Full Description
Education policy over the past thirty years has been powerfully influenced by well-funded and slickly produced research reports produced by advocacy think tanks. The quality of think tank reports and the value of the policies they support have been sharply debated. To help policymakers, the media, and the public assess these quality issues, the Think Tank Review Project provides expert third party reviews. The Project has, since 2006, published 59 reviews of reports from 26 different institutions. This book brings together 21 of those reviews, focusing on examining the arguments and evidence used by think tanks to promote reforms such as vouchers, charter schools and alternative routes to teacher certification. The reviews are written using clear, non-academic language, with each review illustrating how readers can approach, understand and critique policy studies and reports. The book will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with the current debates about educational reform.
Contents
Introduction: Bringing Think Tank Research Into the Scholarly Debate; Alex Molnar and Kevin G. Welner.
Part I. School Choice and the Benefits of Competition.
Chapter 1. A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Affect Public Schools; Christopher Lubienski.
Chapter 2. The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement; John T. Yun.
Part II. Private School Supremacy and Voucher Achievement Gains.
Chapter 3. Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools? Jaekyung Lee.
Chapter 4. Markets Versus Monopolies in Education; Clive Belfield.
Part III. Contracting Out and Private Management.
Chapter 5. A School Privatization Primer for Michigan School Officials, Media and Residents; Clive Belfield.
Chapter 6. Two Philadelphia Reports; Derek Briggs.
Part IV. Vouchers Save Money.
Chapter 7. Freedom and Saving Money: The Fiscal Impact of the DC Voucher Program; Christopher Lubienski.
Chapter 8. School Choice by the Numbers; Bruce Baker.
Chapter 9. Series of Reports on the Fiscal Impact of Tax-Credit Scholarships; Luis Huerta.
Part V. Charter Schools.
Chapter 10. Schools in Eight States: Effects on Achievement, Attainment, Integration, and Competition; Derek C. Briggs.
Chapter 11. Trends in Charter School Authorizing; Ernest R. House.
Chapter 12. Public Charter Schools: A Great Value for Ohio's Public Education System; Gary Miron.
Part VI. School Funding.
Chapter 13. Weighted Student Formula Yearbook 2009; Bruce Baker.
Chapter 14. How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid? Sean P. Corcoran and Lawrence Mishel.
Part VII. No Child Left Behind and Standards-Based Accountability.
Chapter 15. End It, Don't Mend It: What to Do With No Child Left Behind; Bruce Fuller.
Chapter 16. Answering the Question That Matters Most: Has Student Achievement Increased Since No Child Left Behind? John T. Yun.
Part VIII. Report Cards: Bad Grades Make Headlines.
Chapter 17. The State of State Standards 2006; Kenneth R. Howe.
Chapter 18. Report Card on American Education; Gene V Glass.
Part IX. Preschool.
Chapter 19. Sound an Investment: An Analysis of Federal Prekindergarten Proposals; W. Steven Barnett.
Part X. Teacher Quality.
Chapter 20. Evaluation of Teachers Trained Through Different Routes to Certification; Sean P. Corcoran and Jennifer L. Jennings.
Chapter 21. Giving Students the Chaff: How to Find and Keep the Teachers We Need; Raymond Pecheone and Ash Vasudeva.
Conclusion. Junk Social Science: Its Patrons and Its Audience; Kevin G. Welner and Alex Molnar.
About the Authors.
