Josh Cowen has been staunchly opposed to school-choice vouchers, relying on his research as a professor at Michigan State University to characterize himself as a benevolent expert instead of a school-choice scold.
Now Cowen, 46, is eyeing a run for Congress in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. But the anti-choice activist posing as an academic shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the nation’s halls of power.
Instead of preparing himself for public office with experience at a lower elected level, Cowen has been cozying up to the Michigan teachers unions for decades, using his anti-voucher rhetoric to offer support to their causes.
Cowen uses academic language and research to describe school voucher programs and their purported problems, but it’s hard to take someone at their word on such a controversial issue when he’s a literal member of the teachers union.
Cowen wrote for former education professor Diane Ravitch’s blog in 2023 that he’s “taken no money from teachers’ unions for any of the work I do.”
“I’ve never been a member of a union—teachers’ or otherwise. Until now. Because after writing this today, I made a donation to my state’s primary teachers’ union and became a general member,” Cowen wrote.
A general member is someone who is “interested in advancing the cause of education” but has no other rights, according to the Michigan Education Association.
While Cowen attempts to downplay its significance, he and another researcher found in a 2015 paper that unions actually cost taxpayers more and don’t actually help students.
“The evidence for union-related differences in student outcomes is mixed, but suggestive of insignificant or modestly negative union effects,” the researchers conclude. “Taken together, these patterns are consistent with a rent-seeking hypothesis.”
In other words, more power for teachers’ unions means worse educational outcomes.
But despite his own earlier research, Cowen has done an about-face, citing one expert’s opinion that it’s “essentially settled” that more school funding helps improve outcomes.
A decade can change a lot, but time doesn’t change the validity of good research. Does Cowen care that his union is bad for Michigan’s education system? Why does he support something he himself has shown to have negative effects for students?
Maybe it’s because of the “narrative,” something Cowen harps on when other people are found guilty of creating it.
In another post for the same blog, Cowen explains that some of his early research on vouchers shows the programs were successful. But other research later showed they are “disastrous,” Cowen purports.
“That pattern of ‘no test score benefits, some attainment benefits’ has stuck in the research narrative even among voucher skeptics,” Cowen wrote about one study. “But as I recently explained in a piece for the Brookings Institution, it’s just that: a narrative.”
It’s no surprise that someone so adept at disregarding his own research in order to suck up to the teachers unions would flirt with becoming a career politician.
But who wants another professional shapeshifter and union shill in Congress?
Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
