Dive Brief:

• Cowen Institute Executive Director John Ayers resigned after a flawed study on 'vulnerable students' in New Orleans schools was released and later retracted.  
• The study, which was initially released Oct. 1, reported that New Orleans' public high schools were exceeding expectations when working with "vulnerable students" who face various disadvantages.  Nine days after the report came out, Ayers released a statement saying there were flaws in the study's methodology and that its conclusions were inaccurate.

Dive Insight:

The Cowen Institute, which is part of Tulane University, was created in 2007 to review the effects of school reform efforts post-Katrina.  The institute's focus includes a review and analysis of the state’s Recovery School District, which has played a role in New Orleans becoming the first district to be comprised solely of charter schools.  

According to the Associated Press, the original study defined "vulnerable students" as "those who are more than two years above grade-level age in ninth grade, who failed an eighth-grade assessment test, who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches or who are eligible for special education services." It then used "regression analysis" to calculate the performance of these vulnerable students, finding that "60 percent of New Orleans public high schools exceeded passage rates on End of Course exams. Half had higher-than-predicted ACT scores and all were at or above their predicted four-year graduation rates."

What's most confusing about the Institute's paper retraction is Ayers never gave an explanation for why the methodology was flawed and in an email with the Associated Press he declined to comment further.