Seventeen years. Roughly thirty public critiques. Peer review, NEPC reviews, policy briefs, legislative testimony, a video with a transcript. And on August 20, Marguerite Roza of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab still walked into Governor Lamont’s Blue-Ribbon Commission with the same cloud of dots, the same 2013 starting line and a slide titled “Weak ROI.”
Explaining it in prose clearly hasn’t been enough. So here it is as a 1970s Saturday-morning civics lesson, with your professor at the chalkboard pointing out every piece of it.
Every line has a receipt
Nothing in the song is invented. Every number and quote comes from my own posts and briefs or from the reporting linked below. The two sketches in the video, the “cloud of dots” and the “productivity curve,” are labeled drawings, not data. That’s the point: the 2011 curve never had any data behind it in the first place.
| The lyric | The receipt | Source |
|---|---|---|
| “Back in two-thousand-nine… so I checked Houston and Cincinnati” | 2009 peer-reviewed article in Education Policy Analysis Archives: both weighted-student-funding showcase districts were no more responsive to student need than their non-WSF neighbors. | Seventeen Years |
| “Four grand against ten grand… apples next to oranges” | Roza & Hill set a roughly $4,000 average between-district gap against a roughly $10,000 within-city extreme. | Seventeen Years (Apr. 2010) |
| “Cheerleaders… the potter’s wheel” | The claim that poor urban districts waste money on electives; small classes just make electives look expensive per pupil. | Cheerleading and Ceramics (Dec. 2010) |
| “Washington underpays its math and science staff” | The CRPE study mostly showed that younger teachers earn less. | Center on Inventing Research Findings (Aug. 2010) |
| “Stretching the School Dollar… Baumol’s disease” | Petrilli & Roza brief with no cost-benefit analysis; the “Baumol’s disease” diagnosis among the five myths. | Stretching Truth; Roza-Tinted Glasses (2011) |
| “A ‘productivity curve,’ a swoosh of pure hot air… four times the bang for the buck at twenty grand” | The 2011 Regents “productivity curve”: no data, no definitions. It implied nearly 4× the bang for the buck at $20,000 per pupil, and the Commissioner showed it to superintendents. | Dumbest graph; Real Dangers |
| “Curmudgeons!… Fordham tweeted ‘quack’” | Hill & Roza’s reply to the Baker/Welner NEPC report (2012); Fordham’s Dec. 28, 2013 tweet. | Seventeen Years |
| “Spending and scores since twenty-thirteen” | Edunomics’ Oregon graph starts at a low-spending, high-NAEP year. The Oregon PTA sent lawmakers a 10-page rebuttal faulting that start. | Willamette Week (Feb. 2025) |
| “Lamont’s Blue-Ribbon crew… a slide that says ‘Weak ROI’” | Aug. 20, 2026 presentation to the Commission; its own principles call for adequacy, and no graph in the deck measures what adequacy costs. | Same Junk |
| “Point-two-four… point-seven-three” | Across CT districts (2024), raw spending correlates with outcomes at +0.24; spending relative to the cost of Massachusetts-average outcomes, at +0.73. | Same Junk |
| “Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford spend about a third” | Each spends about one-third of what Massachusetts-average outcomes would cost. | Same Junk |
| “One-twenty-one… ninety-seven… seventy-one” / “ninety-three, sixty-seven, forty-nine” | CT spending as a share of what MA-average outcomes cost: 121% (2009), 97% (2013), 71% (2024). Highest-poverty fifth: 93%, 67%, 49%. | Same Junk |
| “Her own caption says eighth-grade math saw gains” | Edunomics’ own caption: 8th-grade math “saw gains in 2024.” | Same Junk |
| “Slide thirty-seven, slide forty-three… two thousand apart” | Slide 37: 103,112 employees in 2024–25. Slide 43, same year, same tool: 101,152. | Same Junk |
| “Three percent… her chart says seven” / “central office shrank a third” | Slide 37’s text says 3% enrollment loss; its chart shows 7% from the chosen baseline. Only 176 teachers added in six years; district and central administration fell by a third. | Same Junk |
| “She said ‘young people’” | Roza to the Commission: the “villain” is young people, who aren’t having enough kids. | Same Junk |
| “Polikoff… Aldeman…” | Education Week sources: the charts wrongly imply spending is unrelated to achievement; one trend rising doesn’t mean another rises with it. | Education Week |
| “New Haven’s mayor called it condescending” | Mayor Justin Elicker at the Hartford hearing: “condescending and accusatory.” | CT Mirror |
| “Twenty-four posts, twenty-one about her… some thirty critiques” | The index covers 24 entries from 2009 to 2026, 21 of them on Roza; Connecticut is roughly the thirtieth public critique. | Seventeen Years; Same Junk |
Why the song ends where it ends
The song’s message is blunt because the record is long. This isn’t a difference of methodological taste. It’s a presentation that strips out cost, picks its baseline to manufacture a conclusion and points a state commission at its poorest districts as if they were the problem. Repeating it after seventeen years of documented critique isn’t an oversight. It’s a choice.
So, to the Commission, before the January report: keep these graphs out of the report, out of testimony, out of budget hearings and out of board training. Ask the people presenting them two questions, in public: Why did you start in 2013? And where is the cost? If there’s no answer, there’s no seat at the table.
Adequacy is what it actually costs to get every kid where we say they should be. Start there. Not 2013.
Read the full case
Same Junk, New Audience: Marguerite Roza’s Deceitful Presentation to Connecticut’s Blue-Ribbon Commission (Oct. 27, 2026)
On Marguerite Roza’s Deceitful Presentation in Connecticut (PDF brief)
Seventeen Years of Roza-Tinted Glasses (Sept. 29, 2026)
Full lyrics: No More Hacks!
[Intro]
(Kid) Hey, Mister Baker, what’s a hack?
(Narrator) Pull up a chair, kid. Seventeen years of this.
[Verse 1]
Back in two-thousand-nine a story traveled through the land:
“The states have fixed the funding gaps, the money’s even, understand?
The trouble’s in the district, in the schools along the street!”
So I checked Houston and Cincinnati, ran it sheet by sheet.
Weighted student funding, was it fairer to the kids in need?
No more than the districts next door. That’s peer-reviewed, indeed.
Then she stacked four grand against ten grand and called the contest won,
Apples next to oranges, and the oranges weighed a ton.
[Verse 2]
Then the cheerleaders came marching and the potter’s wheel went round:
“The city schools are wasting it on electives!” was the sound.
But a tiny pottery class looks pricey counted per kid,
It’s blaming poor kids for being poor, that’s all the argument did.
“Washington underpays its math and science staff!” she cried,
It mostly showed the younger teachers earn less. That’s the ride.
Then “Stretching the School Dollar” came, with footnotes thin as air,
And “Baumol’s disease” got diagnosed with no patient in the chair.
[Chorus]
No more hacks! (No more hacks!)
We’ve got the data, we’ve got the facts!
Same old charts on the same old tracks,
Seventeen years! No more hacks!
[Verse 3]
Then up in Albany, twenty-eleven, at the Regents’ fall affair,
She drew a “productivity curve,” a swoosh of pure hot air.
No data underneath it, not a single term defined,
“Four times the bang for the buck at twenty grand!” Just a line, just a line.
And the Commissioner liked it, showed the superintendents too,
A graph about nothing, telling districts what to do.
Welner and I wrote it up. “Curmudgeons!” came the cry.
Then Fordham tweeted “quack,” but nobody answered why.
[Verse 4]
Then six quiet years went by, I thought the curve was laid to rest,
‘Til a Lab at Georgetown dusted off the old tricks for a test.
“Spending and scores since twenty-thirteen.” Oregon, take a look!
Start the clock when spending’s low and scores are high, the oldest trick in the book.
Then a cloud of dots, no cost adjustment, scattered ‘cross the page,
And the Oregon PTA sent ten pages: “Why’d you start at that stage?”
[Chorus]
No more hacks! (No more hacks!)
We’ve got the data, we’ve got the facts!
Same old charts on the same old tracks,
Seventeen years! No more hacks!
[Verse 5]
Now it’s twenty-twenty-six, and Lamont’s Blue-Ribbon crew
Wrote “adequacy” in its principles: what it costs to see kids through.
So in walks the cloud of dots, and a slide that says “Weak R-O-I,”
And a Connecticut page that starts in twenty-thirteen. Wonder why?
Not a single graph in the deck asks what adequacy would cost.
Same junk, new audience, and the only question that matters? Lost.
[Rap]
Raw spending versus outcomes? Point-two-four.
Adjust for what the outcomes cost: point-seven-three, now we’re keeping score!
Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford spend about a third
Of what Massachusetts outcomes cost. “Weak R-O-I”? Absurd!
Spending relative to cost: one-twenty-one in oh-nine,
Ninety-seven in thirteen, seventy-one now, watch it decline!
The poorest fifth of districts? Ninety-three, sixty-seven, forty-nine,
And her own caption says eighth-grade math saw gains in twenty-four!
Slide thirty-seven, slide forty-three, same year, same tool,
Two different staff counts, two thousand apart. Who’s the fool?
“Three percent fewer kids,” says the text, her chart says seven, check the line!
Central office shrank a third. Where’s the bloat? Show me a sign!
And who’s the villain when enrollment’s falling on the board?
She said “young people.” Yes, the kids. I wish I’d made that up, Lord.
[Bridge]
Who else saw it? (Who else saw it?)
Polikoff said spending matters, and the charts imply it’s wrong!
Aldeman said one line rising doesn’t drag the other along!
New Haven’s mayor called it condescending, out there in the hall,
Twenty-four posts, twenty-one about her. Have you heard ’em all?
[Verse 6]
Seventeen years, some thirty critiques, that’s not an oversight, it’s a choice.
So, Commission, before January, hear a school-finance voice:
Keep these graphs out of the report, the testimony, the budget fights,
Out of board training, out of hearings, ask her under the lights:
“Why’d you start in twenty-thirteen? And where’d you put the cost?”
No answer? Then no seat at the table. End it. Count what we’ve lost.
[Final Chorus]
No more hacks! (No more hacks!)
Cost is the question, adequacy’s the facts!
End it! (End it!) Show her the door!
Kick her out of the room! No more! No more!
No more hacks! (No more hacks!)
[Outro]
(Kid) So what’s adequacy?
(Narrator) What it costs to get every kid where we say they should be. Start there.
(Kid) Not twenty-thirteen?
(Narrator) Not twenty-thirteen.
