clearly contradicts them.
Yesterday, after this was posted, I received an email from one of the EdNext readers, pointing me to Wolf’s critique. I immediately went to page 16 of Wolf’s report. Could we have made such a mistake?! Actually … we didn’t. Here’s what it said on page 16: “A second caveat is that the majority of students (approximately 75 percent) who were enrolled in 9th grade in MPCP were not enrolled there by the time they reached 12th grade.”
So I followed the link in the Education Next piece and downloaded the same report. Here’s what it says on page 16: “A second caveat is that the majority of students (approximately 56 percent) who were enrolled in 9th grade in MPCP were not enrolled there by the time they reached 12th grade.”
That was certainly odd. Then on third page of the pdf I’d just downloaded, I found the following: “Updated and Corrected March 8, 2012.” It doesn’t say what specifically was updated or corrected, but clearly one change was on page 16.
So here’s the timeline:
1. February 2012: Wolf and his colleagues publishes the SCDP report, stating that “approximately 75 percent” of the voucher students enrolled in 9th grade “were not enrolled there by the time they reached 12th grade.” (On February 24th, NEPC sent the report to Prof. Cobb for a review.)
2. March 8, 2012: The SCDP changes that sentence, substituting “56” for “75”.
3. April 19, 2012: NEPC publishes the Cobb review, pointing to (among other things) the 75% figure as evidence of the study’s limitations. Nobody had thought to go back and see whether Wolf or his colleagues had changed important numbers in the SCDP report.
4. April 1, 2013: Wolf attacks Diane Ravitch and NEPC for CORRECTLY quoting Wolf’s own report.
I will generously assume that, in writing this attack, Wolf had simply forgotten that he changed the 75 to a 56. In truth, every one of us makes mistakes, and our memories aren’t what they once were. Also, Wolf wasn’t first author of the SCDP report, so maybe he wasn’t privy to the change. But what makes this mistake come with such ill grace is that Wolf didn’t simply contend that NEPC or Ravitch made an error. Instead, he unloaded with an angry and self-righteous attack. His piece ends with this: “It takes a lot of doing for a person to mislead so many about so much, but apparently Diane Ravitch is up to the job.”
Considering that Dr. Wolf has, in this Education Next piece, knowingly or unknowingly misled the public about the changes in the reporting of his results, the appropriate step for EdNext and Dr. Wolf to take would be the issuance of a public apology for the attacks based on this error. As is the collegial responsibility of academics, I also call upon Wolf to release his data. A re-analysis of the SCDP data is important in light of his critique and the circumstances and errors in the public reporting of his results.
He won’t apologize because he has an agenda and you are fighting it. Furthermore, his data is constantly misleading, especially his data on children with disabilities in voucher schools as he refuses to compare apples to apples and just conducts invalid surveys of voucher school teachers to find out how many children with disabilities are in voucher schools.
“It takes a lot of doing for a person to mislead so many about so much, but apparently Diane Ravitch is up to the job.”
What a crock. I’m sure there is a special place reserved somewhere for Dr. Wolf. Like he says: “It takes a lot of doing for a person to mislead so many about so much.” He should know. And sadly, he’s up to the task. Unfortunately, he has no shame. What ever happened to integrity and honesty?
Reblogged this on Cloaking Inequity and commented:
NEPC responds to a vicious (and inaccurate) Wolf attack on Ravitch.
Congratulations, Diane – you are making a difference! You can tell by the level of vitriol spewed at you. Keep up the good fight! In the meantime, print out his assault, frame it and hang it prominently as a badge of honor.
Dienne: exactly!
And exactly what does integrity cost these days? Let’s see, from the Kevin Welner quote above, Prof. Wolf “has been paid millions of dollars by several jurisdictions with voucher policies to “independently” evaluate those policies.”
Guess Former Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools Beverly Hall has [in the lingo of some of the students I worked with] been punked: she only got $500,000 in bonuses for her unethical and immoral behavior.
Compared to her, Prof. Wolf, you’re No. 1! Numero Uno! Top of the Heap! Or as one of the leading education experts in our country might say, he’s “a world class striver!”
Congratulations, however, are not really in order…
😦
Thanks, Dienne, the badges of honor keep piling up. Fortunately, at my age, I laugh this stuff off. There is an industry out there devoted to attacking public schools and replacing them with schools that are worse or no better, with a poorly paid workforce that has no benefits. We have to resist and demand better for children and teachers and education.
I’m a bit off topic but here are two articles to help you understand what is going on in Detroit. Pretty sad. They call this reform. Pres. Obama, Arne Duncan, Gov. Snyder, Broad, hang your heads in shame.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-c-pedroni/roy-roberts-detroit-schools_b_2994274.html?utm_hp_ref=detroit
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/04/michigans-education-achievement-authority-follows-a-fast-food-business-model.html
(scroll down and look at the comments about what is happening in the EAA schools. I can tell you it’s true because I know people who worked there.
I’m no statistician, either, but isn’t losing a “mere” 56% of your students between 9th and 12th grade a pretty appalling percentage?
nflanagan: you have gone right to the heart of the vile immorality of the behaviors, methods, and mandates of the charterites/privatizers.
They create a few winners, many losers, and then congratulate themselves profusely for all the $ucce$$ they’ve created [i.e., for themselves].
Want to know what a $ucce$$ful public school district looks like under their leadership? Use this link to download the pdf file on the Georgia investigation of the Atlanta Public Schools under Former Superintendent Beverly Hall: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/Atlanta_Investigation_docs.html?_r=0
Thank you to ElementaryRat for the link.
Julian Vasquez Heilig has posted the two pages — original and revised: http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/04/02/4169/
Wolf is a paid pro-school-choice faux research at the Univ of Walmart.
I posted this at Wolf’s piece:
Methinks he doth protest too much.
Wolf is among the cluster of choice-advocate “researchers” who take a better-than-thou pose to mask their essential advocacy.
Follow the money—in more than one way: http://coehp.uark.edu/4109.htm
Choice advocacy masked as complex statistical research makes for a powerful tool among politicians, the media, and the public.
Just as researchers for the tobacco industry always made claims and produced data pleasing to Big Tobacco, Wolf et al. will continue to make claims and produce data that appeases the pro-school-choice mechanisms behind their work and even their positions.
Univ of Walmart. I love it!!!
Is that also the University of Wiping Everyone Else Out. This is how it seems to end up.
Diane, several years ago I hoped for a leader who would have the ability to bring out the truth about the true purposes of this “reform” movement (i.e. to gain access to education dollars without having to teach a single child). You are that leader and that’s why you are being attacked by those people whose profits you threaten. Thank you so much for fighting for one of our greatest institutions: our public schools. And shame on those who are trying to destroy these schools for the purpose of personal gain.
Yes, the truth is emerging as I knew it would. And some people don’t like it.
Wolf makes a big issue of this:
but that in itself tells us nothing about his quality. On what basis on those “competitions” run? Were I someone from a charter organization needing an “independent” evaluation and I had a choice between someone whose previous record always seems positive about charters (like Wolf) and someone else whose track record including results that were not always so positive (for example, Margaret Raymond), you think I might be inclined to choose the one I think will give me a better report from my perspective?
If his report was published with the 75% figure, which was later changed to 56%, then Wolf owes the academic community a further apology, and an explanation of how such major error – overstating a key statistic by 1/3 – happened. And Welner is correct – we have no reason to trust the new figure, so Wolf really should rerelease his data for “independent analysis.”
eacherken: you are absolutely right that Wolf owes the academic community an apology as well. I know something firsthand about specialist academic writing and publishing and I am astonished that Prof. Wolf blames Dr. Ravitch for what is clearly a serious [at least by his standards] scholarly lapse on his part.
Above, Kevin Welner provides this link as well: http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/04/02/4169/ (you can see the two versions of the infamous p.16, one above the other, with the disputed line highlighted).
Perhaps Dr. Wolf is really complaining about Dr. Ravitch being foolish enough to take his research as being accurate and standing up to scrutiny.
If so, he is correct.
But an apology to everyone would be more appropriate.
Please excuse: “teacherken” not “eacherken.”
Darn copy-and-paste!
But my bad… I take full responsibility and apologize.
Dr. Wolf???? You were about to say…
🙂
Apologies for this – I forgot to check the box to notify me of comments so i needed to post another. While I am at it, I suggest Wolf also needs some lessons in rhetoric, since he clearly does not understanding the meaning of ad hominemn as is demonstrated by his making such an attack upon Ravitch.
I was just thinking that what the world really needs is another public apology, so this is very timely.
Anyone who has to resort to the term “prestigious” in order to defend himself is on thin ice indeed.
Personal attacks are a great way to deflect away from your own problems. In doing so, Mr. Wolf is clearly trying to guide the public away from the heart of the matter, which is that vouchers aren’t as successful as their proponents want us to think.
Cue Richard Gere singing “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago:
Give ’em the old hocus pocus
Bead and feather ’em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?
What if your hinges all are rusting?
What if, in fact, you’re just disgusting?
Razzle dazzle ’em
And they;ll never catch wise!
That is one of my favorite songs from a great musical. We are getting quite a lot of razzle dazzle these days.
FDR said, something to the effect–“judge me by my enemies.” By these standards, Diane, you are standing tall. Thanks for pushing back so hard.
Mine, too, and a sad commentary on our entire political scene, in my opinion. And yes, there is a lot of flash with little substance, which is why I am so glad to have this blog to turn to. Thanks for being there with all of us who are working to improve our schools.
Attack comments seem to becoming more and more common, here and elsewhere. Why do I have a feeling there is an army of people being paid to discredit those who speak the truth? Could it be that the “bad actors” are starting to get nervous?
There is a lot of money at stake.
Thank you Diane for being willing to put your name and reputation out there even when those who pretend to care about education continue to try and discredit you. Wolf wouldn’t have attacked you if he didn’t think your voice would have a big impact. It would appear that even the corporate reformers have noticed the power of the truth!
They are not going to apologize to you. They would lose their job forever as that is the rules they play by. Just pound them into the ground with facts. Why doesn’t anyone pick up on the DOE OIG Sept. 2012 report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools. Isn’t that the problem? When you combine the Stanford Credo Report with the DOE OIG report you have deadly ammunition. Let them try to counter the facts on the ground. They have no position. This is the only way to deal with them and that is to take into the public their total failure fully documented. I know this causes fear to run in their veins. I do it all the time. Ask Deasy and Duncan just for a start.
I found this quote on your blog Diane. I saved it and I think it was Mike F. from NYC:
Three cheers for our Diane!
Opposition does not bother to smear what it deems insignificant.
Unbelievable. Who does this guy think he is?
You’re a hero, Diane!
I would say to Patrick Wolf, disparage the NEPC of Boulder, CO at your own peril. The ghost of Chief Niwot may come and haunt you.
Will the ghost make them wake up in the middle of the night screaming in fear? I hope so.
Wow. Talk about arrogance. That usually comes from someone who doesn’t worry about the truth, because they have the weight of some sort of power. A shield that will keep them from having to own up or pay up…or at least the wealth to slither off into some part time consultant role or political appointment.
It is our job to ruin their credability. And that is an easy job.
I wouldn’t even give Mr. Wolf a part in the Syfy TV program “Being Human” which is about a werewolf, vampire and ghost. See, in that TV show, the wolf has morals and ethics. This is something that Mr. Wolf does not seem to have.
While new to this blog, I am not new to the writings of Dr Ravitch. I first started reading her work in grad school 23 years ago and had the good fortune to work with a student of hers while teaching in North Carolina 10 years ago. Thanks for this blog and the fight that you are leading. We need to spread these ideas because “real” teachers today need to hear the other side of the reform movement. Instead of passively allowing the corporate education junta to take control, their voice needs to be heard. Thank you for leading that movement
It needs to be heard “Declaring War on Them”, after all they declared it a long time ago and most have been asleep at the wheel. I have been hammering them for over 20 years with documented facts. In their face at board meetings and in public with “Facts.” They do not know what to do. If you just get up their and talk without the proof you are wasting your time.
Actually, there are many differences among those who are trying to improve public schools. Here’s a story about a Minneapolis district teacher working hard to change and improve what happens inside the urban district high school where he works. Does he qualify as a reformer? I’d say “yes!” What would you say?
http://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2013/04/edison-high-innovator-engages-kids-reaches-finals-teach#comment-165152