The 13th Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education:

[LWolf]

http://interversity.org/lists/arn-l/k0310bra.pdf

Targets NCLB, Vouchers, High-Stakes testing, etc; a small snip from a 17 page article:

Note that, from the preceding paragraphs, it’s clear that the U.S. Department of Education supports a rather right-wing agenda, presents “f a c t s” that are not so, and accepts a study that is hardly an apples-to-apples comparison and thus does not come close to the department’s own gold standard of “scientifically based research.”
But it gets still worse. The document misstates a conclusion by Dan Goldhaber and Dominic Brewer.6 The document claims certification is unrelated to achievement ( p. 44). Goldhaber and Brewer actually examined the impact of advanced degrees on achievement. It further
states, “The bulk of evidence on this policy is that there are no differential gains across classes taught by teachers with a m a s t e r’s degree or other advanced degree in education compared to classes taught by teachers who lack such degrees.”7 There is not enough literature to constitute “bulk,” and the department’s report cites none of it. It argues instead that content knowledge matters, and it cites a study by Brian Rowan to the effect that experience counts, too. It doesn’t mention that in that
same study Rowan found that “students who were taught by a teacher with an advanced degree in mathematics did worse than those who were taught by a teacher not having an advanced degree (d = –.25).”8 An effect size of –.25 is one that most researchers feel has substantial
practical significance.
The document is selective, sloppy, and incomplete. Instead of revealing what the research says, it pushes,not very subtly, a particular view of what is important in teaching. As a final example, it says, “There is little compelling evidence that certification req uirements , as currently structured in most states, are related to teacher effectiveness.” It cites all of two articles as evidence, one of which does not support the statement. This is unfortunate.
The document summarizes in a theoretical graphic how much various teacher characteristics affect student achievement. “Cognitive ability” (undefined) dominates as the most important characteristic—more than twice as important as “focused training.” Focused training, in turn, is twice as important as either experience or content knowledge, which are equal in import a n c e .
Experience and content knowledge are four times as important as certification or master’s degrees. Lowest on this ladder are workshops, which are hardly visible.
I daresay no “scientifically based research” knowledge base undergirds this model. Orlich Report simply uses the actual words of A Nation at Risk. For the rest, Orlich changed a few nouns and verbs to make it more germane to the nation’s risk today, as ex-CEOs go to jail, the unemployment rate soars above 6%, 401Ks become 201Ks, and in two years the Bush Administration turns a projected $5.6-trillion budget surplus into a projected $4-plus-trillion deficit (quite an accomplishment).

[realFedUp]

1. gads this is hard to read....

sorry, I'm just not into the fine print...