School closings and the ever-increasing number of deaths provide the backdrop for a proposal by the Center for American Progress (CAP) to deny waivers of the federally mandated administration of standardized tests in spring 2021. Further, the federal government proposes to add to those assessments in ways that CAP argues would make the test results more useful. In its recent report, CAP sides with the Department of Education’s policy of denying such requests for waivers, and it calls for additional assessments that “capture multiple aspects of student well-being, including social-emotional needs, engagement, and conditions for learning” as well as supplementary gathering of student information. The reviewers find the CAP proposal to be ill-timed, unrealistic, and inappropriate for dealing with the exigencies arising from the pandemic.

This report claims superiority of charter schools in producing achievement per dollar invested. The findings are cast as cost-effectiveness ratios, where effects are measured by National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) points and costs are measured as “revenues received.” The report concludes that charter schools deliver an additional 17 NAEP points per $1000 in math and 16 points per $1000 in reading. All analyses are undertaken with data for 21 states and the District of Columbia. Because an earlier review by Baker pointed to serious flaws in the “cost” part of the ratio, this review will focus on achievement. The effects of charter versus traditional public schools are estimated by comparing state averages of both sectors without attempting to equate them on demographic variables like poverty (free lunch eligibility) or special-needs status. Not reported is the fact that the demographic differences between the two sectors are highly correlated with the estimates of differential effects; the sector with the higher percentage of poor pupils scores lower on the NAEP test. This failure alone renders the report and its recommendations indefensible. Furthermore, the assessment of expenditures in the two sectors rests on non-comparable data across states and questionable data within states. These weaknesses leave little evidence on which to base any valid conclusions. Reports of this type can only be viewed as advocacy research, in large part because they fail to reconcile their findings with the extensive literature of contrary findings.

The research summary Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students presents the research background for the Obama administration’s proposals for comprehensive, community-wide services in high-poverty neighborhoods, extended learning time, family engagement and safe schools. While these policies have broad and common-sense appeal, the research supporting the particular policies proposed by the administration is weak and poorly presented in the research summary. As promising as community-wide services may be, a broad research base does not yet exist concerning how to make them successful. The research on extended learning time is also inconclusive. Family involvement is crucial to education, but the evidence for a causal link between student achievement and the type of parent involvement discussed is ambiguous and suspect. The proposals for safe schools boil down to increased local flexibility and increased gathering of survey data, neither of which can be expected to improve outcomes. Together, the administration’s proposals would require an extensive financial commitment in order to be fully implemented, but the scope and source of these funds is not explained. Overall, the evidence provided is not sufficiently strong to justify the programs they champion. While the research summary adequately documents problems, a wiser course for public policy would be a carefully structured set of pilot studies to sharply and accurately identify solutions.

Suggested Citation: Glass, G.V., Barnett, W.S., & Welner, K.G. (2010). Review of “Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students.” Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/successful-safe-healthy

The "Report Card on American Education," published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, uses poor and misleading methods to draw some very controversial findings. The report presents readily available statistics to generate hundreds of tables and figures concerning each state's education "inputs," "outputs," and demographics. Interspersed among these tables are a mere dozen pages of analysis intended to support the conclusion, in the words of ALEC Executive Director Lori Roman, that per-pupil spending increases, pupil-to-teacher ratio reductions and raises for teachers "...are not going to make the difference in raising American student achievement to international standards. Empowering parents will" (p. 1). But ineptness and naiveté in measurement and data analysis have thwarted any attempt to legitimately derive such conclusions.

Suggested Citation:

Glass, G. (2007). Review of "Report Card on American Education."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-report-card-american-education

This report claims that charter schools in the "Big Eight" urban school districts in Ohio are producing greater achievement gains, increasing revenues in the traditional public schools of these districts, and operating at lower costs.

The report reviewed is available at: http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttdocuments/EPRU-0607-402-OWI.pdf

Suggested Citation:

Glass, G. (2006). Review of "The Financial Impact of Ohio's Charter Schools."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-the-financial-impact-ohios-charter-schools