ACLU Joins DeVos Assaults By Ignoring Inconvenient Charter School Truths
Charters do better, and outcompete conventional unionized schools when parents can choose
The Michigan ACLU has become the latest organization to join teachers unions, the public school establishment and others against Betsy DeVos as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the U.S. secretary of education.
The Michigan ACLU released a statement from Executive Director Kary Moss that read in part:
“She (DeVos) has ardently supported the unlimited, unregulated growth of charter schools in Michigan, elevating for-profit schools with no consideration of the severe harm done to traditional public schools. She’s done this despite overwhelming evidence that proves that charters do no better at educating children than traditional public schools and serve only to exacerbate funding problems for cash-strapped public districts.”
ForTheRecord says: The ACLU has sought to make itself a player in education policy here since at least 2012 when it filed a “right-to-read” lawsuit against the state of Michigan and Highland Park public schools. The lawsuit claimed the school system didn’t take steps to make sure students were reading at grade level, violating both state law and the state constitution. The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected the ACLU’s lawsuit two years later.
The ACLU is also one of many organizations to align themselves with teachers unions, the conventional public school establishment and the Democratic Party in opposing school choice and charter school choice in particular.
Like those other interests, it refuses to acknowledge what the most qualified independent researchers have concluded. That is, in peer-to-peer comparisons between students with similar backgrounds, Michigan’s charter schools do an overall better job at improving student learning than conventional public schools.
In 2013, Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) undertook a statewide study of Michigan charter schools. Its researchers found that on balance and with some exceptions charters provided a better education than traditional public schools. In 2015, CREDO examined public education in Detroit, with similar findings. Its report concluded that Detroit’s charter schools should be a model for other urban communities.
Arne Duncan, who was President Obama’s secretary of education until this year, recognized CREDO’s authority on education research in a 2013 speech on the status of charter school education.
Yet the interests aligned with the status quo public school establishment misrepresent CREDO’s Michigan findings, or like Moss, simply ignore them. This is the only way Moss can claim there is “overwhelming evidence” that charter schools are not working.
It should be noted that CREDO does not rubber-stamp charter schools. Three of its recent studies in other states had an unfavorable view.
A 2015 report found that Texas charter schools do worse than regular public schools there. CREDO found in 2014 that charter schools in Ohio on average produce smaller learning gains than conventional school districts. And a 2014 CREDO study of California charters found that charters did worse in math but better in reading when compared to districts.
This nuanced yet positive evaluation of charter schools is ignored by critics aligned with a Michigan public school establishment, including unions, that is losing market share to charter schools that parents regard as a better choice for their children.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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Mackinac Scholars Challenge Tourism Officials to Debate
Letter sent to key proponents of Pure Michigan campaign
Editor's note: When this story was first posted, David Lorenz of the MEDC had not responded. He has responded since publication and turned down the offer for a debate. Click HERE to see his entire response.
Author’s note: The following letter was sent to Travel Michigan vice president David Lorenz and Michigan Lodging and Tourism president Deanna Richeson on Nov. 1 via email. A physical copy was also mailed to the pair and author Michael LaFaive tried contacting each recipient by telephone. Neither have responded to any communications.
November 1, 2016
Mr. David Lorenz
Michigan Economic Development Corporation
300 North Washington Square
Lansing, MI 48913
Ms. Deanna Richeson
President/CEO
Michigan Lodging and Tourism Association
2175 Commons Parkway
Okemos, MI 48864
Dear Mr. Lorenz and Ms. Richeson:
I am writing to extend to you both an invitation to publicly debate Michael Hicks and myself in Lansing on the question of the efficacy of the state’s Pure Michigan tourism advertising program. The Mackinac Center will host the event at a luncheon or dinner and live-stream it on the internet. If this is agreeable I’m sure we can find a mutually convenient date and time.
As you know, the Mackinac Center has published articles critical of taxpayer-supported state advertising campaigns for the tourism industry. Our statistical study of these indirect subsidies provides evidence that the program’s economic impact is actually negative for the state.
Specifically, our work suggests that for every $1 million increase in spending on state tourism promotion there is a corresponding increase of only $20,000 in extra economic activity shared by state’s accommodation’s industry. This would mean the program represents a huge net loss for taxpayers, delivering less than negligible benefits even to those who should theoretically benefit most directly.
Our study uses publicly available data and transparent methods. Our methodology, assumptions and limitations are fully disclosed in a detailed appendix, including the rationale behind our statistical model and the tests we employed to determine its robustness. We built the model after a thorough review of the academic literature, and its output was peer reviewed by scholars who are not known to Hicks or me.
As a result, you or any other interested researchers will find our results easy to replicate. As you probably know, these things cannot be said about the claims that have been made by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation or its contractors about the Pure Michigan program.
Published reports indicate that you both disagree with our previously reported findings. Naturally we are curious regarding the basis for your dissent. Given the millions of dollars of public money at issue, we believe lawmakers, journalists and the public would also like to know this, and deserve to know it.
We are also curious as to why claims of extraordinary Pure Michigan returns on investment made by your consultant should be taken seriously, given this contractor’s lack of transparency.
We believe that valid empirical scholarship is the means by which our knowledge of the world is expanded. Policymakers and the public benefit when knowledgeable experts engage in a fair and robust exchange of views.
Sincerely,
Michael LaFaive
Director
Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.