Refuting the Lie That Will Not Die (Again)

Schools with LifeWise programs do NOT improve attendance, academic performance, or result in fewer disciplinary actions.

In 2023, LifeWise commissioned and paid for its own study, making unverifiable claims that schools with LifeWise programs offered to students helped improve overall attendance, academic performance and fewer disciplinary action.

LifeWise's paid-for study has been refuted before. Honesty for Ohio Education disputes the study's highly flawed and sometimes purposefully manipulated findings in its online RTRI Toolkit (page 20), and also points out that the study hasn't been verified by peer review. The Secular Education Association also demonstrates the study's flaws in their rebuttal document, pointing out where the data and study's claims are wholly unsubstantiated.

So why are we bringing it up now? Because the national Respect Public Schools organization recently provided further proof with publicly available data. A comparison of attendance rates results in largely the same percentages with only a .02% difference. In schools without LifeWise programs available, both academic performance and disciplinary rates improved. The verifiable truth about academic performance demonstrates that schools without LifeWise improved by +.57 points, while LifeWise schools actually decreased by -.39 points. The difference in disciplinary action rates is stark -- schools without LifeWise improved with 4 fewer students compared to less-than-1 (only .2) fewer students in LifeWise schools.

And yet, in the face of all of this proof and data, LifeWise refuses to let this myth die. It uses their "study" in conversations with schools, school boards, legislators and parents, to try and convince good-minded citizens that LifeWise should have a place in public education. With more states than ever before proposing legislation that forces the wall between church and state to crumble, it's important to be armed with facts. The facts simply do not support their claims. The facts prove their supporters to be liars, or at best, to be mislead.

LifeWise keeps proving that they lie, manipulate, and hide the truth in their quest to succeed. The next time you witness them using their own study to support their lies ask them:

• Which organizations have peer-reviewed and verified their findings?

• Why are they using hypotheticals to further their aims?

• WHERE IS THEIR DATA??

• Why does publicly available data disprove their claims?

In public education, we teach our students to use verifiable facts and to make claims based on actual findings, which can be substantiated by peer review. Why should we continue to allow an organization - whose publicly stated aim is to dismantle public education - get away with not doing the same? We simply cannot allow the lies to continue unchallenged. Our public schools deserve all of our support against the manipulative liars hell-bent on the destruction of public education.