Josh Cowen Profile picture
Nov 16 10 tweets 7 min read
🤬🤯😡🙄

🧵🪡
NO the evidence for #schoolvouchers isn’t “mixed.”

Voucher “empirical” research showing positive academic effects are no less a political tactic than this piece of garbage here—and by the same organizations.

#edchat
1/
Heritage, Goldwater, Cato and EdChoice form the entire favorable base of evidence for #schoolvouchers.

No reporter would consider a study like this a neutral “study”

2/
No reporter would consider this anything but a politically motivated “study”

3/
No one would say this “report” was anything but catnip and dog whistle for Right-wing talking points

4/
And yet the “#schoolvouchers help student learning!” political spin also comes from the same groups. Without them that evidence doesn’t exist.

5/
The greatest trick #schoolvouchers advocates ever pulled was convincing the world that “the evidence” favors vouchers.

That evidence doesn’t exist. Not really. It’s a phantom.

6/
A phantom propped up by dozens of so-called studies propping up #schoolvouchers from Right-wing groups, flooding the zone to confuse journalists and policymakers.

7/
When in reality there are a tiny few of (very old, very small) credible studies showing good #schoolvoucher impacts.

The rest are devastating 👇
8/
dropbox.com/s/mraoem01grf7…
Example: yesterday Heritage released that garbage woke #schoolchoice “study,” while the top #edpolicy journal in the country had a real study showing #schoolvouchers don’t help edu-attainment.

There is no better example of the state of voucher evidence than right here 👇👇👇

9/
Journalists: Anyone telling you most studies show #schoolvouchers “work” is an advocate spinning you.

Anyone saying studies are “mixed” is well-meaning but under-read in this field. @DianeRavitch @Network4pubEd @NEPCtweet @FutureEdGU @BrookingsEd

/end

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More from @joshcowenMSU

Nov 17
🧵🪡
It’s a big edu/policy research conference week (#APPAM2022 #ASHE2022 #UCEA22) and here’s a short thread on ideological diversity in edu-research and edu-journalism #edchat using the Greene/Heritage studies as a hook

1/ ImageImage
Some formal edu research/journo communities have tolerated increasingly far-Right stuff for years, in part because of a genuine commitment to multi-perspectives, and also out of fear of being labeled ideological or against free speech themselves

2/
And in the #edchat journalism space there is some of the notorious #bothsides pressure too, to give voices to the Heritages and Catos if the world.

This is why people like Corey DeAngelis routinely are quoted as expert researchers when they’re really political activists

3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
Nov 15
Quick🧵 on vouchers and fringe campaigns:

The common link between @gretchenwhitmer @katiehobbs is both ran against fringe #schoolvouchers candidates #Election2022

1/
Whitmer ran against @BetsyDeVos handpicked avatar @TudorDixon who made #schoolvouchers and “parents” the centerpiece of her campaign

2/ Image
Hobbs ran against @BetsyDeVos choice Kari Lake, who made AZ’s recent #schoolvouchers expansion—the largest in the US—her own centerpiece

3/ Image
Read 9 tweets
Nov 13
For non-MI folks:

A Sunday thread 🧵 on the history of Let MI Kids Learn, the pre-packaged name for @BetsyDeVos #schoolvouchers in #miched

@DianeRavitch @saribethrose @vicpasquantonio @Network4pubEd

1/
Among the dozens of #schoolvouchers plans I’ve seen, this was the worst in terms of transparency—alongside #azed and #floridaed.

In particular no failsafe against Chatfield-style allegedly abusive schools.

2/
bridgemi.com/guest-commenta…
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

3/
detroitnews.com/story/news/pol…
Read 19 tweets
Sep 5
🧵
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…
Read 9 tweets
Sep 5
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.
Read 6 tweets

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