Review concludes think tank's ranking of states' choice policies offers advocacy with little useful information
Contact: Wendy Chi, (734) 678-5196; (email) wendychi@gmail.com
Kevin Welner, (303) 492-8370; (email) kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (April 29, 2008)--Choice and Education across the States, a new report from the Heartland Institute, gives letter grades to states based on their embrace of school choice policies. A review of the report for the Think Tank Review Project concludes that it offers little or no useful information for policy makers.
Wendy Chi, a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado at Boulder, reviewed the report, which was written by Michael Van Winkle and released on April 17th by Heartland, whose stated mission is to "promote free-market solutions" that include "parental choice in education."
The report, according to Chi, does little more than offer policy makers the argument that states should increase school choice, dressed up with a letter grade for each state.
Chi did praise the report for its clearly stated grading system, whereby states with more school choice options and fewer restrictions in choice programs received higher scores. But she criticized the report on several grounds. She noted that the basis for awarding grades was merely the "values and beliefs of the Heartland author." She pointed out that "a foe of market-based school policies might use the same criteria to reverse the grades."
Chi finds that the report's grading criteria "make no attempt to determine how states are employing the different types of school choice, nor do they attempt to assess the quality or results of those choice programs." As a result, "a state with little demand for school choice would be awarded a better grade by the Heartland standard if it adopted poorly functioning, underfunded, ill-received choice programs that resulted in lower student performance."
Finally, Chi criticizes the report's assertion that an increase in school choice will strengthen accountability and improve student achievement. She explains that the author's belief is not supported by empirical research. More generally, she notes that the report offers very little in the way of objective data to support its advocacy. Many of its claims are "unsupported assertions, offered without citations," she writes.
In the end, the state legislators who are the intended audience for the Heartland report are likely to learn little of substance from it, other than the extent that the state offers school choice. As a result, she concludes, "it would seem the report is of use only as an advocacy document."
CONTACT:
Wendy Chi, Doctoral Candidate
University of Colorado at Boulder
(734) 678-5196
wendychi@gmail.com
Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com
About the Think Tank Review Project
The Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org), a collaborative project of the ASU Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) and CU-Boulder's 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 vary tremendously in their quality. Many think tank reports are little more than ideological argumentation dressed up as research. Many others include flaws that would likely have been identified and addressed through the peer review process. 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." He adds, "we don't consider our reviews to be the final word, nor is our goal to stop think tanks' contributions to a public dialogue. That dialogue is, in fact, what we value the most. The best ideas come about through rigorous critique and debate."
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The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder partners with the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. These centers provide a variety of audiences, both academic and public, with information, analysis, and insight to further democratic deliberation regarding educational policies.
Visit their website at http://educationanalysis.org
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