We all remember how Arne Duncan and the Obama administration manipulated the official evaluation of the DC voucher program by burying the release of positive results on a Friday after Congress failed to reauthorize the program.
If you thought that government manipulation of education research was limited to school choice because of the union’s special hatred of vouchers, you’d be wrong. The Tricky Dicks in Washington are at it again, this time by manipulating the release of a Head Start evaluation.
According to Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation in a commentary on the Fox News web site, an evaluation of the long-term effects of Head Start was supposed to be released in March 2009. Data collection for the evaluation was completed in the spring of 2006. Yet the study remains unreleased.
The delay may have something to do with the fact that the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats are huge supporters of expanding government-subsidized or provided pre-school. And according to Dan Lips’ sources in the Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing the Head Start evaluation, the results of the government study show no lasting benefits to Head Start, which is the largest government pre-school program. Government officials seem to be burying or at least delaying the release of those results so as not to spoil plans for the expansion of government pre-school programs.
Let this be a lesson. As the federal government’s role in evaluating education programs grows, so does the potential for political mischief with that research.
(edited for clarity)
Posted by Jay P. Greene 
Jay P. Greene's Blog 