Report citing New Orleans as a model for changing urban education ignores key facts and makes faulty arguments, reviewer finds

Contact: Katrina Bulkley, (973) 655-5189; bulkleyk@mail.montclair.edu
Nikki Rashada McCord, EPIC, (303) 735-5290; Nikki.McCord@colorado.edu

BOULDER, Colo. and TEMPE, Ariz. (April 15, 2010) - A recent Reason Foundation report points to the post-Katrina school system in New Orleans as evidence to support massive decentralizing of urban school systems. But a Think Tank Review Project review of the report released today concludes it lacks evidence for its claims and ignores key facts about the New Orleans situation that would undermine its case.

The Reason Foundation report, Fix the City Schools was written by Lisa Snell. It was reviewed for the TTRP by Katrina Bulkley, an education professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Under the plan advocated in Fix the City Schools, urban schools would all operate in ways akin to charter schools, with increased autonomy and, in principle at least, held accountable for their performance. School districts would manage a "portfolio" of these autonomous schools that would receive revenue based on enrollment. The report draws heavily on the author's claims that the post-Katrina New Orleans schools, a highly decentralized system in which 60 percent of students attend charter schools and the traditional public schools have much greater autonomy, have experienced remarkably improved student achievement.

Bulkley's review of this report identifies a number of flaws. She notes that it relies primarily on advocacy articles and anecdotal media reports; the report is unable to provide readers with any valid, generalizable research supporting the claims of beneficial outcomes. At times, Bulkley notes, the report "addresses issues that have been assessed in high-quality research, but neglects to include that research or its findings." For instance, while Fix the City Schools asserts that closing schools can lift achievement, Bulkley points to research that undermines those assertions. Similarly, the report ignores large-scale studies that show charter schools do not, on average, improve student achievement.

Additionally, in making the New Orleans story the centerpiece of its evidence for the "portfolio management" approach, the report ignores several key facts: (a) the New Orleans district was already showing steady improvement before the post-Katrina reforms; (b) other districts in the state not devastated by the hurricane have continued to improve in the post-Katrina era as well; (c) Katrina led to a disproportionate exodus of poor families from the district, where enrollment is less than two-thirds of pre-Katrina levels; and (d) post-Katrina resources for the city's public schools have been significantly greater than before the hurricane. Bulkley does not disparage the New Orleans schools' possible improvement, but she cautions that without much more study, it cannot be used as a blueprint for school reforms elsewhere.

"This report offers no strong evidence in support of the proposals it advocates," Bulkley concludes. While it might offer advocates of its approach a useful guide to implementing the reforms it proposes, the absence of meaningful research to support its conclusions "limits the use of this piece for policymakers or others trying to determine the best research-based strategies for improving urban schools."

The Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org), a collaborative project of University of Colorado at Boulder's Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) and the ASU Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU), 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.

Find Katrina Bulkley's review on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-fix-city-schools

Find Fix the City Schools by Lisa Snell on the web at:
http://reason.org/files/pb87_fix_schools_charters.pdf

CONTACT:
Katrina Bulkley
Montclair State University
(973) 655-5189
bulkleyk@mail.montclair.edu

Nikki Rashada McCord
Associate Director
Education & the Public Interest Center (EPIC)
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 735-5290
Nikki.McCord@colorado.edu

The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University collaborate to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. Our goal is to promote well-informed democratic deliberation about education policy by providing academic as well as non-academic audiences with useful information and high quality analyses.

Visit EPIC and EPRU at http://www.educationanalysis.org/

EPIC and EPRU are members of the Education Policy Alliance
(http://educationpolicyalliance.org).

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