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NEPC Announces the Bunkum Awards for 2014

Top prizes for shoddy research conferred upon this year’s winners

Contact: 
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net

URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/oh8xnwe

 

BOULDER, CO (March 3, 2015) – Just one week after the Oscars and with Emmys and Pulitzers still to come, the National Education Policy Center steps up to announce those most coveted of all: the 9th annual Bunkum Awards for exceptionally egregious education research.

Once again, The Bunkums recognize the unsung brilliance of the purveyors of expertly authored education advocacy and erroneous evidence. Bunkum winners have set new standards for shameless shilling of discredited yet diverting distractions.

This year’s awards announcement, available on the NEPC website, is hosted by Dr. David Berliner, the Regents’ Professor Emeritus and former dean of the College of Education at Arizona State University. Berliner, who debuted last year as our Bunkum host, is a member of the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education, a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a past president of the American Educational Research Association, and a widely recognized scholar of educational psychology and policy.

The prizes are:

  • The Class Size Reductio ad Absurdum Award
  • The What the World Needs Now is Choice Sweet Choice Awards
  • The Back-Tracking via CTE Award
  • The It’s Never Too Early to Revise History Award

and for the Grand Prize, last, and certainly least,

  • The Fractured Fraction Award for Using Erroneous Numerators and Denominators to Get Predetermined Results Award
     

Find out who won, see the 2014 Bunkums Awards video presentation, read the award descriptions, see the Bunkum-worthy reports, and read the reviews of those reports for National Education Policy Center’s Think Twice think tank review project, all by going to
http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank/bunkum-awards/2014.

The Think Twice think tank review project (http://thinktankreview.org) of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC is housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. The Think Twice think tank review project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence.  For more information on NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/