Hobbs ran against @BetsyDeVos choice Kari Lake, who made AZ’s recent #schoolvouchers expansion—the largest in the US—her own centerpiece
3/
.@BetsyDeVos staff—not just acolytes but aides—were out in force for both Dixon in MI and Lake in AZ.
For example Corey DeAngelis from the DeVos 501(c)(4) lobbying group American Federation for Children actually flew down post-primary to launch the fall AZ campaign.
And another senior AFC/DeVos staffer put another @DetNewsOpinion#schoolvouchers piece propping Dixon up days before the vote
6/
By the way @DetNewsOpinion did not disclose either DeVos connection and simply identified these staffers as “researcher” and “fellow” in the bylines—they are official titles but so much more that. E.g. the photo with Lake and DeAngelis above.
7/
Voucher “empirical” research showing positive academic effects are no less a political tactic than this piece of garbage here—and by the same organizations.
Whitmer actually vetoed the plan originally a year ago. And as early as then, the state GOP didn’t expect to win the #migov (save for a more recent post-primary fever dream) in #Election2022
🧵 1/ For those who haven’t been neck deep in #schoolchoice debates for two decades let me walk you through the evolution of this argument about outcomes—it was driven by #voucher research.
Early 1990s: #schoolchoice is a rising tide that lifts all academic boats!
2/ 1990s cont’d: #vouchers seem to look pretty cool: Cecilia Rouse’s dissertation finds positive test score effects in Milwaukee’s pilot program and so do Jay Greene and Paul Peterson (well, uh, no shock there 🙄)
3/ 2002-04: Maybe not. Peterson-led work finds + effects of a small privately #voucher program, but then Alan Krueger shows they were highly, ahem, sensitive to model/sample choice. (Who are *you* picking as your starting research QB: Peterson or Krueger?) journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
1/ This piece is fine for what it is. What it and others are understating or flat out missing is the link between religious fanaticism and anti-democratic anti-election white supremacism in the school #privatization push nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opi…
2/ To give serious space to people like DeAngelis (a ~30 yo lobbyist-w/PhD) to give “thoughts” is appropriate for what the #vouchers movement is but to quote him intellectually rather than a political actor misses the role rightwing think-tanks have played in election denialism
3/ It’s esp problematic given the only real offset to #DeVos/DeAngelis is Mann himself who’s been dead since 1859 and isn’t even directly quoted at that.