Earlier today, I pointed out that a blog post from North Carolina’s “Bolshiest” opinion outlet had a few obvious issues, at least obvious to those of us who keep up with education research. Later, the author of the post responded to my concerns.
Let’s talk.
1) The blogger got the author of the study wrong in his post. Period.
2) His original blog post ignored results for charter schools in North Carolina, opting (for some reason) to discuss D.C. instead.
3) His original blog post ignored positive reading results for charter schools in North Carolina.
4) He ignored the explanation offered by researchers of why charter schools in states like North Carolina fell short. (Statistical analysis found that caps on charter growth pull charter performance down significantly.)
5) He suggests that those who funded the study, which included the U.S. Department of Education, the Packard Humanities Institute, and the Dell Foundation, somehow improperly influenced the results. First, where is the evidence of this, either within the charter school study or among CREDO’s other publications? Second, why, then, would a study “conducted by a pro-charter school group and paid for by pro-charter school foundations” report results unflattering to charter schools?
6) He claims that “the think tanks on the Right in the state sure haven’t talked much about it.” Fair enough, but there is a good reason for that. The study was released about a week ago. I wrote about the study last week (June 16), right after its release. But I deal exclusively with K-12 education issues. Many other “think tanks on the Right” do not have the luxury of employing an education dynamo like me. Perhaps one day, think tanks on the Right will be funded as well as those on the Left and other conservative organizations will get their own education analysts.
7) I agree that the media has not done a very good job covering the results of the study. I suppose reporters are too busy uncovering instances of corruption by Democrats, but it is difficult to know for sure. Why not ask Orage Quarles or Jim Goodmon for an explanation?
8) He failed to respond to the fact that President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan are vocal advocates of increasing the number of charter schools. Doesn’t that foil the “only the far Right supports charter schools” meme? In fact, pegging charter schools as an attempt by conservatives to destroy traditional public schools looks downright silly when Duncan says this.
