Writing Against the Grain
On finding the idea, the evidence, and the publication
I’ll always be grateful to the team at Education Next, the terrific journal run out of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
More than 15 years ago, they were willing to publish my first big article as I transitioned from inside-the-government work to more research and writing. In that piece, “Wave of the Future,” I argued that the education-reform community and more establishment-oriented leaders had misunderstood the meaning and potential of chartering. I got lots of flack for that article (it was viewed as pretty radical at the time). But the process of thinking about the issue, writing about it, and then addressing the responses led to my first book, The Urban School System of the Future. That book never would’ve happened were it not for Ed Next’s willingness to publish my argument that lots of important people had gotten something wrong
A few years later, I had another outré position. I was certain that the federal government, huge education foundations, and most of the big names in schooling were completely wrong about the “turnaround” movement. Without going into too much detail, I thought America was on the verge of wasting billions of dollars, giving false hope to disadvantaged communities, and ignoring far better strategies when it came to failing schools. Mine was an unpopular view—again, I thought lots of important people had gotten something wrong. But once again, Education Next was willing to publish my article. That piece, “The Turnaround Fallacy,” is to this day (according to Google Scholar, at least) by far my most cited work.
In both cases, I had had a hard time (for quite some time) getting any traction for my against-the-grain views. But Ed Next wasn’t afraid of against-the-grain. As its mission statement says, education needs bold change. To be clear, its editors always ask the right tough question and make sure the material is buttoned up: Their aim is to give voice “to worthy research, sound ideas, and responsible arguments.” But the author doesn’t need to bow to contemporary pieties. The journal “goes where the evidence points.”
OK, I bet you can guess which journal I pitched when I had another against-the-grain argument.
And I bet you’ll understand my gratitude when I tell you that they just published my piece even though Ed Next is an Ivy-based journal with lots of Ivy-educated readers and my argument is that a bunch of Ivy-educated writers have been overstating the influence of the Ivies.
I hope you give the article a read (and look around EN’s site while you’re there). I’ll highlight its three major parts here to whet your appetite.
First, as the title (“The Surprising Role of Public Universities in Forging America’s Leaders”) suggests, it has a bunch of data showing that public universities, especially flagships, educate most of our key leaders. I’ve shared some of this data previously in a report I wrote for MI (and in some shorter-form pieces). Here’s a bit from the article.
When I decided to study the education backgrounds of America’s influential leaders, I therefore began with a host of the most important state-level officials: governors, state legislative leaders, attorneys general, state education chiefs, and state supreme court justices [….] Then, to cast a wider net, I identified the top lawyers (for example, managing partners and practice-area leaders) from the foremost law firms in each state […]
Across the public offices, the same three themes held, whether I looked at undergraduate or graduate education. First, these leaders were likelier to have attended public institutions rather than private ones. Second, they were likelier to have studied in the states they served than in other states; that is, they didn’t need to seek schooling far from home in order to excel. Third, they were likelier to have gone to public flagship universities than Ivy-plus schools [….]
More than half of governors went to a public college, and all of these went to a school in their own or a neighboring state. Demonstrating the many pathways into public leadership, the 49 governors with a college degree graduated from 46 different colleges. State legislative leaders (like house speakers and senate presidents) were seven times likelier to go to a public flagship than an Ivy-plus.
State supreme court justices provide the most dramatic example. In strong contrast to today’s U.S. Supreme Court justices (only one of whom lacks an Ivy degree), these leading figures were likelier to have gone to public undergraduate and public law schools than private institutions. In 22 states, not a single supreme court justice went to an Ivy-plus college; in half of states, not a single justice went to an Ivy-plus law school.
Second, I detail why so many researchers, journalists, and popular writers overstate the influence of the Ivies. I discuss affinity bias, gatekeepers, misperceptions of leadership positions, and geography.
Third, I provide a sneak peek of new research I have coming out about US Supreme Court clerks and the White House Fellowship program: Namely, people with Ivy+ degrees disproportionately select people with Ivy+ degrees. This fact, I believe, is bad for opportunity, stokes populism, and runs counter to American republicanism.
Please do check out the full article, “The Surprising Role of Public Universities in Forging America’s Leaders: Flagship graduates outnumber elite-school alums in many positions of power and achievement, especially in state government.”