Rotherham spins TFA stats

Andy Rotherham likes to portray himself as a voice of moderation and reason in the rough & tumble world of education debate.  But he is anything but.

Here he complains about a recent study by the Great Lakes Center which finds, among other things, that Teach for America (TFA) participants don't stay in the teaching profession for long.

In fact, in a study that delineated the leaving issue more effectively, a 2008 study by Harvard’s Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, found that 61 percent of Teach For America corps members stay in teaching beyond the two-year commitment. Teach For America surveys its alumni regularly and the most recent survey found that 65 percent of Teacher For America’s 20,000 alumni remain in education, with 32 percent continuing as teachers.

Let's take the second source of opposing evidence first.  TFA's own reported percentages of almuni who are still teaching is not exactly a reliable source.  But leaving sceptism aside, it's not clear what "32 percent continuing as teachers" really means.  The report suggests, and Rotherham interprets it to mean, that 32 percent of all alumni are teaching now, that is, currently.  If so, the following little note found at the very end of the report would be pertinent:

Percentages that reflect current data—as opposed to cumulative data—are drawn from our 2008 alumni survey, which received a 57 percent response rate [my emphasis] and went out to our alumni from corps years 1990-2006.

So, 32 percent of the 57 percent we know about, or 18 percent, are still teaching.  Maybe some of the other 43 percent are, too, but it's probably less than 32 percent since the non-respondents are probably less likely than respondents to still be teaching -- or to still be in education for that matter.  If a TFA alum is still teaching, it's a feel-good thing to respond to the survey.  But if she's in business consulting?  Well, maybe not so much.   In any event, a survey with a 57 percent response rate is highly unreliable, and Rotherham wouldn't treat its results as worth much if he were the stickler for hard facts that he presents himself to be.

As for the Harvard Study, his second source, this, too, had a response rate problem: with only 62 pecent of TFA alums responding. Which way does that bias the results? As with TFA's own survey, the most plausible story is that non-respondents tended to be earlier leavers, since they wouldn’t be quite so proud, so this would bias persistence rates upwards.

Besides failing to note the potential bias, Rotherham cleverly cited only the 61 percent of TFAers that the study found continued teaching more than two years.  He failed to mention subsequent attrition.  The study found that only 35 percent of the sample of TFAs continued after 4 years, and only 25 percent were teaching after 6.  Given the likely bias, that 25 percent is probably an upper bound estimate.

It seems that either Rotherham is not such an astute and critical consumer of research, or he is not such an honest broker, after all.

Nowhere man

Eric Alterman has a long-winded piece in The Nation arguing that progressives should give Obama a break.  In a nutshell, he says that the right wing has become so loud, has so much money, and has so poisoned the discourse that it is virtually impossible to pass progressive legislation, whether Obama wants to or not.  Alterman does a suberb (and exhaustive) job detailing all the right wing evils.

The problem with this argument is that we already knew Republicans, business elites, and other assorted wackos had concocted a toxic political brew before Obama was elected.    Obama should have known it too, or at least we thought he did.  We elected him to change it!  Of course, he gave all those nice speeches about seeking compromise and shared interests among those with divergent views  -- but noboby with an shred of common sense believed that bullshit.  That was just happy talk to get himself elected ... like his predecessor's "Compassionate Conservatism."  We didn't expect him to govern like that.  We expected that once in office, he start banging Republican heads.  And we expected that he would start working on changing the political playing field immediately.

So what could he have done differently?  His first order of business should have been to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, strengthening union organizing.   This would have been an easy lift. Second, he should have converted his massive supporter email list into an active force within the Democratic party.  Neither of these would have had immediate political payoff, but they would have strengthened progressive forces in the longer run (like, now).  But our Community Organizer in Chief forgot to organize, or maybe he really wasn't so progressive after all.  But in any event, he took the first opportunity he had to squander his considerable political capital on a Big Policy (healthcare), because, it seems, he thought that would look better on his resume.

Of course, if he pushed for the Employee Free Choice Act, right wingers would have been calling him a socialist and fascist and all kinds of other bad things.  But wait, aren't they doing that now? 

Pollsters read Obama's latest slide in the polls as an effect of the bad economy.  But FDR governed through a much longer depression and maintained his popularity.  I think Obama's slide reflects the failure of his post-partisanship.  Of course, governing is the art of compromise, but you don't sit down to the bargaining table telling people that.  At any rate, that approach has not served Obama well.  The backroom deals with drug companies were a stain on healthcare reform.  He conceded on offshore drilling in order to get Republican support for a climate change bill, and we see where that went: Deepwater Horizon and no climate change bill.  And 2 days ago, we learn from Politco that he has been pushing an education agenda that is deeply unpopular among teachers in order to win US Chamber of Commerce support.  (This must be the worst strategy ever: alienate your key supporters to woo those who will never vote for you.) 

A few days ago, I heard Obama come on the radio and just flipped the channel.  Can't even be bothered to listen any more.