Data-driven reform?

"Suppress it!"

I have received more confirmation on Tuesday's post , re. attempts by the Civic Committee and the Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) to suppress or delay the release of a study of Chicago Renaissance 2010 schools. The study, released in April, showed mixed results for the Daley/Duncan reform initiative.

The Ren10 schools, mostly charters run by outside management companies, did no better than the "failing" neighborhood schools they were supposed to replace. This despite having lower rates of bilingual and special education students.

Obviously, the mediocre results were not to the the liking of the study's sponsors, nor to those who have been touting Chicago as "the model" for districts nationwide to follow. Yesterday I received further confirmations of suppression efforts by Civic Committee and RSF leaders, including threatened lawsuits, to prevent the study from being shown to the public.

One correction: In my earlier post, I attributed the study solely to the Consortium on Chicago School Research. But, I was informed, the study was actually done by SRI International with the Consortium serving as a sub-contractor. Since it was published on the Consortium's website, I had assumed that the study was theirs. But it was the SRI that became the target of the suppression and intimidation attempts. Kudos to them for not being cowed and releasing the study in good time.