January 24, 2019

Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Amanda Datnow: (858) 534-9598, adatnow@ucsd.edu

Report about "Opportunity Myth" Faults Educators but Lacks Rigor

Key Takeaway: Though a unique contribution, report's inconsistency and lack of clarity make many of its conclusions questionable.

East Lansing, MI (January 24, 2019) – A recent report from TNTP, formerly The New Teacher Project, aims to expose what it labels the "opportunity myth" in American education: that while schools purport to prepare students well, they don't deliver.

Amanda Datnow of the University of California, San Diego reviewed The Opportunity Myth: What Students Can Show Us About How School Is Letting Them Down—and How to Fix It. Professor Datnow notes that the report conveys a great sense of urgency, with descriptions of students spending significant time on below-grade-level assignments, lacking strong instruction and high expectations, and being disengaged in school. It paints a dramatic picture of American students being misled by false promises of opportunity, when they could make significant learning gains if they experienced grade-level content, strong instruction, deep engagement, and high expectations. In this sense, the report addresses important issues.

Yet the report's claims are not fully supported by evidence, and there are questions about how key constructs are measured and how data are analyzed. Professor Datnow found its conclusions reported in a way that seems to be aimed at creating a sense of crisis around the claims rather than reporting nuanced, in-depth research findings based on rigorous methods.

The report also focuses primarily on educators' daily decisions. Professor Datnow concludes that the report does not sufficiently account for larger systemic and societal impediments to opportunity that serve to establish and maintain many of the obstacles and problematic patterns it observes.

Moreover, the report's practical implications relate only to the aspects of the opportunity myth on which that the authors chose to focus. While educators' daily decision-making could undoubtedly be improved, large-scale improvement will depend on addressing larger systemic and societal impediments to opportunity.

Find the review, by Amanda Datnow, at: http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Think_Twice/TT-Datnow-Opportunity-Myth.pdf

Find The Opportunity Myth: What Students Can Show Us About How School Is Letting Them Down—and How to Fix It, published by TNTP, at: https://www.publicagenda.org/files/PublicAgenda_OurNextAssignment_2018.pdf

NEPC Reviews (http://thinktankreview.org) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/

About The Great Lakes Center
The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.  Visit the Great Lakes Center Web Site at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.   Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/greatlakescent.  Find us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/GreatLakesCenter.

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The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Visit the Great Lakes Center website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/