Contact: Kevin Welner, (303) 492-8370; (email) kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (February 16, 2009) -- In 2006, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released its Report Card on Education, 1983-1984 to 2004-2005. A review of that report by Professor Gene Glass assigned it failing grades. ALEC has just released another report card. Unfortunately, ALEC has done little to address key problems Glass pointed out two years ago.
Glass' review, for the Think Tank Review Project, concluded that the ALEC report card was neither valid nor useful research. He found that the report's "ineptness and naiveté in measurement and data analysis have thwarted any attempt to draw legitimate conclusions."
As was the case for the past several years, this year's Report Card was written by Andrew T. LeFevre, who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Temple University and who is the executive director of a school choice organization in Pennsylvania. The ALEC reports appear to be designed to promote a policy agenda that includes charter schools and vouchers.
The reviewer, Professor Glass, is Regents' Professor at Arizona State University, past-president of the American Educational Research Association, the 2005 recipient of the organization's award for "distinguished contributions to research in education," and a member of the National Academy of Education.
The key policy claim of ALEC's Report Cards is the assertion that student achievement has not been improved by increased spending on education or improved teacher salaries (see pages 63-91, 128-139). They argue that parental choice policies will lead to improved achievement (see, in particular, page 157). As Glass explains in his review of the report, however, this policy agenda lacks empirical 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 failed to cite any research studies at all. "Particularly for a report with such sweeping, far-reaching recommendations, this oversight is indefensible," Glass writes.
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."
The 2006 ALEC Report Card is no longer available from ALEC but is available from EPIC/EPRU upon request.
The 2009 Report Card is at: http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/ReportCard08.pdf
Find Gene Glass' review of the earlier report card on the web at:
http://www.epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-report-card-american-education
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 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:
Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com
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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
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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://epicpolicy.org
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