Reform Funded Research: Winning KIPP Lottery Does Not Significantly Increase Chance Of Persisting In College
The way reformers misuse data follows a very simple and predictable plan: First they get some skewed data, then pick a ‘researcher’ to interpret the skewed data. The ‘researcher’ then writes a report which gets touted in The74, EduPost, and eventually even makes it into more mainstream publications like USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. Since the report is filled with nonsense and half-truths, within a few weeks the truth comes out and the report is discredited, but not before the damage was done and the spin has made it into folklore. When this happens, the reformers will then ‘move the goalposts’ and get some more skewed data and start the process over again.
An example of this is the July 2017 report by Richard Whitmire called ‘The Alumni‘. Whitmire has written books about both KIPP and about Michelle Rhee so I think you get the idea of what his point of view is. In this poorly researched project he concludes that “Data Show Charter School Students Graduating From College at Three to Five Times National Average“.
This was probably the easiest report I ever debunked. The biggest flaw was that for most of the charter schools, they were only counting the percent of graduating seniors who persisted in college and then comparing that percent to the overall percent of all low- CONTINUE READING: Reform Funded Research: Winning KIPP Lottery Does Not Significantly Increase Chance Of Persisting In College | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
