They Blinded Me with Political Science: On the Use of Nonpeer Reviewed Research in Education Policy.

PS: Political Science & Politics, December, 1999 by Muir, Edward

Issues discussed concern the ethical aspects of using unpublished research by social scientists to influence political debate. Topics addressed include the importance of the peer-review process to evaluate potentially misinformed science before it reaches the press and unfairly sways public opinion.

On March 4, 1998, a story appeared in Education Week about research by Mark Schneider, Paul Teske, and Christine Roch (hereafter referred to as STR). It summarized their research, which claims that an innovative public school choice program in District 4 in New York City is responsible for raising student achievement (Walsh 1998). This followed a news story in The New York Times (Hartcollis 1998). Some weeks later Paul Teske presented the paper at the Midwest Political...

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