The Brookings Institution used to be referred to as a liberal think tank. In reality, it was a nonpartisan think tank that hired former high-level officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations and produced valuable studies and reports. As I was ending my time in the first Bush administration in late 1992, the president of Brookings came to my office at the US Department of Education and invited me to accept the Brown Chair in Education Policy. Since I did not want to live permanently in DC, I declined his offer but agreed to be a Senior Fellow. I was in residence at Brookings until 1995, wrote a book on national standards, then returned to Brooklyn. I continued to be a Non-Resident Senior Fellow until 2012, when I was summarily fired from my unpaid position by Grover Whitehurst, who joined Brookings as chair of the Brown Policy program after serving as director of education research in the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps it was happenstance, but the email from Whitehurst came a few hours after the online release of my blistering critique of Mitt Romney, whom Whitehurst was advising. Whitehurst fired me because, he said, I was “inactive.”
Whitehurst served for a few years as head of the Brown Center but was quietly removed as the Chair. Now, he uses Brookings and its prestige to promote the Republican agenda of privatization.
Here is the latest, in which Whitehurst plugs charters because “We do not know how to create or sustain uniformly great neighborhood schools.” He should have added that “We also don’t know how to create or sustain uniformly great charter schools.” There is no existence proof, even though charters choose their students and exclude students with serious disabilities and ELLs and push out behavior problems. Residents of Clark County, Nevada, may be surprised to see that he raised their grade, since most charters in Nevada are failing schools, concentrated in Clark County, and the funding for the voucher program (which he hails) has been halted by state courts. Columbus, Ohio, got good marks even though the scandal-ridden charters in Ohio have become a bad joke.
To make sure that everyone noticed that Brookings was linking its reputation to the most controversial, least qualified member of the Trump cabinet, DeVos was invited to speak at the press conference on the only subject she knows: the glories of school choice.
The press release reads:
School Choice Increasing Nationally; Secretary DeVos to Speak at Release of Brookings’ Annual School Choice Rankings
Proportion of large school districts allowing choice has nearly doubled since 2000; Denver wins top spot for large districts for second year in a row
Rankings from Brookings’ 2016 Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI)—an annual ranking of school choice in the nation’s 100 largest school districts—will be unveiled today at a Brookings event featuring keynote remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. You can watch a livestream of the Secretary’s remarks at 9:30 AM EDT.
In a summary of the results (PDF), ECCI’s author and Brookings Senior Fellow Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst highlights the growth of choice across the nation’s school districts according to trends tracked by ECCI, many of which can be observed since 2000. Whitehurst notes that the proportion of large school districts allowing choice has nearly doubled over the past 16 years. That coincides with other measures of the growth of school choice, including that the number of large districts for which charter school enrollment is at least 30 percent of total public enrollment has increased from one to ten.
Whitehurst writes: “There is no question empirically that opportunities for parents to choose among traditional public schools for their children, to choose a charter school, and to receive a financial subsidy to attend a private school have grown leaps and bounds in the last 15-20 years. The traditional school district model is no longer the monopoly it used to be.”
The ECCI is not designed to answer causal questions about what system or education delivery mechanism works best, but to reveal what’s happening on the ground by providing a snapshot of choice and competition in each district and allowing for comparisons of specific policies and practices across districts. The rankings are based on objective scoring of 13 categories of education policy and practice. School choice options considered by the rankings include: the opportunity of choosing any traditional public school in a district (open enrollment), charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools, and affordable private schools.
Whitehurst notes that critics of school choice often assert that the alternative to choice is to assure that every public school is of high quality, but that “universal access to a great neighborhood school is a pipedream.”
“We do not know how to create or sustain uniformly great neighborhood schools. There is no existing proof that we do, and there is strong empirical evidence that the performance of schools varies substantially everywhere there are large numbers of schools to compare…School choice is one way of addressing the reality of the normal curve of school performance by giving parents the opportunity of moving their children out of schools that are in the lower tail of the distribution.”
Students in the nation’s 100+ largest school districts are overwhelmingly (91 percent) in public schools, with 56 percent of the ECCI districts allowing choice within the traditional public schools. According to Whitehurst, “advocates of school choice should take note of the reality that for the foreseeable future the greatest opportunities for the expansion of choice are in the public school sector through furthering the reach of open enrollment.”
Denver, which received the highest score on this year’s ECCI, and the Recovery District serving New Orleans are the only two districts in the ECCI that receive grades of A on school choice. Both are characterized by: open enrollment and a centralized assignment process requiring a single application from parents for all public schools; a good mix and utilization by parents of alternatives to traditional public schools; rich information to parents to support school choice, including a school assignment website that allows parents to make side-by-side comparisons of schools; funding that follows students to the school in which they enroll; a fair and efficient formula for matching school assignments for students to the expressed preferences of their parents; and provisions for transportation of students to schools of choice outside their neighborhoods.
Notably, Camden City School District in New Jersey and Clark County School District in Nevada saw substantive enough changes to move them from receiving an F in the previous year to a B- and C-, respectively. Clark County’s increase in score was largely due to Nevada’s Educational Choice Scholarship program, which was enacted and launched in 2015. Camden, NJ experienced a dramatic increase in score and grade on the 2016 ECCI by virtue of rolling out a new process for school search, application, and assignment.
New to the top 10 list this year are Columbus, Ohio, and Chicago, while Baltimore and Tucson dropped off. Chicago showed a score increase due to its decision to include data on student growth among the information on school performance provided to parents on its website. The score for Columbus increased, in part, because the district documented a student-based funding formula for schools.
Almost one-quarter, or 26 of the 112 school districts scored on the 2016 ECCI, received a grade of F, meaning that families have very little in the way of school choice other than what they can exercise by choosing to live within the geographical assignment zone of their preferred public school. Or, if they do provide school choice, the process is hidden from parents.
You can learn more about the 2016 ECCI rankings by exploring an interactive breakdown of results or reading a report of topline takeaways (PDF).
CONTACT
Delaney Parrish
Assistant Director of Communications, Economic Studies
202-797-2969 | DRParrish@brookings.edu | @DParrish
BROOKINGS
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036
Diane Ravitch's blog 
God, it’s awful. It’s a public school bash-a-thon.
They’ll all walk out of there patting themselves on the back for being “agnostics” because it’s such a freaking echo chamber they don’t even hear the bias anymore.
These people are bound and determined to eradicate public schools and they won’t stop until they reach their goal.
It’s an easy out for politicians,right? They just hand out vouchers and wash their hands of all responsibility for everything. It involves no sacrifice of any kind. Everyone gets the school of their choice and there is no downside risk and no cost. In fact, it will SAVE money!
DeVos said this today. She said public schools were so bad that we have nothing to lose. She does not value public schools and she recognizes NO downside risk to eradicating them. But of course there IS downside risk to privatization.
This is a fantasy but it’s a very attractive fantasy and one that politicians adore. What’s not to love? They’re telling people that public schools will always be there AND there will also be a whole menu of choices AND this comes at absolutely no cost, to anyone.
Public school parents have to give up DC. They’re a lost cause. Go local. These folks jumped off the privatization cliff a long time ago.
Excellent column. Brookings’s turn toward DeVos is bizarre and betrays Brooking’s image.
“Just like the traditional taxi service revolted against ride-sharing, so too does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice,” DeVos said.
What consistently amazes me about ed reform is how public school PARENTS are completely excluded. They start with the assumption that every kid in a public school is there under duress- that NONE of us support our schools.
This is the frame (and they ALL use it) “teachers unions versus charter and private school parents”.
If you have a kid in a public school this has absolutely no connection to your experience yet this dominates DC lawmaking. It’s as if our kids are orphans and ed reformers ARE their parents. Totally bizarre. It’s also true in their ridiculous insistence that privatization comes with absolutely no possible downside. The effect on kids and parents in public schools is simply not part of the analysis. It would be understandable if this were a small group of people but it’s 90%! They disappear 90% of people.
And although we’d love to believe otherwise, it remains shocking to find how many of the 90% dependent upon inclusive public schools are inactive in this argument. It is too much like the “not voting” population passively (or petulantly) allowing a threatening fascism to dictate their lives.
A Brookings Institution article on the 2012 costs of standardized testing hid in a footnote the combined costs for all states: $8.1 billion. That’s before the super expensive PARCC and Smarter Balanced.
Although Brookings appears to be evenhanded, they’ve been strategically promoting the expansion of standardized testing.
I had just completed a comment about the Brookings A-F rating scheme. I did not know about this press release but did think DeVos would love it. Here is I what wrote.
An A-F rating scheme initiated in 2012 by the Brookings Institution is likely to get new life under the regime of Trump and Betsy Devos. The rating system is for school districts. The criteria are based on district compliance with thirteen measures for “choice and competition.” This rating scheme is not yet a federal policy, but given the disarray at USDE it could become a model for states that want to put pressure on districts to change their “choice” policies.
Here are the components of the Brookings “Education Choice and Competition Index.” There is a technical report showing how the criteria are weighted and how the specific scores are merged into a single score. Spoiler alert: In prior applications, this rating scheme produced an A rating for the New Orleans Recovery District and Denver Public Schools.
Here is a summary of the rating criteria. Notice how measures of customer satisfaction—the popularity of a school—are embedded as two criteria (# 4, #10).
#1: ALTERNATIVES TO TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS Are there alternatives to traditional public schools and, if so, are many students enrolled in them?
#2: ACCESSIBILITY OF VIRTUAL COURSES Can students enroll in free online courses that count towards graduation requirements?
#3: POPULARITY OF SCHOOLS REFLECTED IN FUNDING Do district funds follow students to schools and differ based on student needs (i.e., special education, ELL, etc.)? If so, what percentage of district funds is allocated through this formula?
#4: CLOSURES OF SCHOOLS WITH DECLINING ENROLLMENT DUE TO PARENTAL CHOICE Does the district close schools that are unpopular as evidenced by declining student enrollment?
#5: DEGREE OF CHOICE AND FAIRNESS IN SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT Can parents choose schools, and if so are parental preferences maximized or is there a fair lottery for choice schools (vs. first come first serve)?
#6: COMMON APPLICATION FOR ALL DISTRICT SCHOOLS Is there a streamlined application process with one common application for enrollment in all schools?
#7: AVAILABILITY AND COMPARABILITY OF TAX CREDIT SCHOLARSHIP/VOUCHER DATA In the case of private schools supported with public funding (through vouchers or tax credit scholarships), is performance data publicly reported and comparable to public school data?
#8: REPORTING OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT GAINS IN SCHOOLS Does the district report student achievement gains vs. only reporting student achievement status at the end of a given year?
#9: ACCESSIBLE ONLINE CHOICE INFORMATION Can parents easily understand the school choice process and options available through the district website?
#10: RELEVANT ONLINE STUDENT PERFORMANCE DATA Does the district website provide data that allows a parent compare schools (i.e., school popularity, parent survey results, absentee rates for teachers, past performance of principals, course offerings, etc.)?
#11: CLEAR/UNDERSTANDABLE ONLINE PERFORMANCE DATA Is the performance data outlined in category 10 presented in an easy to understand format and can schools be compared side by side?
#12: TRANSPORTATION TO ALTERNATIVE/CHOICE PUBLIC SCHOOLS Does the district provide students with free transportation to public schools of choice?
#13: DISTRICT SCHOOL QUALITY RATING How well do schools in the district perform on state assessments?
In the technical report you will discover that the measure for criterion for #13 is identical to the district quality ratings presented at GreatSchools.org. Wow! and Why?
GreatSchools.org, founded in 1998, has a rating scheme for individual schools with some district data. Even more important, the Brookings seems to be endorsing the pay-to-play ratings at GreatSchools.org. GreatSchools.org looks like a non-profit but it is set up so data (gathered from every state reporting system) can be purchased to “push” school ratings. Data can also be leased by corporations like Zillow to keep alive de facto redlining of schools and districts. Parents go to the website at GreatSchools to look for schools that might be suitable for their children, but GreatSchools also sells profucts and finds prospects for advertisers by collecting data onthe users of the website.
GreatSchools.org is funded by the well-known billionaire foundations who are determined to undermine public education (while pretending not to): the Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Leona M. and Harry B. Charitable Trust.
Here are some of the technical details on scoring. The details show the extent to which Brookings intends to position itself as if the only authority on district policies relevant to “choice.”
Precisely because USDE is in disarray, and DeVos does not yet seem to have a plan for helping states distribute vouchers, this Brooking’s effort could make its way into federal or state policies as “guidance” on how to set priorities in distributing vouchers.
For example, USDE could decide that states that do not have “choice and competition” policies, with a full spectrum of (Brookings) criteria might be “nudged” to change policies. In this respect, the Brookings criteria might function a bit like the Duncan/Obama policies for Race to the Top: Change your policies to fit our criteria or else we (USDE) will withhold some of the voucher money from your state.
In any case the flow of money to states for vouchers needs to look like it is rational, based on an application for funds rather than pushed out the door willy nilly. The Brookings criteria are ready-made for use in rating applications for voucher money and making DeVos look like she knows how to make “choice” mandatory. (The contradiction in the last two words is intended)
Here are the details in rating districts. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ccf_20170329_ecci_technical_scoring_guide.pdf
Thank you for this, Laura. I had read another accounting of the Brookings report earlier today on googlenews & wondered what the heck their criterion were. Doesn’t look much different from NCQT grades of yore: if you offer lots of choice you get an A. Nobody’s grading on results.
You know who DC is listening to when they contemplate more budget cuts to public schools? “Charter leaders”. That’s the big ed reform story of the day- how “charter leaders” are opposing cuts to public schools.
Public school leaders were not consulted nor given a platform to speak to the budget cuts to THEIR schools, because what do they know? Who cares what those losers think? They probably still take taxis instead of Ubers.
Brookings is speaking to DeVos on behalf of the “charter” industry which is now dependent on attaching itself to “choice” and with no ambiguity.
Whitehurst is a corporate pawn spreading propaganda against public education. Our country has many wonderful, excellent neighborhood schools that offer a lot more stability than ” the here today, gone tomorrow” charters. Most quality public schools offer more program options than one size fits all charters. Public education is the essence of democratic principles in action, locally operated and transparent. Corporate schools continue to waste millions on questionable educational practice.
I may be wrong, but I think DeVos and her minions are plotting something big to herald in vouchers in a big way. I think some of what Trump is doing is setting the stage for this invasion. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-signs-bill-undermining-school-accountability-f6955ab0acc5
Awful stuff re: Brookings Institute. I have watched this group trusted and where they are going.
These days “think tanks” don’t really think. They just pat themselves on the back and smile all the way to their bank accounts. It’s just sick. Their kids go to private schools and only hang around the wealthy and become totally out of touch with reality.
I believe that the public is beginning to understand that “Think Tank” = “Lobby Group.”
And also with deep pockets. These are the largest contributions or sources of contracts for the Brookings in 2015-2016.
$2,000,000 and Above
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Hutchins Family Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., David M. Rubenstein, United Arab Emirates
$1,000,000–$1,999,999
Carnegie Corporation of New York, Steve and Roberta Denning, Food and Drug Administration, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cecilia Yen Koo and the Koo Family , The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, Government of Norway, The Rockefeller Foundation , Leonard D. Schaeffer, John L. Thornton, John C. Whitehead
For more see page 41 in the 2016 Brookings annual report at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016-annual-report.pdf
That is why they dare not bite the hand that feeds them. Money=Power That is why we get “fake” research paid for by billionaires or assorted foundations.
BTW, Laura, many of these contributors to the Brookings Institute, are also contributors to NPR.
So, as NPR gets less and less funding from the federal government, they depend more and more for funding from these contributors (oh, and for profit companies, as well).
Just saying. I have already noticed that NPR has moved farther and farther away from being a supposedly neutral and even-handed source for news and opinion.
It’s only going to get worse.
NpR has not been “neutral” for a very long time.
They were veritable cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, with folks like “Quaker” Scott Simon telling us all that it was morally justified.
I don’t support the defunding of local stations but if the NPR parent disappeared tomorrow I would not miss it one bit.
It has become the Fox news for the fake liberal elites.
“think tank” = think money
Posted at Oped news:https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Brookings-Sullies-Its-Repu-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Brookings-Institute_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Issues-170329-692.html#comment652204
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Go there to see the links embedded in the comment, only a few are below.
My author’s page is here so you know my commotion to teaching and can read may articles, and series. http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
MY COMMENT
Gotta silence the voice of truth.
The PLOT & THE PLOY TO GET’EM YOUNG!
Like every authoritarian regime,, they ‘GET ‘EM YOUNG’, and THUS, they CAN rewrite history https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum — so that Lies are the NEW TRUTH, and education goes the way of health care, enriching the oligarchs and ending income equality for our people” because (make no mistake about this) public schools are the only road for all our people to learn the CRITICAL THINKING skills that enable them to move out of poverty.
Diane’s site just registered 30 million views, and it is clear that HER voice is one of the most important voices that speak for the children, for the teachers and for US!
I witnessed the end public education, which 2 decades ago, as teachers experienced the total disappearance of their civil rights, and lawless administrators did their thing, with not a shred of accountability.
Over one hundred thousand teachers —the most experienced, dedicated professionals were targeted by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf as Duncan and clones spun propaganda about ‘ lazy, incompetent tenured teachers’ and the media said: ‘bad’! We know Fake News now, but back then this bamboozled the people. http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
With 15,880 SEPARATE school systems it was so easy to do. MOST FOLKS BARELY KNOW what is afoot in their own school system! Here is what happened to NYC, the largest districts in the USA.
Then they went after the 2nd largest, LAUSD. Lenny Isenberg chronicled the end of LA’s schools at his site PerDaily.com. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
and it began OF COURSE with the TERMINATION OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS –the voices of the professional, who, like Diane Ravitch, would stand up refuse to use Pearson’s tests or Gates core curricula crap! THEY HAD TO GO!.
He tells the story of how they removed the teachers ‘en masse’ in LAUSD.
Fabricated charges emptied the schools of the voices that would fight for the kids, that of genuine teachers who know what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE!.
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/10/why-does-utla-continue-to-support-lausds-violation-of-california-teacher-dismissal-process.html
No where,- do I EVER read how the GOP (with it’s ‘deficit reduction’) has defunded the INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, SO THAT across the nation, the schools failed, and the blame was placed on those “incompetent teachers.” Thus hundreds of thousands EXPERIENCED professionals WHO GRASPED WHAT learning looked like, were thrown out, and thus, the schools failed.
What a surprise.
I know.. THIS happened to me http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
I’ve never thought of The Brookings Institute as a liberal institution.
“Brookings is Liberal”
Liberal
With the truth
Literal
With the spoof
“. . . because “We do not know how to create or sustain uniformly great neighborhood schools.”
Ummm, Bullshit!
Aside from the loaded term “great”, yes we do know and have many many excellent community public schools, I’m sure all here could name a few without much thought.
And who needs a neighborhood school to be uniform and/or great to begin with?
Brookings would have to have a reputation capable of being sullied in order to sully it. Maybe they once did, but they haven’t for a long time.
None of these “think tanks” has anything remotely to do with thinking.
Brookings is just another group of “wankers for hire.”
They are actually pathetic.
“Just like the traditional taxi system revolted against ride sharing, so, too, does the education establishment feel threatened by the rise of school choice,” she said. “In both cases the entrenched status quo has resisted models that empower individuals.”
I love how ed reform has the Presidency and congress and the majority of statehouses yet they continue to insist they are fighting entrenched power.
What would “power” mean to ed reformers? No dissenters at all? 100% lockstep approval of any and all privatization plans?
They’re pretty damn powerful. They have scores of billionaires, the entire GOP, three quarters of Democrats and the majority of governors. They’re so powerful they regularly push laws that impact millions of public school children with zero input from anyone who works for, attends,or values a public school. That’s power.
Yes, Chiara. Exactly ^^this^^.
“Empowering individuals”? Really? Have they even spoken to parents whose children are attending public schools? Have they tried to work with public schools in poor inner-city and rural areas to increase their resources and help their communities? Have they spoken to the parents of special needs kids, who would not even be admitted to charter (or private) schools?
Doubt it. Seriously doubt it.
Whitehurst had sullied Brookings reputation long before he stepped down, starting with firing you.
Isn’t it ironic that the person who pushed randomized assignment studies as the gold standard for educational research has abandoned all pretense and is now advocating for an educational “improvement” solution with no evidence whatsoever? This post reveals what we have known all along. So-called choice advocates have either given up on public education or do not care that charter schools and vouchers are only a solution for a select few. In fact, “saving a select few” may be their goal, so the fact that only some charter schools are any good does not matter to them. They view spread of non-public schools at the public expense as a fundamental goal. When that spread happens, they count that as evidence of success. Systemic improvement is no longer on their radar.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
Hear, hear. ‘Absence of evidence’ was my thought as I read about this Brookings report today.
It’s actually worse than just “absence of evidence”.
These organizations call for policies that are KNOWN to be detrimental to schools and communities.
The evidence shows just the opposite of what they claim.
That makes their claims not just false but actually FRAUDULENT.
Diane,
I suspect you already know this, but CBS is running a story on its live stream about the corruption of Fettulan Gulen and his schools. It is quite damaging to him. It will disappear after today. Here is the link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/fbi-probing-fetullah-gulen-to-see-if-he-funded-turkish-coup/
[https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVF.geXvQqkfbwPSeC36eX93TQ&pid=Api]
FBI Probing Fetullah Gulen To See If He Funded Turkish … http://www.cbsnews.com Watch “FBI Probing Fetullah Gulen To See If He Funded Turkish Coup”, a CBSN video on CBSNews.com. View more CBSN videos and watch CBSN, a live news stream featuring …
Finally some truth revealed!
Kitty
Kathleen (Kitty) Foord, Ed.D Associate Professor K-12 and Secondary Programs College of Education 313 Armstrong Hall Minnesota State University, Mankato 56001 507-389-1607 kathleen.foord@mnsu.edu
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How is this brownnosing to DeVos from Chalkbeat? The title is
Rave reviews: Here are the states, schools, and programs that have gotten Betsy DeVos’s seal of approval
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/03/28/rave-reviews-here-are-the-states-schools-and-programs-that-have-gotten-betsy-devoss-seal-of-approval/
Interesting, and what a sad fate for a once prestigious institution.
Remind me again when Brookings had a good reputation. All of these foundations, particularly the Ford Foundation, promote education as “conditioning” children, privatization will eliminate those pesky things taught by teachers, such as civics and “we the people” to “we the Corporations”.
Joseph,
Brookings was founded as a center for nonpartisan research into social and political issues. At the time I worked there, it was the gold standard of think tanks, whose scholars had World-class reputations. I metro brilliant men and women seeking real-world solutions t policy problems.
To show you how low they have gone, Arne Duncan is now a non-resident Senior Fellow. I have doubts that he has ever written anything without paid help.
I wonder if you’ll get a nasty lawyerly letter requesting you remove that last sentence?