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Josh Cowen Profile picture
Josh Cowen
@joshcowenMSU
Professor, Senior Fellow @EdLawCenter, and Author: The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (@Harvard_Ed_Pub)
May 2 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Right-wing think tankers slam academic voucher experts because our work predicts key policy failures.

As early as 2007, evaluators in Cleveland found 69.5% voucher users were in private school already—a spot-on estimate of rates reported in the following 10 states today 👇

1/11 Image First up, Arizona, where 70%+ voucher users were in private school already

2/11
azmirror.com/2022/09/01/pri…
Sep 21, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
In honor of Betsy DeVos’s appearance with Vivek Ramaswamy on Fox’s Big Money Playbook show today to talk about #education,

Here’s a sampling of headlines about her failed #schoolvouchers scheme while she was ED secretary:

Here’s the time she had to admit the evidence:
1/7🧵 Image And then there’s the time DeVos’s model program in Indiana released it’s #schoolvouchers results

2/ Image
Mar 24, 2023 • 13 tweets • 8 min read
🧵
So many different Right-$ groups inflating evidence for #schoolvouchers it’s impossible to ✋🛑 all of them. #txlege #gapol #neleg #INed #ksleg

But here’s the general pattern, using this EdChoice table as an example (there are many more):
1/ 🧵 First is the absence of abysmal negative OH, and IN results by teams led by Figlio and Berends, respectively.

Those studies use panel data and methods and find terrible statewide at-scale voucher effects—hugely relevant to legislation today.
2/
 chalkbeat.org/2018/8/9/21107…
Jan 4, 2023 • 5 tweets • 5 min read
When it comes to oversight and transparency, #miched #education #charterschools are the worst in the country.

It’s not just that they’re almost all for-profit. They are but #OhioEd has for-profit charters for example and much greater 🔎.
#mileg #mipol #migov @Network4pubEd
1/ For-profit #charterschools run on small profit margins for students—as far as we can tell. So it gives charters like those in MI every incentive to cut corners. That’s one problem. #mipol #migov #mileg

2/
Dec 23, 2022 • 10 tweets • 9 min read
There’s a #schoolvouchers link to the #January6thReport. It centers around attorney Cleta Mitchell who led Trump’s GA pressure efforts after the vote. #BigLie

Mitchell is all over the final report:
1/
 january6th.house.gov/sites/democrat… Mitchell is also Board Secretary for the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a huge #schoolvouchers backer out of Wisconsin that’s given $millions to voucher research and advocacy.

2/
 archive.jsonline.com/newswatch/2037… ImageImage
Dec 19, 2022 • 21 tweets • 13 min read
A🧵 on why the #KYed ruling last week against #schoolvouchers tax credit scheme matters @NPEaction @Network4pubEd @PV4PS @BadassTeachersA @edvoters

1/ First: a win’s a win. It’s good to see #schoolvouchers stopped anywhere. The push to privatize is so relentless, so well-funded by such a narrow swath of backers, it can feel like swinging in the dark against it.

2/
Dec 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 5 min read
The push for #education privatization #schoolvouchers is now a cruel update to longer efforts to separate single out and separate children. @carolburris @Network4pubEd @NPEaction

Heritage announced its #EducationFreedom strategy early in 2022:
1/
 heritage.org/education/repo… And Heritage has been branching out on this tactic by adopting itself as a pseudo sex-science shop

The goal here is to underscore differences as “choice” and “values” #lgbtqia #LGBTQ
2/
 heritage.org/gender/event/t…
Dec 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 5 min read
Don’t let the Right define opposition to #SchoolVouchers

It’s their way of setting up targets to shoot down. @DianeRavitch @rweingarten @Network4pubEd @NPEaction @PV4PS @palan57 @BadassTeachersA

The problems are:
1/
❌ Tax-giveaways for those already in private school ❌ Horrific academic outcomes for kids who actually do switch to #schoolvouchers

2/
Dec 15, 2022 • 6 tweets • 6 min read
Another glaring gap between the actual Fordham #ohioed #schoolvouchers results and the spin from its Forward is on student achievement.
@NPEaction @Network4pubEd @PV4PS @OhioPEP @StephenODyer @CLub_edu @SchlFinance101
1/ The actual researchers clearly say their results are due to changes in student composition—with #schoolvouchers by design drawing more lower income students (ie also lower ave test scores) away from districts.

So districts didn’t actually improve #education due to vouchers
2/
Dec 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 4 min read
It’s the #schoolvouchers two-step playbook:

❌ set up a bar they know they’ll pass by saying “critics say…”
❌ barely pass and celebrate.

But there’s never discussion of relative effects:

1/ For example there is vastly more and stronger evidence that funding public schools has substantial and long-term effects that dwarf the tiny “competitive effects” on public schools that some #schoolvouchers studies find
#schoolfinance @SchlFinance101 @dsknight84

2/
Dec 14, 2022 • 11 tweets • 7 min read
A few general comments on this new Fordham report on #ohioed #schoolvouchers:
@Network4pubEd @PV4PS @NPEaction @NEPCtweet @pfpsorg @OhioPEP

1/ 🧵🪡
fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/research/… First and most important: the study presents a ton of zero impacts and tiny effects. Mostly this is #schoolvouchers report about statistical noise, packaged as a win. The beauty of null results is one can see what one wants.

2/
Dec 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 7 min read
Imploring #edchat journalists to ask these data questions of current/proposed #SchoolVouchers schemes.

It’s how we know the so-called #COVID19 exodus for private/#homeschool will come back.

5-year voucher exit rates *before* COVID were near 💯

1/
 dianeravitch.net/2022/12/12/jos… There are 3 groups of #schoolvouchers users—each giving lie to #EducationFreedom:

🤑 long-standing #privateschool parents cashing in—far the largest group

🤔 voucher-curious kids leaving soon after (most of the rest)

😵‍💫 some stray sorters—often susceptible to recruiting

2/ Image
Dec 6, 2022 • 13 tweets • 10 min read
Why have #schoolvouchers programs persisted and expanded despite a more lopsided base of objective evidence against them than nearly any other current #edpolicy #education initiative?

A few reasons 🧵🪡

1/ First is that today #schoolvouchers activists are directly part of the larger #trump-style revanchist and anti-democratic turn in American politics since Obama’s second term.

Politically their success is intertwined.
2/
Dec 5, 2022 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
One reason #schoolvouchers are still described as having “mixed” outcomes is the success of advocates propping up shoddy studies to flood the zone and offset quality evaluations showing dreadful impacts.

But it’s also because few people know what “mixed” truly looks like.

1/ But another reason is non-researchers don’t know what “mixed” truly looks like. #SchoolVouchers outcomes are mixed compared to a standard of “all results show bad outcomes.”

Most do—and all recent do—but not all studies ever show negative.

2/
Nov 30, 2022 • 6 tweets • 5 min read
The #schoolvouchers crowd loves to site my decade old PSJ paper using matched Milwaukee data to show small positive effects on attainment.

But they ignore my 3 other studies in far better journals that look awful for vouchers and are more informative to policy today

1/ First up in @EEPAjournal: in “Life After Vouchers” we show low-income and Black students exit #schoolvouchers at higher rates and DO BETTER once returning to Milwaukee Public Schools @DianeRavitch

2/
 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.31…
Nov 30, 2022 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
The folks I mention here are already pushing back on this piece @DianeRavitch so in lieu of direct social media battles I’m going to just “reply all” with a new point:

Let’s talk “peer review.” The #schoolvouchers crowd has made use of this fuzzy term for years.

1/ “Peer review” can mean a lot of things. For example this paper by Corey DeAngelis in something called the “Journal of Free Enterprise” is “peer reviewed.”

Sorry but that’s just not JPAM or AEJ: Policy or EEPA and anyone credible knows that. 🤦‍♂️

2/ Image
Nov 30, 2022 • 6 tweets • 7 min read
🚨A new front has opened up in the push to privatize #schools.🚨

At Fox News Jeb Bush explicitly cited #soldastory as a reason we need #AZEd #schoolvouchers. @edvoters @BadassTeachersA @Network4pubEd @PV4PS 👇

1/
 foxnews.com/opinion/our-ch… #Reading is going to be the new wedge issue to pitch #schoolvouchers /ESAs to parents understandably frustrated at #scienceofreading issues but who were turned off by the voucher culture war pitch.

2/
Nov 25, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
And #schoolvouchers activists exploit parent frustration over what’s often real inadequacy of some public districts to meet special needs.

But vouchers as a fix are based on a theory of action assuming district neglect—when really districts themselves are under-resourced.

1/ #schoolvouchers advocacy organizations stand up parents of these kids like other Right-wing groups go plaintiff-shopping in legal cases. Promising them vouchers as a cure-all.

2/
Nov 22, 2022 • 12 tweets • 15 min read
🧵🪡🧶
Hey 👋 #educators and defenders of #publicschools:

Got an angry #MAGA family relative at your #Thanksgiving 🦃 table who likes to yell at you about #publiceducation?

Here’s a short “well actually” sheet to 👏 back:
@Network4pubEd @NPEaction @PV4PS
1/ “I’m sick of just throwing money at #schools that just waste it!”

Well, actually, Aunt Betsy, investing in #publiceducation is one of the best things taxpayers can do—more $$, better outcomes. @KiraboJackson
chalkbeat.org/2018/12/17/211…

2/
Nov 21, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
I always go back to @matt_barnum on this, who said we need to take seriously the alarm from school leaders even as we explore the mismatch with admin data.

1/ It’s silly to argue that admin data show anything like a crisis on teacher exits. Those data don’t.

But I’m surprised that with advent of mixed methods in policy research more folks aren’t looking for ways to join both #educators perspectives and admin data.

2/
Nov 21, 2022 • 6 tweets • 7 min read
🧵
Before he was peddling #schoolchoice as a “solution” to woke:

Jay Greene/Heritage less than a year ago explicitly argued the Right should fuel culture wars to advance a fringe agenda—mainly #schoolvouchers
@Network4pubEd @NPEaction @PV4PS @pastors4txkids @BadassTeachersA

1/5 Greene also pushed pseudo-science arguing against health care for #LGBTQ+ kids.

Using as a flimsy an evidence base as the #schoolvouchers data he’s flooded the zone with for 20+ years

2/5