Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail Education Reform

Some interesting findings from Truthout's review of the peer-reviewed literature on how school choice and business models do not result in fixes -- either quick nor long-term -- for what ails public schools...

Taken as a whole, these numbers indicate significant limits on the capacity of public school choice and parental involvement to improve school quality and student performance within MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools]. Parents simply do not appear sufficiently engaged in available choice opportunities or their children 's educational activities to ensure the desired outcomes.... Relying on public school choice and parental involvement to reclaim MPS may be a distraction from the hard work of fixing the district 's schools. Recognizing this, the question is whether the district, its schools, and its supporters in Madison are prepared to embrace more radical reforms. Given the high stakes involved, district parents should insist on nothing less.

The think-tank advocacy process is chilling but effective: make claims through the media and move fast to the next thing before anyone has time to consider the evidence. Yes, the media is complicit here, because we know that think tanks and advocacy receive disproportionately more coverage without scholarly scrutiny when compared to university-based and peer-reviewed studies.

And be leery of fantastic claims made by free-market advocacy institutions such as the John Locke Foundation:

Think-tank advocacy focusing on education has increased over the past two decades, and although the think tanks have developed a strategy that involves creating the appearance of scholarship and research, the reality is that think tanks remain ideology-driven, not evidence-based.

Go read the whole excellent article here.