Advocacy brief provides one-sided arguments for change in Connecticut's charter school law

Contact: Robert Bifulco, Syracuse University, (315) 443-3144; rbifulco@syr.edu

BOULDER, Colo. and TEMPE, Ariz. (March 10, 2010) -- A recent issue brief that urges relaxed standards and increased funding for charter schools ignores relevant research on charters and fails to engage important questions about the objectives of charter school laws, according to a new analysis released by the Think Tank Review Project.

The brief, published by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), Connecticut's Charter School Law and Race to the Top, was reviewed for the Think Tank Review Project by Syracuse University professor Robert Bifulco. In his review, Bifulco explains that the brief is fundamentally an advocacy piece that is "designed to promote a specific view of charter schools, and does not help policymakers or the public think carefully about what a charter school program should be trying to achieve and how best to achieve it."   

The ConnCAN issue brief claims that "charter schools have demonstrated sustained success, especially among low-income students" and calls those schools "an essential part of closing Connecticut's achievement gap." The brief advocates lifting the Connecticut charter school cap and creating a funding mechanism that pays charter schools the same per pupil rate as that pupil's home school district.

Bifulco's review praises the brief for pointing to funding questions that may deserve attention. But the review finds that the brief never fairly or adequately engages with the most important evidence. It fails, for instance, to use any peer-reviewed, empirical research on charter schools, even though such research is ample and relevant. Additionally, Bifulco observes that simply lifting the charter school enrollment cap across the board, as the ConnCAN brief recommends, ignores the fact that charters can already exceed the cap in Connecticut--but only if they demonstrate a record of student achievement. Changing that law to allow expansion for charters that do not have such a record may not, as the ConnCAN brief contends, place the state in a better position to receive Race to the Top dollars.

Overall, the brief is described by the reviewer as providing "a rather one-sided and incomplete analysis of the issues at stake."

The Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org), a collaborative project of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) and the ASU Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU), 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.

Find Robert Bifulco's review on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-Connecticut-Charter

Find Connecticut's Charter School Law and Race to the Top, by Tori Tuscheit and published by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, on the web at:
http://www.conncan.org/learn/research/public-charter-schools/connecticuts-charter-school-law-race-top

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/

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