Texas Ed Spectator

EducationNews.org – A Global Leading News Source – Five “Honorees” of Bunkum Awards Announced for their Contributions to Sub-Par Education Research

In an effort to help education policy makers separate the wheat from the chaff, expert third party reviews are provided by the Think Tank Review Project, a collaboration of the Education and Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University. Each year the reports identified by experts as the worst of the worst are awarded a “Bunkum.” The Think Tank Review Project today announced five “honorees” for 2009.

While the social science of the winning reports was sub-par, they typically had very high production values, glossy paper, multi-color printing, and artful layouts. “Given the bibliographies, footnotes, charts and tables, policymakers or laypeople may be forgiven for thinking that these honoree reports are based on the highest quality research. We hope that our expert reviews have helped to correct that impression,” said EPIC director Kevin Welner.

I’m not surprised that educators fall for the glitz. I remember in high school helping a friend make up information on studies of prisoners and the effect of television for an English research paper at a magnet school. I had actually done the research and report but my friend was doing it all the night before and had a major advantage–he had a computer to write and print it out on. So the next day he turned in the report, all typed out, in a little report protector, with an extensive bibliography we had made up the night before. The teacher took his report, flipped through the pages, and started ohhing and ahhing over the quality of his report. He got the same grade I got, an A.