Bunkum Awards

The Bunkum Awards highlight nonsensical, confusing, and disingenuous education reports produced by think tanks. They are given each year by the Think Twice think tank review project to think tank reports judged to have most egregiously undermined informed discussion and sound policy making.

Bunkum Background

From the "MacMillan English Dictionary Magazine":
This word started life in its current sense of 'nonsense' around 1820, and its original spelling was 'buncombe'. It comes from the name of Buncombe County, North Carolina.  Rep. Felix Walker delivered a seemingly endless speech which many present felt to be meaningless and irrelevant, but he refused to stop talking, declaring himself to be determined to deliver a speech 'for Buncombe.' Thus, bunkum became a term for long-winded nonsense of the kind often seen in politics, and from there progressed to the more general meaning of just plain 'nonsense'.

Learn more about the history of the Bunkum Awards by reading these Education Week Commentaries:

• Truthiness in Education: Why the Bunkum Awards Were Created
• The Privatization Infatuation