December 3, 2009 | Posted At: 07:12 PM | Author: Marc Dean Millot | Category:
(Who Cares What) Research Says ,
Marc Dean Millot ,
Think Tank Mafia
My series on Sweating v. Growing will proceed as planned for next week, but in the meanwhile.....
Debra Viadero's article in today's online edition of Education Week (Study Casts Doubt on Strength of Charter Managers) is worth reading if you are trying to determine the extent to which EdSector manipulated Tom Toch's Sweating draft, and whether it makes any difference. The gap was wide enough for Toch to disown EdSector's authorless Growing report, but Edsector argues that "the sort of editing process it went through would not be something out of the ordinary."
All I can say is that every research analyst should hope it is extraordinary, because if what has happened to EdSectors co-founder and co-director is the ordinary course of business in education policy research, the ordinary staff member is little more than an intellectual serf.
Continue reading "Millot: Ed Week's Story on Toch's Sweating v. EdSector's Growing" »
November 30, 2009 | Posted At: 11:16 AM | Author: Marc Dean Millot | Category:
(Who Cares What) Research Says ,
Marc Dean Millot ,
Think Tank Mafia
Education Sector’s November 24 report, Growing Pains:
Scaling Up the Nation’s Best Charter Schools
examines the problems CMOs face trying to replicate their various philosophies
of teaching and learning in new public schools. Considering the source, the
content and conclusion are predictable and deserve little attention: While
each CMO faces operational problems, the concept’s success is more a matter of
removing charter advocates’ longstanding list of government barriers –
inadequate per pupil payments, a lack of access to facilities or financing,
etc, etc.
Yet, the report demands close review - because it’s real
author, content and conclusions have gone missing. Until now.
Continue reading "Millot: Read Toch's CMO Report Here" »
January 29, 2009 | Posted At: 09:01 AM | Author: Alexander Russo | Category:
(Who Cares What) Research Says
Schools restrain disabled children all the time, according to this post from ProPublica, but the state laws governing what restraints are allowed and whether parents should be notified are uneven and often lacking -- and students have been hurt or even killed due to restraints in schools. (Lack of Regs for Restraint of Disabled Children).
Fewer than half the states even have laws addressing the use of restraints, and those that do are often full of gaps. "About 40 percent of states have no law
concerning restraint and seclusion in schools. Fewer than half of
states ask schools to notify parents when children are restrained or
placed in isolation, and 90 percent of states allow face-down
restraints."
December 22, 2008 | Posted At: 01:19 PM | Author: Alexander Russo | Category:
(Who Cares What) Research Says
Online research over-emphasizes a small set of recent popular research at the expense of older, more diverse studies, according to this Boston Globe article (Group think): "Leafing through print
journals or browsing the stacks can expose researchers to a context
that is missing in the highly targeted searches of PubMed or PsychInfo...Social
Science Research Network (SSRN), the widely used Internet resource,
offers lists of "top papers," "top authors," and "top institutions."