Another Fraudulent Study: Trashing Wisconsin Schools

Xoff, Rating the raters: Fordham gets a D and In Effect, The Misapplication of State Standards smothered another bogus right wing 'study.'  The Fordham Foundation trashed Wisconsin education.

As Seth Zlotocha reports:

Wisconsin was given a D- in the Fordham study.

Yet, when we take a look at the NAEP reports (here, here, and here) on student performance for 2005, Wisconsin ranks higher than all of the nine states listed above except Massachusetts (Wisconsin is tied with Virginia for second place, and, just as a note, NY doesn't participate in the NAEP analyses).

So while the Fordham study alleges Wisconsin has low expectations because of its broadly written standards, the NAEP reports show the Badger State has far better student performance than the states Fordham found to have high expectations.

Something's not right there -- and by something I mean the Fordham study.

Most troubling, as Bill Christofferson notes:

Woe is us! Today's topline Journal Sentinel story says Wisconsin schools get a bad grade, a D:

The report being released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington uses harsh terms in critiquing the standards that are intended to guide instruction in Wisconsin schools.

Aside from a one liner, "Fordham is politically conservative," the story gives no background on the group.

Bill alludes to a much more serious problem. A responsible newspaper like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel accepts this stuff and publishes it without any hint that it is so biased, lame and distorted. The MJS headline says it all: State lags in learning standards. The headline should read: Right Wing Pundits Smear Wisconsin Education.

Comments

[dicta]

Unfortunately, Joy Cardin and Wisconsin Public Radio provided another echo for the Fordham garbage this morning without so much as a mention of the group's biases.

There is journalistic neutrality and then there is journalistic incompetence. Cardin exhibited the latter this morning IMO.

[Thinking Out Loud]

Interested in Fordham's true agenda? Check out http://thisweekineducation.blogspot.com/2006/08/revised-state-standards-not-that-good.html.

[mandrake]

The real agenda seems to be: trash public education in Wisconsin, then privatize the most profitable markets(school districts), and leave unprofitable districts to the state to pay for.
I think that's a great idea because competition works, especially for publicly funded infrastructure.

[antpoppa]

http://www.uscharterschools.org/cs/r/view/uscs_sp/311
Thomas B. Fordham.
Simply a group that promotes the establishment of private charter schools. Not much is known about the performance of these schools as they do not fall under the same standards as the public school.
The use of the findings by this group should be highly circumspect.