I have good friends in the abstinence movement who make a compelling, statistically sound case for using abstinence over birth control to ensure girls don’t get pregnant. The proponents of “safe sex” have powerful data too. That doesn’t make them right. In fact, objective analysts would say it depends.

I also have friends who believe that drugs, if legalized, would reduce teen dependence. The other side argues well against such “market” arguments. But the drug usage data, like studies of sexual data, do not seem to dictate the practice one way or another.

Now along comes a study about charter schools which the Center for Education Reform finds wholly inadequate and, in fact, flawed on fundamental levels. And such a critique is considered by its authors, promoters, and academic sponsors as somewhat unjust or “partisan”? Huh?

Get over it, folks. Decrying nearly half of all charters as near failures without having studied their actual children, their scores, their prior records or the comparable condition of the school to which they were assigned is, like sex and drugs, emotional and sensory, not fact based.

Great educations aside, this is yet another example of academics being confined to ivory tower thinking and not getting enough reality to inform their methodology.

Or, to use the present analogy, it’s like having sex with instructions from a book and wondering why it didn’t work.

Study it, yes, but for God’s sake, CREDO, get out of yourself and make some clear, grounded time and place conclusions.

Or try abstinence.

More of the Same at Twice the Price

The National Education Association has prepared a vital tool for anyone interested in assessing the potential impact of the economic stimulus bill on education in the U.S. As major media figures have pointed out in the last several days, the stimulus bill is nothing more than additional funding for the education programs and structures that already exist, regardless of efficacy. And the NEA’s drawn up the charts to prove it. (Notice that reform efforts currently implemented at national and state levels, like charter schools and No Child Left Behind, are completely bypassed.)

Both Senate and House versions nearly double funding of all major programs, such as Title 1 – funding which flows to school districts, where it subsidizes existing staffs and programs. While this may help state and local administrators avoid laying off teachers, it is not tied to student achievement, ensuring that all monies spent simply prop up schools that exist, rather than boosting schools that succeed (NCLB links funding to results, but this pay out comes before the next meaningful achievement assessment, and thus is not tied to accountability). The same is true for the multi-billion dollar school modernization program, for special education and for myriad other program increases.

Also not lost on the status quo supporters of this bill is the fact that there are administrative set-asides at the federal, state and local level. What’s 1 percent of $100 billion? That’s right — government will grow by $1 billion, at the minimum, thanks to this effort. That doesn’t even take into account higher education stimulus funds, another $40 billion or so of which is included in this bill.

There’s also LOTS of money for researchers – the National Science Foundation gets several million more, as does the Institute for Education Sciences. Some discretionary funds (we call it play money) – about $340 million – are also in place for the Secretary to spend as he sees fit on “innovative” programs. But shouldn’t innovative or successful new programs simply draw funds equitably and directly from all federal appropriations (rather than being shunted through the federal-state-local system, with a little – or a lot - being siphoned off at each bureaucratic stop)? Why must “innovation” be separately accounted for in a slush fund, when such reforms are mainly responsible for all the achievement gains of the last decade? And as a result of a decade of reforms, the nation already knows how to succeed in educating children – we simply lack the political resolve to make the hard choices. So why more research in this time of economic crisis? Oh, that’s right. It’s about the jobs of adults, not the education of children.

Consideration of whether or not our current education programs work is missing from the creation of this bill altogether – when it should be the central concern. For years Washington’s representatives fought accountability. NCLB began to shed light in that dark corner. Subsequently ignoring the vetting of programs’ effectiveness before shelling out hard-earned taxpayer dollars is not the way to bring about change and fix failing schools. Which, not incidentally, is the long-haul, big-picture solution to getting – and keeping - our economy back on track for good.

Check out the NEA analysis yourself. We’re glad to finally make use of the taxpayer dollars we give them through mandatory dues payments to see where it’s all going – if the status quo has its way.

Last week, Greg Toppo of USA Today solicited advice on closing the achievement gap in American education for now President Barack Obama.

Here is what CER’s Jeanne Allen had to offer:

As a nation, we are ignorant of the crisis we face in education. Use your historic achievement to convince us that education’s failure is extensive and not limited to the streets of D.C., the hills of Appalachia or the banks of the Mississippi. Pepper your every remark with the reality we face. Implore us to action. Do for education what Al Gore did for the environment. … We mandate that children attend schools we know are failing. We say we are working on it, but continue to send them because … why??

Parents and educators of students in “better” schools are comforted by grade inflation. Policymakers believe failure is a result of bad homes and communities, not bad schools. The education establishment protects this lie and challenges every solution that could make schools great. They scorn data and ignore that our achievement is an international embarrassment.

Bold solutions take only months, not decades, to implement. We lack the will because we lack the understanding that we are in crisis.

Your words can change that.

The Education Trust’s Amy Wilkins, 2007 National Teacher of the Year Andrea Peterson and the Century Foundation’s Richard Kahlenberg weighed in with their thoughts as well.

What bit of advice would you offer the new Administration for achieving education across the board? How about for teachers and parents?

Please join in the conversation below…

The Center for Education Reform joins the millions in D.C. and elsewhere saluting our new President and hopes that when all the pomp and circumstance of the day has calmed he will apply his strong Inaugural words to the education of our nation’s students, for as he rightly pointed out, “our schools fail too many”.

(Photo: Bloomberg)

It appears to be a whirlwind courtship for Arne Duncan. He and the HELP Committee were feeling the love yesterday morning on Capitol Hill. Like a starry-eyed first date complete with compliments, vacuous banter and awkward laughter, Senators and Nominee danced around issues and came to no conclusions deeper than the fact that they really, really like one another.

Click on the image below to watch for yourself: