So what’s the difference between advocacy and research? It seems to get fuzzier these days as the stakes in the reform debate gets ever more heated with increasing data access and less money. There’s a scary trend developing where all interests in the various debates which include teacher unions, business leaders and foundations are using so called “think tanks” to further their particular agendas.
The latest and possibly scariest local entry is Kevin Welner’s Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) which appears to be a group of education professors funded by teacher unions and others to support advocacy briefs that claim charters, vouchers, student choice, student-based budgeting, on-line schools and standards don’t work.
EPIC looks like an advocacy think tank designed to try to shoot down anything that challenges the current way of doing public education other than adding more money to the system. By the way I think we do need more money, I just wouldn’t continue to spend it in the same way we do now.
EPIC’s latest advocacy brief is the recently deceased Gerald Bracey’s last report. I have to admit that I did sometimes enjoy reading Bracey’s pointed attacks on education reformers. I will miss him. But his last “report” takes the cake.
Bracey has the audacity to argue that high-quality schools will not do much to eliminate the achievement gap between whites and minorities. He even suggests that we can’t define what high quality might mean. He actually states that “politicians and educators ignore the evidence and continue to march under the misbegotten banner that “all children can learn.”
He sounds like a liberal version of Charles Murray’s pseudoscientific and arguably racist theories in “The Bell Curve.” Poor kids are dumb and there’s nothing to be done about it in the classroom. Murray says it’s their genes and Bracy claims it’s their environment. In the end they both come to the same conclusion about the power of schools.
Having said all of this, I welcome the arguments and discussion from Welner, Berliner or Bracey, I just wish they were more honest about their non-objective advocacy and stop hiding behind their PhD’s and University affiliations.
Most of the statements in these briefs would never pass muster with the National Research Council or any other serious research body’s standards. EPIC is mostly advocacy with some light policy research thrown in much like the American Enterprise Institute, the Independence Institute and countless other “advocacy tanks.”
Popularity: 39% [?]
Schoales Gets the Shoe on the Wrong Foot
It appears Van Schoales has the shoe on the wrong foot in his suggestion that Gerry Bracey’s views on educational reform are Murray-esque. It is an affront to his memory, as well as downright ludicrous, to associate Bracey’s views with Murray’s. And it is actually the Murray of “Losing Ground,” rather than the Murray of the “Bell Curve,” that is the more a propos basis of comparison. In “Losing Ground,” Murray traced the difficulties of disadvantaged children experienced in schools directly to their “environments,” particularly the alleged corruption of them by the social welfare system. He recommended dismantling social welfare programs, insisting that all children must be required to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. He also recommended familiar neo-liberal education reforms: Public education could eliminate achievement gaps based on income and race only be expanding choice and implementing a rigorous testing regimen. And schools could (should) do this going it alone.
Bracey’s thesis is that schools alone are limited in what they can do to eliminate achievement gaps—an ineluctable thesis since the 1966 “Coleman Report” for anyone who doesn’t bury their head in the sand, spout the “all children can learn” slogan, and blame everything that has gone so poorly in public education on the unholy alliance of educrats and teachers unions. As Richard Rothstein says:
Closing or substantially narrowing achievement gaps requires combining school improvement with reforms that narrow the vast socioeconomic inequalities in the United States. Without such a combination, demands (like those of No Child Left Behind) that schools fully close achievement gaps not only will remain unfulfilled, but also will cause us to foolishly and unfairly condemn our schools and teachers…There’s a lack of moral, political, and intellectual integrity in [the] suppression of awareness of how social and economic disadvantage lowers achievement.” (“Whose Problem is Poverty?” Educational Leadership, vol. 65, no. 7, (2008): 8-13, p. 9.)
Kenneth R. Howe, PhD
Ken, I know of no educator, me included. that thinks we should not be getting rid of lead, feeding all kids and providing all kids with healthcare (I think everyone should have healthcare).
We need to do these things and change the way we do school. I think it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. The shoes seem to be working.
I do find the Bracey comparison to the other Murray fair in some ways because they are both suggesting that school reform is a waste of time and resources. And no I don’t have a PhD but I do have Masters in Science! So does Bracey’s brief pass the CU research test? Or is it a nice advocacy piece?
Essentially, what are Van Schoeles’ qualifications for criticizing Mr. Bracey’s publication? When where his publications juried? Has DPS or A+ Denver every juried any of his or Piton’s research?
If I remember correctly, Van’s credentials include a PhD in Education from Stanford University. Using this degree –
• He supported the redesign of Manual High School into a school that is failing to a greater degree than it did before it was redesigned.
• He masterminded the great K-8 middle school transformation in DPS, creating schools that perform no better than the average traditional middle school but flooding the system with middle school seats that can never be filled without a population explosion.
• To balance this out, however, he did get DPS to place the Odyssey Charter School in a Stapleton elementary school, thereby helping to create one of the greatest service shortfalls in DPS’ history when it was discovered that the kids of Stapleton had no place to attend kindergarten.
• He supported the closure of underperforming schools in DPS, sending countless kids to other schools, most of which perform at a level lower than the school closed.
• He supported bringing Envision Schools to Denver, despite the fact that the charter organization’s academic performance in California would have placed any of its schools on probation in DPS. Of course, this was done under the theory that Donnell Kay would provide strong leadership to make Envision Schools Colorado a success, although I doubt the type of success anyone had in mind was letting the principal go in the middle of Envision Leadership Academy’s first year of operation.
• He supported the expansion of Cesar Chavez Charter schools into DPS, a charter company that both plays games to recruit higher performing students and then manipulates these student’s CSAP scores to make the company look more successful than it is. Of course, this isn’t the least of it, when the Cesar Chavez CEO makes ~$250k per year and the senior executive team appears to be committing fraud related to the charter company’s financial statements. I really have to wonder what kind of rigor the “education experts” sitting on the DPS Application Review Team apply to charter applications.
• Most recently, Van decided that the concept of “neighborhood charter schools” should be tried in DPS, as it is in that paragon of education reform, Rhode Island. The first victim here, beyond the kids who attend these new schools, will be the crown jewel of DPS’ charter system, West Denver Prep. Chris Gibbons will try to retrofit his highly successful model so that it can work with kids who are highly mobile, cannot be “dismissed” from the school for behavior issues, and who, if they enter in 7th or 8th grades, will not have the benefit of the having mastered the skills taught in 6th grade and which make West Denver Prep the success it is.
Sadly, this tells me it is not about the kids, or better schools for the kids, or creating a great school system. It is about ego, ideology, and cronyism.
Like any ideologue, the charter-schools-at-any-cost crowd howl like dogs robbed of their kibble whenever evidence is presented supporting the conclusion that education reform is on the wrong path to transforming our schools. Meanwhile, the crowd’s ego demands that one huckster’s idea after another gets presented as the latest savior for our schools. Amazingly, people still listen, despite Van and his ilk’s unrivaled track record for improving schools in Denver.
The whole of this reminds me of the Catholic Church’s position related to Galileo’s support for the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. For this support, the church tried Galileo by the Inquisition, found him “vehemently suspect of heresy,” forcing him to recant and spend the rest of his life under house arrest. According to the ideologues in the Church, it was simply a fact that the sun revolved round us, a fact that could not be questioned. Hmm… Sound familiar to anyone outside the Piton, Donnell Kay, Michael Bennet, DPS, Arne Duncan crowd?
Henceforth, Van, we christen thee Pope Gregory of Piton, dropping the XV, so your pals don’t think your name the 15th installment to a movie series entitled “Waiting for Reform.”
On the right-hand side of this blog’s home page sits a link to a page called “Guidelines for bloggers, commenters.” It says, among other things:
No ad hominem attacks. It is possible to disagree with another person without attacking him or her personally….
Provide evidence if you’re not writing about something that you personally observed or was part of your personal experience, i.e. while teaching. While this blog is a forum for expressing opinions, it is also part of a news website. As such, any claims, allegations, etc. must be backed up by specific examples, especially when a person or people are the subject of said allegations or claims. Cite studies, research, articles, public records, etc., and, when possible, link to them. It heightens the credibility of the post if you have evidence to back up what you are saying.
So why did I publish Christopher Scott’s vituperative comment above, which violates these guidelines? For a couple of reasons.
First, Scott was a serious candidate for school board, and as such has a following, even if he did lose by nearly 40 percentage points. I think it is important for people to see how a now-prominent figure – who I’m guessing will continue to try to influence the education debate in Denver — is willing to traffic in factual inaccuracies (almost too numerous to count in his comment) or perhaps falsehoods to further his agenda. What’s more he does this with an ill will and mean-spiritedness that defies rational explanation.
Second, I shared the comment with its subject, Van Schoales (note the correct spelling – details matter), and Van asked that I go ahead and publish it, for reasons he will explain in his own response. So I decided to make an exception in this case and publish the comment.
In general, it is a sign of civic health when people show passion about public policy issues of great import. I want this blog to be a place where people can be passionate, and pointed, and disagree with each other vigorously. All it takes is a little care, some research and an iota of cleverness to make points without having to turn to vicious personal attacks.
Well I’ve always wanted to be a Pope and have a PhD from Stanford (I have an MA from Stanford). Gregory XV has a nice ring to it. Pope Gregory had a few attributes. He reduced a number of punishments for witchcraft and had a high regard for the Jesuits. I’m a big fan of Arrupe Jesuit High School in NW Denver.
By the way, it appears from a little web research that Pope Urban VIII was the real villain Pope behind Galileo’s house arrest in 1633. Pope Gregory XV who died in 1623 was in charge of a Roman inquisition in 1616 in which Galileo was told to tone down his heliocentric writings. Thankfully for us Galileo continued to use evidence and the scientific method to better understand reality, a wonderful reminder for all of us in today’s education discussions.
Returning to the substance of Christopher’s post, I asked Alan to publish it even though he thought it violated EdNewsColorado’s guidelines because of the focus on me and some clear distortions. While I agree with Alan, I’d prefer to have these claims, even if false, made public reflecting on the experience of Galileo.
I won’t go through the long list of false claims in Christopher’s post but I recommend that anyone interested in Manual, School Closings, A +, Odyssey, etc do a bit of research before being buying Christopher’s perspective. In every case, he either misunderstands the role that others or I played and or was dead wrong with regard to the facts.
For example, I had nothing to do with DPS’s move to K-8 schools and Christopher totally manufactures a story about Odyssey being the cause of overcrowding at Stapleton. On the Manual front, the school is making good progress…please refer to the DPS school performance framework and have a visit. Manual has a long ways to go in terms of achievement but by every measure including various achievement measures it is doing better than it was as a big comprehensive high school nine years ago or as three semi-autonomous schools before it was restarted four years ago.
My main point in the first blog post was that we would be better served through more evidence-based discussions. The beauty of blogs and the net is that we can hold each other accountable.