CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Pushes Questionable Charter Research

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Pushes Questionable Charter Research

DeVos Pushes Questionable Charter Research

The New York Post headline is pretty definitive: "Case Closed: Charter schools deliver more education 'bang' for the buck." Writers Patrick Wolf and Corey DeAngelis are plugging their new paper, and Betsy DeVos is on Facebook plugging it some more.

DeAngelis we've met before. He's a Fellow for the Cato Institute, policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, and a Distinguished Working-on-his-PhD Fellow at the University of Arkansas, all of this built on a foundation of a BBA (2012) and MA (2015) in economics from the University of Texas in San Antonio (because nobody understands education like economists). And while plugging away on that Masters, he worked first as the Risk Management Operations Coordinator and then the Fraud Coordinator for Kohl's. Patrick Wolf has several degrees in political science and has worked as an academic for most of his career.

And then they showed me directions to the unicorn farm.

Their research here comes from the University of Arkansas's Department of Education Reform, which is always a bit of a red flag. The department was set up about fifteen years ago, with about $20 million provided in part by the Walton family; some speculate the department was also a stipulation attached to a $300 million Walton gift to the University shortly before the launch. The University brought in Jay Greene (no relation), an ed reform advocate from the Manhattan Institute, to run the department, which in many ways resembles an advocacy think tank more than a real university department. Over the years it has been a reliable Walton-funded source of academic-flavored PR for ed reform and the charter industry.

This particular paper comes out of something called the School Choice Demonstration Project, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Pushes Questionable Charter Research