Jersey Jazzman: How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy: A Newark Example

Jersey Jazzman: How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy: A Newark Example

How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy: A Newark Example

One thing I've learned from years of writing on education policy: the more convoluted the talking point, the more likely it's twisting the facts.

For example [all emphases below are mine]:

Today, African-American students in Newark are four times more likely to go to a quality school than they were in 2006. 

That's from a piece by Kyle Rosenkrans, who is launching something called the New Jersey Children's Foundation (because what we really need around here is another education "advocacy" group...).

I've seen variations of this talking point in other places:

“There is not a city in America that has experienced a greater expansion of educational opportunity than Newark over the last decade,” said Ryan Hill, CEO of KIPP New Jersey charter schools. He points to test score results showing African American kids in Newark are now four times as likely to enroll in a school where students outperform the state average than they were in 2006.

At least Hill is specific, unlike Rosenkrans's use of the watery term "quality school." But where did this data nugget come from? I can't trace the source of the "four times" claim, but the same methodology was used back in 2015, when Andrew Martin, who also worked for KIPP-NJ, wrote a piece in The 74:

The percentage of black Newark students attending a school that beat the CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: How NOT To Evaluate Education Policy: A Newark Example