The Sixth Estate

Predictably, the Fraser Institute is not happy that the Albertan government is moving to abolish elementary school provincial achievement tests (PATs), which it uses as fodder for its dubious and worthless “Report Cards” — studies which are almost invariably used to cast doubt on public schools, promote “independent” private schools, and downplay the obvious fact that the most important factors in student success in our schools are the stability and socioeconomic status of their family. Last year, in its infinite wisdom, the Institute proclaimed Bountiful’s school one of the best in the province. It was a rare meeting of the free-market libertarians and the ultra-conservative polygamists, which impressed nobody.

Of course, this decision by the Albertan government will save a great deal of time for students and teachers, and eliminate a serious ethical problem (should students be subjected to what amounts to an extended social research exercise, without compensation and without consent?). But it will also deprive the Fraser Institute of its precious data, and so they’re throwing a temper tantrum.

It’s interesting, I think, that an institute supposedly so dedicated to free market principles gets into such a snit when a government threatens to withhold its supply of “free” data paid for out of the public purse. I’m sure if the Institute offered to compensate the government for collecting their data, something could be arranged.

As promised, I return for a third time to the Fraser Institute’s dubious School Report Card series. But first, a quick question: raise your hands if you think the basic socioeconomic difference between a family with an income of $25 000 per year and a family with an income of $250 000 per year is roughly the same as the difference between a family earning $450 000 per year and a family earning $625 000.

I hope I know my reader pool well enough that I can safely assume you didn’t raise your hand. Oddly enough, though, at least six people did: Simon Fraser University economist Stephen Easton, Fraser Institute marketing consultant Peter Cowley, private school scholarship fund administrator Michael Thomas, and their three anonymous reviewers (not to mention four dead guys on the Editorial Advisory Board).

One of the most important amendments to the Fraser Institute report card series in recent years has been the inclusion of a “socioeconomic indicator.” There are many misleading things about this number, but the most misleading, as I’ve just discovered, is the Institute’s ludicrously skewed view of socioeconomic factors. What follows is, to a degree, going to be a little dry, and I apologize for that in advance. But the summary is: I believe the socioeconomic indicator is skewed in such a way that it unfairly punishes poor schools (exclusively public ones) and unfairly rewards wealthy schools (more often private ones).

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This weekend, the Fraser Institute celebrated the release of its latest school Report Card, this one on Alberta’s elementary schools. Last month I took a look at their BC report card, which frankly was not an impressive effort, but did have the surprising effect of catapulting one of B.C.’s most incompetent schools, in polygamous Bountiful, into the Number One spot. No more need be said, perhaps, about the reliability of these studies — except for my obligatory reminder that in the past the Fraser Institute has taken money from tobacco companies to argue that cigarette smoke does not cause lung cancer. No more need be said, perhaps, about the ethical maturity of the Fraser Institute.

So how does the Alberta Report Card’s quality compare with the B.C. one? Pretty much the same, I’d say, which is to say that it’s not a very helpful tool at all. This didn’t stop the first author, Peter Cowley, from earning an op-ed spot in the Calgary Herald this weekend, saying that Alberta needs to roll out the red carpet to “school chains” operating elsewhere in the world who would be interested in investing in Canada. School chains are the new pet project of the Fraser Institute. They even have a website for them, which, ironically, is offline as I write this.

Before I dive into the dubious nitty-gritty of the report, let me just point out Cowley’s first serious ethical lapse. Cowley claims to be particularly excited about a new American chain of schools expanding to Canada, called the Nativity Miguel chain. Really, Cowley? Nativity Miguel? I’m sure it’s purely a coincidence that the investor leading its Canadian expansion company, Mr. Paul J. Hill, just happens to be on the Fraser Institute board of directors, too. Is this yet another case of the Fraser Institute publicly touting “research” that just happens to directly benefit its lords and masters rich backers?

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