Dr. Gene Glass is a distinguished scholar with a long career in educational research and statistics.
He recently co-authored a critical review of virtual charter schools, published by the National Education Policy Center.
In response, an operative from Jeb Bush’s so-called “Foundation for Educational Excellence” created a website with Dr. Glass’s name, ridiculing him and impugning his integrity by implying he was bought by teacher union money. The smear site is called http://geneglass.org/.
Because the corporate reformers are motivated by money, they assume everyone else is. They can’t understand that some people work from ideals higher than Mammon.
None of Dr. Glass’s critics acknowledged that CREDO studied charter schools in Pennsylvania and found that the worst student academic performance was in virtual charter schools. But no one from Jeb Bush’s shop created a website to ridicule CREDO because it is funded by the Walton Foundation and led by researcher Margaret (Macke) Raymond, who is on the faculty at Stanford and affiliated with the conservative, free-market Hoover Institution.
This is Gene Glass’s bio (Wikipedia):
“Gene V Glass (born June 19, 1940) is an American statistician and researcher working in educational psychology and the social sciences. He coined the term “meta-analysis” and illustrated its first use in his Presidential address to the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco in April, 1976. The most extensive illustration of the technique was to the literature on psychotherapy outcome studies, published in 1980 by Johns Hopkins University Press under the title Benefits of Psychotherapy by Mary Lee Smith, Gene V Glass, and Thomas I. Miller. Gene V Glass is a Regents’ Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University in both the educational leadership and policy studies and psychology in education divisions, having retired in 2010 from the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. Currently he is a Senior Researcher at the National Education Policy Center and a Research Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If we’ve learned anything from years of Politics led by Karl Rove trained “attack dogs”, it is if you cannot beat the message, then attack the messenger. Use smear tactics and outright lies, The truth is irrelevant, if you lie and smear loudly enough and often enough, people will listen and believe. Truth, facts, and honesty are not the real issue.
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Diane,
The smear website is registered to Steve Grubbs, a Republican operative who runs Victory Enterprises in Davenport, Iowa.
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I’d like to believe that Obama and the Democrats who claim to seek evidence based reform will decry the failing for profit on-line enterprises that use public funds to replace “failing public schools”… but it’s possible that smearing those who question for profit privatization might be one of the few bi-partisan areas of agreement…
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Here’s the link to the information Sherman Dorn identified:
http://whois.domaintools.com/geneglass.org
Domain Name:GENEGLASS.ORG
Created On:22-Jan-2013
Registrant Name:Steve Grubbs
Registrant Organization:Victory Enterprises, Inc.
The ‘About’ page of Victory Enterprises:
http://www.victoryenterprises.com/about_us.htm
On its website: “GeneGlass.org is a project of the Center for School Options.”
Only two individuals are named on the website for the Center for School Options.
http://centerforschooloptions.org/about/leadership/
1. Jim Horne (Chairman) who was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush as the first appointed Commissioner of Education for the state of Florida.
2. Rose Fernandez, “Executive Director for the National Parent Network for Online Learning… the founding President of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families, and has served on the Board of the National Coalition for Public School Options and School Choice Wisconsin.”
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Sorry all you online learners, Meg Whitman just called you back to the building. Everyone has to learn together and work together as a team.
$11,700 per student per year, is that the national average? What do you say to the homeschool parent who has three kids and is asking the state, where’s my annual check for $35,100?
Are social skills and cooperative skills of any value for the public’s money? I would say yes, that is part of education.
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I mean Marissa Mayer, oops.
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the site is a “project” of the National Parent Network for Online Learning, led by Rose Fernandez, who according to NPNOL’s 2011 990 pulled down $60K in pay for for 20 hours/week. Unclear where their money comes from. She also serves (served?) on the board of the National Coalition for Public School Options and School Choice (www.publicschooloptions.org). I pulled their 990’s as well (via Guidestar) and what’s there is a heavily redacted form – as in all the places where there’s supposed to be money, they’ve blacked it out. Not sure how they an get away with that, but I’m not an IRS attorney. But it does raise some real questions about transparency.
If I were Gene Glass, I’d be hiring a lawyer.
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I think it’s more like because the corporate reformers are motivated by money, they will do what they feel it takes to discredit anyone whose work threatens their cash flow. Their actual opinions about the motivation of their critics don’t factor in.
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Reformer strategy: If you can’t buy ’em, smear ’em. (The “’em” being professional educators and their supporters)
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It’s only corporate honchos who think running a school like a corporation is a good idea. Anyone who works for a corporation (or knows someone who does) or anyone who watches Undercover Boss (I make no plug for the show, but the idea it communicates) knows that the decisions of suits behind desks affect the “little people” in adverse ways. Since the suits do not have to live with these consequences or even see them, they either don’t know they exist or don’t care as long as their bottom line isn’t affected. The structure of the corporate world is wealthy fat cats at the top, middle management who gets to be the “bad guy” implementing the corporate policies, and the worker who is disgruntled but works begrudgingly for his/her pay. In the school system, the parallel is clear: our students aren’t motivated or performing as well as they could but are there because they have to be, teachers are catching the flack for the bad policy we have to implement, and the corporate leaders and political leaders are looking at spreadsheets and bottom lines. We aren’t in the business of making a profit–we are in the business of educating people. We can’t keep following business models if we want to get away from the corporate structure that doesn’t do anything to motivate people.
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Jeb Bush is an embarrassment to his country. What exactly does he do for a living?
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Dr. Glen V Glass should consider the source. We are not dealing with ethical and professional educators–just snake oil peddlers. I just smile and say: “Thank you, I consider the smear a complement coming from you”. I’m a graduate of ASU, MA in Reading. NEPC keep up your outstanding and professional research.
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