DFER's Misleading and Innumerate "Research"
Bruce Baker has sort of cornered the market on critiquing stupid education policy graphs, so I feel like maybe I need to pay him a royalty or something when I say this:
Democrats For Education Reform has produced quite possibly the year's dumbest education policy graph.
Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes (p.4):
Let's go right to the text of the policy brief this comes from, written by Mac LeBuhn, and see if we can figure out what the young gentleman is trying to say:
Yep. Keep that in mind as we continue:
Democrats For Education Reform has produced quite possibly the year's dumbest education policy graph.
Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes (p.4):
The hypothetical graph above...Whoa, whoa, WHOA, WHOA! "Hypothetical"?! You mean this graph doesn't actually show anything real? You just made this up? This graph is based on nothing?!
Yep. Keep that in mind as we continue:
The hypothetical graph above offers another way to visualize administrators’ frustration with
Hackstastic Charter School Hackery
Hacky charter school hackiness, courtesy - as always! - of the Star-Ledger's op-ed pages:
- Charter are not public schools: The Census Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, and legal scholars all agree that charters are not public schools.
- Charters are, in fact, selective:
Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that provide many low-income and working-class parents with the freedom to choose a school that offers an education that best serves their students’ needs, regardless of where they live or their income level. Charters schools are nonselective and accept students through a random lottery. Recent reports by Newark Public Schools and CREDO/Stanford make clear Newark’s charter schools are producing significant achievement gains for students. It’s not surprising that families are demanding more charter schools, with 10,000 students already on wait lists.So many reformy hits in one paragraph! Where to begin...
- Charter are not public schools: The Census Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, and legal scholars all agree that charters are not public schools.
- Charters are, in fact, selective:
Charter schools are limited public access in the sense that:
- They can define the number of enrollment