Well, Little Rock School District lawyer Chris Heller and his little lap dog (Max Brantley) are at it again. Over at the Arkansas Times Blog Max, Heller’s ever-reliable mouthpiece, is claiming that the Office for Education Policy (OEP) “fudged the numbers” in their reports on charter schools and segregation in Pulaski County. Heller dug through a bunch of OEP emails he got through a FOIA, and thinks he has found a “Gotcha.” Max, doing his part, was more than willing to believe him and post the allegations.
The claim of “fudging” is a serious one, amounting to academic dishonesty, if found to be true. However, if not true, the claims made by Max and Heller represent plain idiocy at best or a failure of morals at worst.
First off, let’s dispense with the ridiculous claim that the OEP “fudged the numbers.” I have read their report and looked at their data. There are no inconsistencies between the numbers in the report and the e-mail produced by Heller. They in no way changed or otherwise altered the data to yield a particular result.
Second, no information was withheld. The email posted on the Arkansas Times Blog was sent a couple of days after the report was released.
In the end, Heller cares very little about truth. He simply wants and is paid well to keep the desegregation money flowing to the Little Rock School District.
So, what’s all the fuss about? Well, Heller takes umbrage to the fact that the researchers did not disaggregate the data presented in the report to the school level. The report considers the effect of charter schools on the traditional public school sector (of which magnet schools are a subset). The report finds that a majority of the transfers are enhancing the levels of racial integration for the traditional public schools. Nothing in Heller’s memo or the OEP email changes this result. In fact, Heller fails to address the substance of the report in any way.
Instead Heller is completely focused on a very small subset of schools, the magnet schools. Why you might ask? When the magnet schools were set up by the 1989 Settlement Agreement it was stipulated that the magnet schools should have a student population “which is fifty-percent (50%) black and fifty percent (50%) non-black.” Heller has been wielding this 50/50 standard, meant only to apply to magnets, as a means to limit charter school enrollment. The 50/50 standard is of particular use to Heller because the demographics of Pulaski County are nowhere near 50/50. Thus no school which pulls representatively from the surrounding community will be able to meet the 50/50 standard. I’ve dealt with the 50/50 standard before here, but suffice it to say the standard is arbitrary and capricious. Any school that has a 50/50 ratio in Pulaski County is segregated by definition because it deosn’t match the demographics of the community.
The bottom line is that Heller, in his infinite wisdom, decided post hoc what question the researchers should have answered. He then considers the fact that the researchers were so brazen as to not answer his specific question as evidence of wrongdoing.
What a dumbass Brantley is, to fall for Heller’s sleazy dishonesty. The UA researchers didn’t do anything wrong whatsoever — they discussed how charter schools affect segregation in public schools, and they were right. There’s no more reason for them to discuss public magnet schools by themselves any more than they should have discussed public schools whose names begin with the letters A through H. What matters is the overall effect, not some subcategory concocted post hoc just for the sake of some sleazy lawyer’s argument.
Josh:
Check out my response to this petty silliness:
http://mid-riffs.com/2010/07/fools-gate/
Max:
Thanks for the rousing response from the Walton University Charter School Advancement and Teacher Union Destruction Institute. The fudging, JBM, is in recognizing the significance of the data, compiling it and deciding not to disclose it in the May followup report. (And can I ever get an explanation for Carver appearing twice in the list?)
As I said before the numbers game of magnet/charter that you and your colleagues have constructed is a smokescreen. Charter schools have become flight academies (havens not just based on race but on economic circumstance) from the three Pulaski public school districts. In several cases, that was by design. The state shouldn’t be in the business of enabling this if the court order has meaning.
Josh:
Max, I suppose I will connect the dots for you because you seem to be completely incapable of unraveling the difficult riddle of Carver appearing twice. It was likely a typo. Queue sinister music.
Max:
I saw nothing sinister in the duplicate for Carver. I just wanted to get the numbers right. And there are different numbers for it.
Josh:
Max, when you use words like “fudging” it implies sinister intent on the part of the authors, and not simply that the authors failed to “recognizing the significance of the data.” You know that and you chose those words purposefully. You continued the same tone when you used the phrase “numbers game” in your comment.
Interestingly, you continue to fail to identify any substantive concerns with either OEP report. All that you can muster is a gut feeling about the way things are in Little Rock. Data be damned.
Max:
Your researcher identified an important number, asked what to do with it and the decision was made not to publish it. Red flag to me.
I indeed have many problems with the OEP’s analysis. School-to-school comparisons cherrypicked for marginal percentage advantage miss the forest — a decline, particularly in LR middle schools, coincidental with the advent of charter schools in Pulaski County.
Josh:
I’m really not sure why you thought it was a red flag. This line of reasoning seems absurd to me.
Researchers must decide on a research question and then must decide what information is relevant to answering that question. They cannon simply make a compendium of everything anyone might possibly find interesting in the future. First that is not their job, and second, it would be counterproductive. The OEP is not obliged to disaggregate their data in a particular way simply because you or Heller might be interested in the magnet schools in Little Rock at some point in the future.
By the way, Heller has the data, and is more than welcome to perform any analysis he sees fit.
I am also unclear what you mean by “cherrypicked”. It makes it hard to have a discussion with you when you are willing to make things up. The OEP report considers all students from all public schools.
Max:
JBM,
You’ve disaggregated data to suit your purposes — to show, say, that a student has transferred from an integrated public school to a marginally more integrated charter school. Tree, not forest.
Your own data shows: 1) charter schools have gained more than 2,000 students over years studied: 2) LRSD has gained essentially none; 3) transfers from LRSD tend to be more white and better off economically; 4) your study leaves it easy to infer thatyou are saying that none of the other charter school students (about two-thirds of them) would attend schools, regular or magnet, in LRSD if the charter schools did not exist.
Thus, the charter schools are taking potential students; those taken from LRSD are disproportionately white and econmically advantaged; the magnet schools, established to present just the same sort of attraction that charter schools provide, have been inordinately affected. That sounds like state action in support of segregation to me.
Josh:
Max, thank you for finally making substantive comments about the OEP report. I appreciate your willingness to engage on this topic.
First, the OEP report is not my report. I can take no credit for its authorship.
Second, the data was not aggregated in a particular way to suit anyone’s purpose. The OEP treated the small number of magnet schools as traditional public schools (TPS), which they are. Separating the magnet schools from the other TPS changes none of the conclusions of the report. The OEP is under no obligation to respond to Chris Heller’s whims.
Yes, enrollment in charter schools in Pulaski County has increased by over 2,000 since 2004-05. However, charter enrollment still only makes up about 6.5% of total enrollment in the county. Hardly the scourge you make it out to be.
Again, I have to agree that transfers from TPS to charters are whiter and wealthier than the average student in Pulaski County. However, the differences are not very stark. Here is some verbiage from the OEP report.
“There are more black students transferring to charters than white students. But when compared to their LRSD peers, students who transferred to charter schools are more white (28.2% in charters, 21.8% in LRSD) and less black (59.8% in charters, 68.0% in LRSD).”
I would hardly characterize a difference of 6 percentage points as white flight.
While it is true that a large percentage of students now attending charter schools did not transfer from the public schools in Pulaski County, the report does not as you say assume “none of the other charter school students would attend schools, regular or magnet, in LRSD if the charter schools did not exist.” They simply do not have the data to make an educated guess about where these kids came from or where they would have attended in the absence of the charters. I’m not sure what you would rather them do.
And, what about the overall demographics of the charters? Here is a paragraph on this topic taken directly from the updated OEP report released earlier this year:
“Students enrolled in charter schools are more white than students in the LRSD and Pulaski County TPS (41.8% in charters, 21.8% in LRSD, and 33.0% in Pulaski County TPS). While there are more black students than white students in charter schools, when compared to the LRSD and Pulaski County TPS there are less black students (44.8% in charters, 68.0% in LRSD, and 58.4% in Pulaski County TPS). However, the overall racial composition of charter schools reflects more equal proportions of black and white students than LRSD and Pulaski County schools.”
So please, tell me again what your beef is with the report. It seems your claims rely on half-truths and gut feelings that the data simply do not bear out. Maybe it is time to update your view of the situation. Oh, and apologize to Professor Ritter and Nathan Jensen for erroneously claiming they were dishonest.
Max:
My beef is the report masquerades — and has been used — as the be-all, end-all on impact of charters in Pulaski County. It is not. It gives no attention to the impact on schools after transfers. It gives no attention to the majority of charter school students, who didn’t arrive by direct transfer. It finds many ways to mask the bottom line — Pulaski schools are losing white students, charter schools are gaining them, disproportionately, along with a disproportionate gain in the economically advantaged.
Josh:
Max, again you choose to simply make things up. The report has never masqueraded as anything other than what it is. The executive summary is excruciatingly clear about what questions the authors seek answer.
Again, it is simply not true that the report doesn’t consider students who didn’t arrive by direct transfer. The report provides a demographic breakdown of current enrollment in both TPS and charters, which I provided in my last comment. These numbers include all students who currently attend the schools regardless of where they came from. The authors cant consider the nature of the transfer because they lack data on where the students came from. What would you have them do? Your complaint seems illogical and ill considered.
No-one has attempted to hide the bottom line. The report admits and I admitted in my previous comment that transfers to charters are whiter and wealthier than the average Pulaski County student. In fact I provided the percentages for you just in case you had not seen them in the report. Let me jog your memory:
“There are more black students transferring to charters than white students. But when compared to their LRSD peers, students who transferred to charter schools are more white (28.2% in charters, 21.8% in LRSD) and less black (59.8% in charters, 68.0% in LRSD).”
Again, would you consider a difference of 6 percentage points white flight? I certainly would not consider it very strong evidence.
So Max, in the end it seems you simply have a difference in opinion with the authors about the importance of magnet schools. On all other points they provide the information to answer your questions. You have yet to demonstrate that the report is flawed or that the authors “fudged” anything.
Do you not feel at least a little bad about claiming dishonesty on the part of the authors when it is blatantly obvious there was none?
Max:
JBM,
You must not have gotten the Hussman, Gordy, Smith, Ritter, etc., memos. (See today’s post.) This report has been used to say charter schools haven’t impacted resegregation. I think the numbers show clearly that they have. More whites in charters, fewer in public schools. But it’s true there’s a huge number of students unaccounted for — impossible to account for, as you note. At a minimum, you can’t claim ANYTHING about the impact of charters on the public schools from this report, though the D-G, McDaniel, Gordy and everyone else pro-charter is. Funny re percentages: You have used small percentage swings to argue that students have moved to more integrated settings (while ignoring the fallout on schools left behind).
It is impossible for me to look at the UA work product over the years, what it chooses to study and the consistent positions it takes as anything but agenda-driven. I don’t think that’s dishonest, except to claim that no bias exists at UA in favor of these various concepts — charters, vouchers, anti-union, pro-merit pay, etc.
When the Walton Foundation can say it has UA “working on” studies to support it’s point of view, it’s not a trust builder.
Max:
And JBM, to your direct question:
UA had the magnet school numbers. It has always known magnet schools are critical to the deseg plan in Pulaski County. (Indeed, the magnet v. charter debate is a hot one in the field of “reform”.) The numbers didn’t look good vis a vis impact magnets. The UA report could have chosen to include that specific negative finding. It chose not to do so. Partial disclosure versus full disclosure. How would you characterize that?
Josh:
What negative finding?? Separating the magnets from the other TPS change none of the reports findings. Did you even read the report or the email??
A lot of the white transfers came from the magnets. So what? Please explain how this is negative. It does not change this fact:
“There are more black students transferring to charters than white students. But when compared to their LRSD peers, students who transferred to charter schools are more white (28.2% in charters, 21.8% in LRSD) and less black (59.8% in charters, 68.0% in LRSD).”
Josh:
Also, you seem to be confused about the obligations of an academic. Researchers are not obligated in any way to research every question possible with their or even to present every side of an issue.
Their only obligation is to be honest in their analysis and to present the results honestly. The authors of this report did this.
You claims otherwise are either misguided or outright vindictive. I understand you dislike the Waltons, but come on.
Max:
The researcher recognized the magnets were a special class of school. They obtained the information. It was telling. They chose not to use it. It gives cause for all the questions here. Had they used the information, none of it would have developed. But there are further questions about advance previews of OEP reports for the Walton Foundation, OEP working on projects for Hussman, Walton et al
If somebody wants to be viewed as a trustworthy, special-interest-free source, they need to be careful in all ways to NOT present contrary appearances.
Josh:
Max, you ignored my question about the magnet school data. How was it “telling” or “negative”? How does it affect the results of the report? Your claims lack substance. Simply restating a claim does not make it any more convincing
Also, please explain to me how the authors damaged their trustworthiness? Did they manipulate the data? No! Did they report the results honestly? Yes?
Do you expect researchers to work in a vacuum and just to hope that policymakers take notice of their work? Is it your view that researchers should speak to no-one and seek no external funding because it might taint them? Are academics mean to be opinion-less automatons toiling away at their computers and nothing more?
No, put simply, academics are called to investigate questions they find interesting, perform high quality analysis, and report results honestly. It is part of their job to seek external funding and to be involved in policy discussions.
You may disagree with their conclusions, but this does not make them any less trustworthy.
Your criticism is based on a fantasy that is completely detached from reality. This is your President Bush “Mission Accomplished” moment.
Max:
It’s real simple. The majority of the white transfers out of LRSD have come out of the handful of magnet schools — schools created to attract white students to hard-to-integrate neighborhoods under a court settlement to which the state solemnly agreed. The charters are undercutting the magnets. That’s a negative in my book.
Josh:
I think the key phrase here is “in my book.”
I disagree with your assessment of the magnet school data. The stated conclusions of the report stand.
The report was not meant to be a blow by blow investigation of the 1989 Settlement Agreement. Investigating the effect of charter schools on magnet schools was never stated as one of its goals. Again, just because you and Heller think it is important does not mean that everyone else must do so.
In addition, you have provided absolutely no evidence that the existence of charter schools threatens the mission of the magnet schools. I cannot simply accept your word as truth.
Furthermore, the 50/50 standard by which integration at the magnet schools and only the magnet schools is to be judged is arbitrary and capricious. The demographics of Pulaski County, or anywhere for that matter, simply make this impractical to impose on a large scale. The standard the report uses is the demographic profile of the county as a whole. A more reasonable standard used extensively in research on segregation.
Max:
If the mission is to attract whites, according to the court order, and the numbers drop on account of transfers, the impact is not a matter of opinion. What you “think” about the arbitrariness of the 50-50 number is irrelevant legally, of course, but it is also functionally beside the point. The ratio doesn’t approach that in several instances. Right or wrong, there does become a tipping point at which it becomes all but impossible to bring white students into a majority-minority school. See Dunbar for a good example. That’s why heavy white transfers from a small pool of students in magnet schools to charters is important. And I don’t think the fine folks at UA are so unsophisticated as to not understand that.
Josh:
Has the percentage of white students in the magnet schools decreased across the board? I’m really asking. And, shouldn’t the real issue be the quality of the education the kids are receiving and not the skin color of their classmates, but I digress.
Let’s get back to the real issue. The magnet schools may be important to you, Heller, and the 1989 Settlement Agreement, but that does not mean they must be considered separately by the report. The author’s research question was, “How do charter schools affect segregation in Pulaski County?” The Settlement Agreement does not have a monopoly on the definition of segregation. In fact the agreement chose a particularly poor definition when it comes to the magnet schools. The researchers used a much more reasonable definition used widely in the research on the topic.
Your claims of impropriety are based solely on your belief that the researchers willfully withheld information which was damaging to their cause. However, this conclusion requires a misreading (or non-reading) of the report’s research question and methodology. The problem with your claim is that using the report’s stated methodology the magnet school data makes NO difference in the reports conclusions.
Now, as I have said before, you may feel that the report’s methodology was flawed or they should have paid more attention to magnet schools, but this is not evidence of impropriety or dishonesty.
Max:
You may not like the importance given magnet schools in the court order the state agreed to follow, but it is a fact. Therefore, anything that adversely affects their status has importance.
Why was the information compiled? And, once it was, why wasn’t it included? You say it’s not responsive to the point of the research. I’d argue that you haven’t fully considered impact on segregation, as guided by two decades of court supervision, without considering it. And I think everybody at UA understands that.
Also, why does the Walton Family Foundation and the charter school lobby get the privilege of advance review and comment on UA reports? Oh, and yes, magnet enrollment has suffered all over. The 50-50 ratio is a thing of the past at all the schools I checked.
Josh:
I am fine with the settlement agreement using an arbitrary standard to judge a few schools. I got it. And I understand that you think it is important and telling.
The fact remains that, using the reports methodology, separating out the magnet schools makes no difference in the reports conclusions.
I am sure the magnet numbers were calculated, 2 days after the first report was released mind you, to see if it was important to the reports conclusions to separate them from the TPS. They were not, so the authors did not separate them out in the follow-up.
You are perfectly within your rights to argue that they “haven’t fully considered impact on segregation, as guided by two decades of court supervision, without considering it.”
But it is idiotic and vindictive to claim this as evidence of wrongdoing or dishonesty.
I am not familiar with the operation of the OEP so I cannot answer you last question specifically. However, I think it is equally idiotic to think that researchers would never discuss the impending release of a report with those who might be interested.
Max:
I’ll accept your defense the minute they add me to the early release list for information and feedback.
Josh:
I’m sure they’ll accept your apology as soon as you are willing to admit that you were wrong to accuse them of dishonesty.
See I can be cute and glib as well.
Max:
We’re talking here about a publicly financed agency providing equal services to all taxpayers, not your or someone else’s hurt feelings because someone has offered a critical opinion.
Josh:
“Equal services to all taxpayers” Really! So you think that researchers must respond equally to each and every individual taxpayer in Arkansas. And not only that they must consult with each and every one of them prior to releasing any piece of research. Or, I suppose talk to no-one.
I never said anything about hurt feelings. This is me talking not them, and my feelings are certainly not hurt. I would have been happy had you offered a critical opinion, but instead you called them dishonest. And that is simply wrong.
Josh:
If I am not mistaken Rich Nagel, the head of the AEA, (among others) was provided with an advanced copy of the LR Merit Pay Evaluation. And if memory serves, this same report appeared on your blog prior to its official release. I guess you have received advanced copies in the past.
Max:
Actually, I’d prefer a showing that research was unbiased and not done in concert with a special interest. I’d be happy if research was done independently and released to all at the same time. But if the Waltons are to be favored, then, yes, if the Smiths and Joneses ask similar treatment, they should get it. I did not call anyone dishonest. I did say, and the record shows, that the UA decided not to use information it gathered, which, had it been disclosed in May, would have detracted from the findings trumpeted by charter advocates. That’s a fudge in my opinion, or, as Random House Dictionary says, “to avoid coming to grips with something.”
Max:
Er, no I was not supplied an advance copy by the UA, according to what I wrote in 2007.
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archi…
A supporter of merit pay gave it to me and I had some criticism on methods. I didn’t expect to be favored in that the very first assessment, which, if I remember correctly, touted wonderful results at an LRSD school. It was left to the Times to point out that the school remained one of the very worst in the district.
This stuff has always been stage-managed, as it was this time to have maximum impact on the federal court hearing. Has it ever been peer reviewed? I know. I know. When The Blues Brothers are on a mission from God (or Walton), of what importance are minor technicalities?