Review finds financial analysis and claims are only shoddy propaganda
Contact: Gary Miron, (269) 599-7965; gary.miron@wmich.edu
Kevin Welner, (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (Dec. 10, 2008) -- A recent report from the Buckeye Institute purports to show that charter schools in Ohio are unfairly underfunded relative to traditional public schools. A new review of the report, however, declares it misleading and, in some instances, false and deceitful.
The report, Public Charter Schools: A Great Value for Ohio's Public Education System, was authored by Matthew Carr and Beth Lear. It was reviewed for the Think Tank Review Project by Professor Gary Miron of Western Michigan University, a leading evaluator of states' charter school programs.
Miron begins by noting the existence of reasonable arguments by both sides of the charter funding debate. Supporters of public schools can, in some states at least, justifiably contend that charters get more money than they should; charters and their advocates can also justifiably complain in some instances that they receive less than they should.
But fair analyses of these issues must seriously address the complexities of school funding formulas and of the many sources of possible school revenues. Such worthwhile research invariably includes caveats, nuances and exceptions, helping readers to really understand the issues. In contrast, Miron says, "the analysis from the Buckeye Institute does not list a single limitation in the data or provide a single cautionary note for readers."
Even more troubling, however, are the outright errors in the report's analysis. Miron demonstrates in his review that all of the report's main contentions are wrong or misleading, but one claim drew particular criticism. The Buckeye report contends that the state's largest school districts receive a net gain in revenue on average for each student attending a charter school--and that returning those charter students to the regular schools would actually cost the districts in revenue per pupil. This contention, Miron says, is "ridiculously false, deceitful, and patently misrepresent[s] how the funding of public schools works."
In reality, Miron explains, "If charter schools closed and a large portion of students returned to district schools, [the district] would still receive the same amount of revenues per pupil. The only difference is that the state share of the overall district costs would increase--with a shift in public funding from the charters to the school districts."
Overall, Miron finds the Buckeye report to be of the type that presents "only selected data or partial evidence that supports a particular position." It is, he writes, "intended to advocate, obscure, and redirect attention rather than deepen understanding and insight" and consequently offers little to recommend it as useful to policymakers.
Find Gary Miron's review on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-charters-ohio
CONTACT:
Gary Miron, Professor
College of Education
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5237
(269) 387-3771 (office)
(269) 599-7965 (cell)
gary.miron@wmich.edu
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."
**********
###
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).
###
**********