The National Education Policy Center specializes in reviewing think tank reports, few of which are peer-reviewed. Many think tanks are advocacy organizations that use pseudo-scholarship to promote policy goals.
NEPC’s latest review gives a thumbs down to a report that advises on ways to eliminate democratic control of public schools. None of its so-called “reforms” have worked in practice, and the goal itself is unworthy:
BOULDER, CO (June 13, 2017) – A recent report offers a how-to guide for reform advocates interested in removing communities’ democratic control over their schools. The report explains how these reformers can influence states to use the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title I school improvement funds to support a specific set of reforms: charter schools, state-initiated turnarounds, and appointment of an individual with full authority over districts or schools.
Leveraging ESSA to Support Quality-School Growth was reviewed by Gail L. Sunderman of the University of Maryland.
While the report acknowledges that there is limited research evidence on the effectiveness of these reforms as school improvement strategies, it uses a few exceptional cases to explain how advocates seeking to influence the development of state ESSA plans can nevertheless push them forward.
As Sunderman’s review explains, the report omits research that would shed light on the models, and it fails to take into account the opportunity costs of pursuing one set of policies over another. It also relies on test score outcomes as the sole measure of success, thus ignoring other impacts these strategies may have on students and their local communities or the local school systems where they occur. Finally, and as noted above, support for the effectiveness of these approaches is simply too limited to present them as promising school improvement strategies.
For these reasons, concludes Sunderman, policymakers, educators and state education administrators should be wary of relying on this report to guide them as they develop their state improvement plans and consider potential strategies for assisting low-performing schools and districts.
Find the review by Gail L. Sunderman at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-ESSA-accountability
Find Leveraging ESSA to Support Quality-School Growth, by Nelson Smith and Brandon Wright, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Education Cities, at:
https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/03.30 – Leveraging ESSA To Support Quality-School Growth_0.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Many think tanks are advocacy organizations that use pseudo-scholarship to promote policy goals.”
For example, The National Education Policy Center.
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Sorry, John, NEPC is the most honest of think tanks in the nation.
I referred to Heritage, CATO, AEI, Thomas B. Fordham, the Heartland Institute, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the Mackinac Center, the entire network of rightwing “think tanks” that use their vast funding to promote the destruction of public schools.
NEPC calls them out when they publish phony “studies.”
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On what basis do you call them honest other than that you agree with them? How are they funded? How many critiques have they done of publications that you agree with?
Anyone who purports to be “fair and balanced” deserves scrutiny. Do you believe them to be objective or to have an agenda? I think what they have published clearly indicates the latter. At least the think tanks are honest about their objectives.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they exist and I read most of what they publish. I just don’t consider them at all objective, and for you to pretend they are is disingenuous.
These “objective” reports are funded by the Great Lakes Center For Education Research and Practice. Here’s a list of their Board Members: http://greatlakescenter.org/about.php, .
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John,
NEPC peer-reviews reports from corporate sponsored think tanks. Their reviews are written by reputable scholars. Can’t say the same for rightwing think tanks.
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Thanks, John, for that expose. Without you, we might never know that an educational think tank is run by a bunch of teachers. Boy, how biased is that! I mean, teachers totally have a personal interest in education!
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Dienne,
Are you arguing that they are objective because they’re teachers?
How many private school or charter school teachers are in that group?
In fact, some are union Executive Directors that were never teachers.
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Fordham’s listed findings in its foreword to Dr. Figlio’s research on vouchers- where can the claim about the the benefit of competition be found in the research?
Attaching a statement of findings in a foreword that doesn’t match the prestigious university’s research is egregious. Promoting the finding in media as if it was derived from the content of the paper is deliberate and without defense.
A Columbia Teachers College report that reads like a marketing plan for contractor schools, “embargoed” for publication at a later date is agenda-driven industry practice.
There is no equivalency whatsoever in the work from NEPC.
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You left out the two good guys The one founded by Reich and the other by his successor Baker.
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John,
Kim Smith of the Gates-funded Aspen Pahara Institute, quoted in Philanthropy Roundtable, identified the “marching orders” of the New Schools Venture Fund, “to develop diverse charter school organizations to produce different brands on a large scale”. Bill Gates is an investor in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box. His funding of the Senior Congressional Education Staff Network provides his privatization agenda access that NEPC does not have. NEPC does not have Gates’ greed nor, does it have the vast coffers of the richest man in the world to destroy America’s most important common good.
The external affairs manager of a Gates-funded ed organization paired with AEI’s Frederick Hess to write a plan for the rich to makeover academic departments in universities to reflect the views of the self-anointed ed reformers. The article’s title “Don’t Surrender the Academy” implies the rich own America’s universities. Until NEPC has the financial backing equivalent to Gates and Walton’ heirs $2 bil. to ram their plots down the throats of citizens, your
false equivalency is nothing short of diabolical.
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Linda,
I didn’t equate them with anyone. Just don’t pretend they aren’t an advocacy organization and you’ll get no argument from me.
Diane,
“Peer review” means something very specific in research, and it requires impartial reviewers. They may be peers, and they may be reviewing the reports critically, but it’s not the same as peer-review.
Again, I appreciate that they exist. Just let’s not pretend they aren’t an advocacy organization with an agenda.
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One group can advocate for an end to human trafficking. Another group can advocate for exploitation of children in sex trafficking. There’s nothing ethically nor morally equal about them.
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“A recent report offers a how-to guide for reform advocates interested in removing communities’ democratic control over their schools”
Is it time yet to heed (pay attention to and start thinking deeply of) Thomas Jefferson’s advice on how to nourish the tree of liberty?
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Touting Rep. Scalise as a patriot is a fraud. He is linked to David Duke. At Open Secrets, it shows Scalise received $10,000 from the anti-democracy Koch ‘s in 2016. The Center for Media and Democracy listed 8 programs Scalise publicly posted to raise minimum amounts of cash ($100,000) e.g. “Biannual Briefings with Team Scalise”, One -on-One Coffees”, etc.
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Media, talking about Scalise, condemn the growing normalization of violence …while they avoid the politicians’ normalization of the number of American families forced into bankruptcy by medical costs.
And, media ignore the powerlessness caused by concentration of wealth spent to rob the nation of its humanity and common goods.
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Ah, where did I “tout Rep. Scalise as a patriot”? If that reply to my comment wasn’t for me, please address your comments to a specific person by naming them.
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Lincoln warned of the ever present danger of the right of kings, a point Jefferson also made. If Scalese’s shooter was sane, motivated to assure his fellow citizens had access to medical care and, if it reflected his loathing for the Koch’s influence in state capitols and D.C., then I feel sorry that circumstances forced his actions and that people other than Scalise were harmed.
Media reported a quote calling Scalese a “patriot”. Lloyd, because I’ve read so much of what you write and am aware of your commitment to American democracy, it did not occur to me that my comment would be misunderstood,. I apologize for not being clear.
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It’s possible that I misunderstood. Sorry, but what if Scalese a “patriot”? Even during the Revolutionary war, there were patriots that supported the king of the British Empire and Patriots who stood by America’s Founding Fathers.
Let’s accept that Scalese is a patriot but how would we define that patriotism and who does he give that patriotism to — the hating lying Alt-Right and Trump?
My patriotism is not to any man, woman or title won through an election. It is to the U.S. Constitution as it now stands. But if the GOP gets its Constitutional convention to drastically revise the current document, that loyalty might vanish.
But my patriotism will still be loyal to the U.S. Constitution as it was before the GOP’s Alt-Right and Trump get their itchy, racist, hate-filled, greedy hands on it.
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Any university, any politician, any organization, any person who furthers the anti-democracy cause of the Koch’s and Gates has no right to exist in a nation with democracy as its ideal.
Lloyd, you are far more knowledgable than I am about history. I’ll limit myself to saying, no praise is warranted for Scalese. His life and work undermine human decency.
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I wouldn’t call someone that’s labeled a Trump Patriot or an Alt-Right Patriot worthy of praise. Why not just let the Trumpites and/or the Alt Right have the Bible Belt states, those states where religiosity is above average. According to the map that you can find through the following link, that adds up to 13 states and maybe 14 if Florida wants to join them.
Then we could do the same thing that India did when Pakistan and Bangladesh became Muslim countries: allow the Trumpists and the Alt-Right to move to those states and leave the rest of us alone.
“Educational attainment and college graduation rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the United States. Cardiovascular and heart disease, obesity, homicide, teenage pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections are among the highest rates in the nation.”
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-bible-belt-1434529
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Lloyd,
I couldn’t agree more. I’ll add that Bill and Melinda Gates, and Charles and David Koch and the other, approx. 400 families running the nation’s oilgarchy should be stripped of their money and U.S. citizenship.
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That nut case that shot at and hit some of the Republicans practicing for a baseball game between the two major political parties was wasting his time and he threw his life away for nothing.
No matter how many elected Democrats and/or Republicans end up getting shot, nothing is going to change as long as the billionaires are left alone to keep funding the campaigns for their next replacement puppets.
Elected officials are not an endangered species and there are plenty of Trumps in the wings wanting to get an elected power-seat in government.
The U.S. needs serious campaign finance reform through legislation – not through bullets, but if there is no campaign finance reform we are probably going to hear about more nut cases and bullets flying at the wrong people.
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Our opinions diverge. The Gabby Giffords shooter was a nutcase.
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John does not seem to have read the report. It clearly states that it is a political action brief, not research. It is intended to tell how state officials how to use their Title I ESSA funds for the purpose of by-passing local district oversight of schools and locally elected boards of education.
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Take a one day break, good thing some one leaked that Mueller’s office is now targeting the Rrump . Changing the news cycle from the Reichstag fire .
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This was to Lloyd , didn’t wind up there .
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I’ll be working on my backyard fence project tomorrow and then later in the day going to my VA group. That will be my day off, sort of.
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It is unfortunate that ESSA is a gigantic “pay to play scheme” inviting privateers to use our young people as guinea pigs. Rather than improving outcomes for poor students, ESSA most likely will spawn a variety of tech products that will turn out to be more corporate welfare. Now they have a road map on how to access public money. It is dubious that ESSA will make much of a difference, but it will be hailed as amazing innovation by assorted privateers, grifters and hucksters.
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Done
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I get all of Diane’s posts in one feed… and this post and the one Camins’ wrote on the need to educate “other people’s children” seem intertwined. When schools are governed by an elected Board they have to be responsive to everyone’s children. When they are privatized, they divide children into “ours” and “everyone else’s”…. This is one major downside of privatization.
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wgersen,
“When schools are governed by an elected Board they have to be responsive to everyone’s children.”
This sounds good in theory, but many elected school boards, who as you say are responsible for all of the students in their districts, abdicate their responsibility when it comes to kids in charters. Very few elected traditional public school board members will even visit a charter school, much less try to learn anything about them. Unfortunately, they consider charter parents and children as traitors.
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What can public schools learn from charters? How to raise scores by excluding kids with disabilities and those with low scores? How to inflict harsh discipline? How to turn children into little test-taking robots?
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I’d also add that elected school board members have little to no control or oversight over the private charters located in their districts.
So why would members visit them? To witness the “innovation” that characterizes not a single charter anywhere? To learn from their admission policies? To educate themselves on their ELL and special-ed programs?
I’m not understanding your criticism. Now, if these private schools should come under the direction of the local school boards, or show the financial accountability that any other government-sponsored contractor must show…and then the local boareds still ignore them?
Yeah, then complain.
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I’d also add that elected school board members have little to no control or oversight over the private charters located in their districts.
So why would members visit them? To witness the “innovation” that characterizes not a single charter anywhere? To learn from their admission policies? To educate themselves on their ELL and special-ed programs?
I’m not understanding your criticism. Now, if these private schools should come under the direction of the local school boards, or show the financial accountability that any other government-sponsored contractor must show…and then the local boards still ignore them?
Yeah, then complain.
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