Betsy DeVos' trouble with data

There’s a division of the Department of Education called the Institute of Education Sciences, the arm that conducts research and evaluations and compiles statistics. 

It’s essentially responsible for the volumes of data the government uses to frame policy decisions. 

It’s one of the ways we know what’s working, and what’s not, in education. 

But the tools provided by IES only work if the Department of Education takes data seriously, insists on truth, and avoids special-interest favoritism. 

Will that happen if Betsy DeVos becomes Secretary of Education?  

Seems unlikely. 

For 20 years, DeVos and her family have funded a charter school lobby that protects the industry from reasonable oversight and accountability, in part, through gross exaggeration and fibs of omission about school research. 

In their telling, charter schools have achieved great success in Michigan, and especially in Detroit. They’ve transformed public education. 

But the data — even the data that DeVos’ lobby so often cites — tell a very different story. 

►Stephen Henderson: Betsy DeVos and the twilight of public education

►Related: Michigan spends $1B on charter schools but fails to hold them accountable

They show that charter schools do not substantially outperform public schools, and even where they do, the difference is so slight that it’s difficult to draw sweeping conclusions about what that means. 

It’s another facet of DeVos’ unfitness for the job president-elect Donald Trump has nominated her to do. Research is a key component of the nation’s education infrastructure, and that research has been telling us for years that charter schools in Michigan have not yet delivered on their promises. 

DeVos’ record shows she’s willing to pick and choose among data to make a point, but not to tell the fuller, more nuanced stories about how choice falls short. 

Begging to differ

Michigan’s most enthusiastic charter advocates routinely point to numbers from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford as the basis for their claims. 

CREDO has actually done two studies in Michigan over the past few years, one on the whole state and one that focuses on Detroit. 

And it’s true: CREDO found evidence of the promise of charter schools. But it also found that promise to be largely unfulfilled in some of the most important outcomes for students. Charters have not lifted more students, on average, to high achievement than public schools, even according to CREDO. 

“I would caution against saying the research concluded charters have higher achievement,” CREDO researcher Linda Davis told the Free Press for its investigation of charter schools published in 2014. 

Numbers tell story

The CREDO studies, in 2013 and 2015, used scores on state tests to compare a select number of charter and public school students, in one-to-one analyses. 

CREDO used the differences between the growth that charter and traditional public school students demonstrated on the tests, and then translated those differences into “days of learning.” 

Larger test score growth equates, in the studies, to more days of learning. 

In both studies, CREDO found that charter students in Michigan show gains in some areas. Statewide, charter students demonstrated about 40 more days of learning in a school year on both math and reading tests. In Detroit, charter students showed about 40 more days of learning in a school year in math, but in reading, they showed closer to 70 more days. 

The differences may sound big. But even CREDO's researchers admit that conversion is "imprecise," and that in real terms, the gains are small.  

More important, for the growth difference to matter, it  would have to be shown to connect to greater outcome differences over longer periods of time. Growth is an important measure. But it doesn’t mean much if it can't translate to achievement in the end. 

In a city like Detroit, for instance, where, on average, students perform well below statewide norms, kids in charter schools should more quickly close their gaps than kids in traditional public schools. 

Hypothetically. 

The problem is they really haven’t. Not for 20 years, dating to the beginning of Michigan’s charter experiment. 

CREDO also found that, for instance, 63% of charters statewide perform no better than traditional public schools in math. And in Detroit, nearly half all charters do no better than traditional public schools in reading. 

Overall, about 84% of charter students perform below state averages in math; the number is 80% for reading. That tracks closely with the outcomes for traditional public schools. 

The gains for charter students are also clustered, in many instances, in high-performing outliers. But because Michigan does not require charter operators to have proven track records before they open schools or do much to hold them accountable after their schools open, the number of underperforming charter schools far outweighs the high achievers.

In addition, the CREDO results need to be considered in the context of other data about charter schools.

The Free Press investigation of charter schools, for instance, revealed that even taking poverty into account, charter schools essentially perform the same as traditional public schools, and in some cases, a little worse. 

Worse than public schools?

Charter advocates don’t talk about all those wrinkles, which cry out for the tighter oversight that their lobby, funded lavishly by DeVos and her family, fights against. 

If the growth that CREDO demonstrated in 2013 and 2015 were happening consistently, wouldn’t charters be way out ahead of traditional public schools by now? Shouldn’t we see charter high schools, for instance, badly outperforming traditional public schools? 

They definitely aren’t. 

Lou Glazer, a charter supporter and head of Michigan Future, a think tank that studies policy issues in the state, recently compared ACT scores for charter and traditional public schools in Detroit. 

The average for Detroit Public Schools is a 16.5 — equivalent to 8th-grade competency. 

The average for charters is 15.6, with 14 of the 16 charter high schools below the DPS average. 

The profit motive

A true advocate for children would look at the statistics for charter versus traditional public schools in Michigan and suggest taking a pause, to see what’s working, what’s not, and how we might alter the course. 

Instead, DeVos and her family have spent millions advocating for the state’s cap on charter schools to be lifted, so more operators can open and, if they choose, profit from more charters. 

Someone focused on outcomes for Detroit students might have looked at the data and suggested better oversight and accountability. 

But just this year, DeVos and her family heavily pressured lawmakers to dump a bipartisan-supported oversight commission for all schools in the city, and then showered the GOP majority who complied with more than $1 million dollars in campaign contributions. 

The Department of Education needs a secretary who values data and research, and respects the relationship between outcomes and policy imperatives. 

Nothing in Betsy DeVos’ history of lobbying to shield the charter industry from greater accountability suggests she understands that. 

If she’s confirmed, it will be a dark day for the value of data and truth in education policy.