Politics trumping quality research

by Terry Stoops, John Locke Foundation, July 29, 2014.

College and university faculty members have been among the most outspoken critics of private school scholarships for low-income children, measures to improve the quality of classroom teachers, and many other education reform initiatives passed by the Republican-led General Assembly.

Many college professors make a good-faith effort to do research and engage in criticism responsibly. There are others, however, who are willing to compromise their purported commitment to rigorous analysis and scholarship to reinforce fanciful dogmas and political theories, using their university affiliation to give their research credibility it does not deserve.

This year, researchers from two institutions in the University of North Carolina system published a trio of studies that appear to be designed to make headlines and score political points, rather than contribute sound scholarship to the public policy debate.

In February, UNC-Charlotte professors Paul Fitchett and Tina Heafner published a three-page report titled, “Maybe Not Such a Blue Moon: The Substantial Phenomenon of Teacher Moonlighting in North Carolina.” Fitchett and Heafner use federal education data to suggest that “constrictive policies and Byzantine pay-for-performance schemes” are forcing public school teachers in North Carolina to “moonlight to escape the workplace hostility and restrictive environments present in many of today’s schools.”

Yet, they present no peer-reviewed research to back their claim. In fact, this research team references only one study, an obscure conference presentation from 2008. Fitchett and Heafner mention, but do not cite, an empirical research study on teacher moonlighting written by Auburn University professor John Winters.

They omitted a reference to the article because it directly contradicts their claim. Winters concluded that teacher pay “appears to have little or no effect on the propensity to moonlight.” His findings echoed those published in peer-reviewed education journals a decade earlier.

About a month later, UNC-Wilmington education professors Robert Smith and Scott Imig published results from their survey of more than 2,300 residents of North Carolina. They reported that North Carolinians overwhelmingly disapproved of Republicans’ education reform measures. In fact, an astonishing 94 percent of their respondents agreed that public education in North Carolina is headed in the wrong direction.

Mainstream media outlets and public school advocacy groups enthusiastically disseminated the survey findings. But these articles and commentaries ignored a serious methodological problem.

At minimum, survey researchers should have selected a sample that mirrored the population from which it was drawn. Smith and Imig failed to do this. Rather, their online survey bounced around from person to person and from website to website, likely attracting respondents who completed the survey to air their grievances.

In May, two other UNCW researchers got into the act. Megan Oakes, a graduate student in the Department of Public and International Affairs, and education professor Janna Siegel Robertson co-authored a survey of teacher attitudes regarding evaluation and merit pay. They found that only 1 percent of the 800 respondents believed that performance pay was beneficial, while a whopping 89 percent objected to the use of performance pay.

Similar to the dubious approach adopted by Smith and Imig, Oakes and Robertson used Facebook, email, and word-of-mouth to disseminate their survey to teachers, many of whom were formally or informally tied to teachers unions, public school advocacy organizations, and the Democratic Party.

Taxpayers fund the UNC system to educate students and produce credible research. North Carolinians should object vehemently to that investment every time professors and university-based researchers willfully ignore those responsibilities for the sake of political activism.

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