Jersey Jazzman has been working towards his doctorate in education research, and he has become quite expert at pulling apart flawed reports that trumpet some non-success.
In this post, he tears apart the quality of the research coming from the University of Arkansas’ Department of Educational Reform (I don’t believe there is another department in the nation with that title). The Department is funded to a large degree by the Walton Family Foundation, so it is not surprising that they are defenders of choice, vouchers, and charters.
In one of its latest reports, the choice advocate at the U of Arkansas “Department of Education Reform” claimed that charter schools are not as well funded as you think. Just because they are heavily subsidized by Walton, Gates, Broad, Dell, Arnold, the NewSchools Venture Fund, and a long list of other foundations as well as hedge fund managers everywhere is no reason to think that they are well funded.
Jersey Jazzman demonstrates in the post how flawed their evidence and logic are.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That research and more should be torn apart. As the number of foundations supporting our universities increases, there will be issues of objectivity. An earlier report from this Walton funded group misrepresented funding in Idaho by using figures from the highest funded district in the state. Know that charter schools in Idaho are subsidized by the Albertson Foundation. To see the extent of this funding, one only has to access the 990’s for the organization. While there is not another department with the title “Department of Educational Reform”, there are plenty of infiltrated departments. The Idaho Leads group at Boise State University is another. http://education.boisestate.edu/idaholeads/about-us/ What Jersey Jazzman has uncovered is more common than most realize. The iceberg is deep!
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Mary Ollie,
I agree. A number of public universities are hosting foundation funded operations and positions for faculty and graduate students. For example, see this operation that has done much to promote VAM for teacher evaluation with the infamous “oak tree analogy,” students treated as if they have no minds of their own. Value-Added Research Center. (2012). Teacher effectiveness initiative, value-added training oak tree analogy. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Retrieved from varc.wceruw.org/…/Oak%20Tree%20Analogy%20with%20notes%20- %20Bush.pptx
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Researchers fight for funding. They see there is plenty of money supporting the ed reform movement. Research is limited by the scope that the researchers design for it, and they know if they design unfavorable reports, they won’t be paid to produce more research. So they choose angles of looking at data and minimizing the section of data looked at or otherwise manipulating how the numbers are crunched, to get the result they know is desired.
If these researchers were pure academics, assured of funding no matter the result, and were researching for the sake of producing accurate ethical information, then the numbers could be considered more non-partisan.
This is another reason that public research universities are being geared more towards providing particular degrees to students and to do less research. You do not want smart people with a strong source of income and a background in statistics to be analyzing what you do at the education level or even checks on the corporate level – environment, economics, even health.
Researchers are the new artists seeking patrons and they will design something to their liking to satisfy them.
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Your comment “Researchers are the new artists seeking patrons…” is spot on. It is also happening in medical research. Everything is skewed toward profits. This is the end result of cutting funding to our public universities and federal labs. The 1% steps in, but for different reasons.
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In Utah, the funding for charters is different than real public schools. Charters get their money by how many students are in the school on October 1. Meanwhile, real public schools get funding by yearlong attendance averages. Secondary charters also get more per pupil expenditure than secondary public schools (elementary charters get slightly less per pupil than public schools).
The funding provision is set to expire this fall, and charters are freaking out. They want their preferential funding, which allows them to kick out kids after October 1 and keep the money.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2729901-155/utah-lawmaker-solve-charter-funding-issues
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Meanwhile, districts are looking to raise property taxes to make up for the money that is lost to charters. Since the state school board is a majority charter school supporters (it was rigged that way), I expect that the funding scheme that prefers charters will remain.
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Public schools took this exact scheme to the Ohio Supreme Court to try to get paid for money they had lost due to preferential treatment of charters. The law had been changed by the time the case was heard and the issue of whether public schools should be made whole was still pending the last time I looked.
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Did they pay the “researchers” the minimum wage?
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CC$$
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I’ll be sure to steer my students away from this fine institution.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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