by David Safier
Today's Fool's Gold edition isn't about the iron pyrite the Goldwater Institute usually tries to pass off as the real thing — ore that glitters like gold but is actually worthless. This is so blatant, it borders on the comical. Matthew Ladner has taken a garden variety stone and glued on a handful of glitter.
The headline of Ladner's Daily Email calls for "Truth in Advertising."
Truth in Advertising.
This from the man who tells us Bus Drivers are Bureaucrats. Then, when I ask him, "Does that mean teachers are bureaucrats too?" he answers, "All baseballs are balls, but not all balls are baseballs." No, I'm not making that up. That was Ladner's complete, word-for-word reply to my question.
Truth in advertising.
This from the man who insists Arizona spends $9700 per student.
Truth in advertising.
This from Dr. Ladner who makes $150,000 plus per year posing as an "expert" in education when he earned his PhD in political science and, so far as I know, has never spent a day in front of a K-12 classroom.
Truth in advertising? Doctor (of political science), heal thyself!
But wait, it gets worse.
In the text of the email, Ladner uses part of a table from a publication out of ASU's Morrison Institute which he says shows parents pull their children out of underperforming schools because the schools are so bad. Only 84% reenroll.
Ladner plays all kinds of number games with that 84% figure. But he doesn't mention it's exactly the same 84% figure you find at Performing Plus schools, and only 4% lower than Highly Performing schools.
But let's go a little deeper into his deception and look at the full table in the report, which includes student mobility at the various schools:
When you factor mobility into the reenrollment numbers, they're pretty close to the same across the board. There's really no increased parental flight at Underperforming schools.
But wait, that's not all Doctor Truth-in-Advertising leaves out. When he talks about how all these people people walk away from awful public schools, he leaves out another stat in the report, this one about charter schools. It seems only 80% of charter school students in High Performing schools reenroll, 4% lower than those abysmal reenrollment numbers for traditional Underperforming public schools. Using Ladner's logic (if I can call it that), charter school families must really hate their schools since they even leave the good ones in such high numbers. He would never say that, of course, since it would wipe all the glitter off that stone he's holding in his hand.
Truth in advertising?
People who live in transparently fraudulent houses shouldn't throw stones, Matthew.
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Someone shares the same opinion of Mr. Ladner’s words as do I. Thank you, Mr. Safier! You may be
interested to know that Florida’s Governor Crist vetoed an education bill Jeb would have loved.
The state rejoices, except for the few Jebsters who tried to ram it down our throats. It is a good day in Florida.
I have a question after reading the Morrison report – I don’t see them factoring in economic level of the schools. In other words, typically socio-economic level correlates to student success at the level of the school. It also correlates with home ownership. If this was factored in it might very well erase the very weak trend shown in the report. Of course that is just my assumption, but I would be interested to see it tested.
Regardless, the report quite clearly states that the outcome of more ‘choice’ has not resulted in parent’s enrolling their kids in higher performing schools. For Ladner to claim it shows the opposite is simply inexcusable.