'Report Card on Education' Gets Bad Grades on Research, Analysis

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

> Arizona State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder
>
> Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at ASU
> Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at CU-Boulder
>
> ****NEWS RELEASE--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****
>
> ?REPORT CARD ON EDUCATION? GETS BAD GRADES ON RESEARCH, ANALYSIS
>
> Contact: Gene V Glass (480) 965-2692 (email) 
> <mailto:glass@asu.edu>glass@asu.edu
> Kevin Welner (303) 492-8370 (email) 
> <mailto:kevin.welner@gmail.com>kevin.welner@gmail.com
>
> TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (January 8, 2007) 
> -- The widely-touted Report Card on Education, 
> 1983-1984 to 2004-2005 falls far short of valid 
> or useful research, a new review finds.  The 
> reviewer concluded that the report?s ?ineptness 
> and naiveté in measurement and data analysis 
> have thwarted any attempt to draw legitimate conclusions.?
>
> The Report Card, which promotes a policy agenda 
> that includes charter schools and vouchers, was 
> written by Andrew T. LeFevre and published by 
> The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
>
> The ALEC document was reviewed for the Think 
> Tank Review Project by Gene V Glass, Regents' 
> Professor at Arizona State University. Glass is 
> past-president of the American Educational 
> Research Association as well as the 2005 
> recipient of the organization?s award for 
> ?distinguished contributions to research in 
> education.?  He is also a member of the National Academy of Education.
>
> The key policy claim of ALEC?s Report Card is 
> its assertion that student achievement has not 
> been improved by increased spending on 
> education, smaller class sizes, or improved 
> teacher salaries. It further asserts that 
> ?strong accountability measures? will help focus 
> educational resources and that parental choice 
> policies will lead to improved achievement.  As 
> Glass explains in his review, however, the 
> policy agenda promoted by the Report Card lacks support.
>
> ?LeFevre presents a great deal of data, but the 
> vast majority of these data are not analyzed,? 
> Glass writes. Further, the Report Card ?ignores, 
> intentionally or unintentionally, the many 
> studies that flatly contradict its findings and 
> conclusions.? In fact, the Report Card fails to 
> cite any research studies at all. ?Particularly 
> for a report with such sweeping, far-reaching 
> recommendations, this oversight is indefensible,? Glass writes.
>
> Examples of the report?s shortcomings include:
>
>    * While citing data intended to support of 
> the claim that per-pupil expenditures have 
> increased without improvement in academic 
> achievement, LeFevre makes ?no attempt?to track 
> whether those increasing dollars actually are 
> spent on regular instruction of students.? 
> Other research has found that the bulk of 
> additional spending on education in the last 
> two decades has been for items such as special 
> education, dropout prevention, transportation, 
> health insurance, school lunch programs, and 
> security ? leaving only modest gains for regular classroom instruction.
>    * The report?s measure of educational 
> success is a mish-mash of valid and invalid 
> measures, with the result having very limited 
> usefulness.  In fact, if the author had used 
> only the valid measure, he would have found 
> substantial evidence that increased per-pupil 
> expenditures correlate with improvements in 8th Grade Math state averages.
> Glass concludes: ?In spite of being clad with 
> myriad numbers and statistics, the Report Card 
> on American Education is rhetoric, not research. 
> Legislators may find value in looking up 
> education statistics for their own state and 
> comparing them with other states. But they will 
> find neither credible findings nor any firmly 
> established facts on which to base policy decisions.?
>
>
> Find Gene Glass? review on the web at:
> <http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttreviews/EPSL-0701-224-EPRU.pdf>http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttreviews/EPSL-0701-224-EPRU.pdf
>
>
> About the Think Tank Review Project
>
> The Think Tank Review Project 
> (<http://thinktankreview.org/>http://thinktankreview.org), 
> a collaborative project of the ASU Education 
> Policy Research Unit (EPRU) and the CU-Boulder 
> Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) 
> provides the public, policy makers, and the 
> press with timely, academically sound reviews of 
> selected think tank publications. The project is 
> made possible by funding from the Great Lakes 
> Center for Education Research and Practice.
>
> Kevin Welner, the project co-director, explains 
> that the project is needed because, ?despite 
> their garnering of media attention and their 
> influence with many policy makers, reports 
> released by private think tanks can be of very 
> poor quality.  Too many think tank reports are 
> little more than ideological argumentation 
> dressed up as research.  We believe that the 
> media, policy makers, and the public will 
> greatly benefit from having qualified social 
> scientists provide reviews of these documents in a timely fashion.?
>
>
> CONTACT:
> Gene V Glass, Regents' Professor
> Arizona State University
> (480) 965-2692
> <mailto:glass@asu.edu>glass@asu.edu
>
> Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
> Education and the Public Interest Center
> University of Colorado at Boulder
> (303) 492-8370
> <mailto:kevin.welner@gmail.com>kevin.welner@gmail.com
>
> *************
>
> The Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) 
> conducts original research, provides independent 
> analyses of research and policy documents, and 
> facilitates educational innovation. EPRU 
> facilitates the work of leading academic experts 
> in a variety of disciplines to help inform the 
> public debate about education policy issues.
>
> Visit the EPRU website at 
> <http://educationanalysis.org/>http://educationanalysis.org
>
> The Education and the Public Interest Center 
> (EPIC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder 
> seeks to contribute information, analysis, and 
> insight to further democratic deliberation 
> regarding educational policy formation and implementation.
>
> Visit the EPIC website at 
> <http://education.colorado.edu/epic>http://education.colorado.edu/epic
>
> ###