The News About Vouchers for School Choice
From Those of Us Who Read 'Fake News'

 

 

     I read many sources of information related to educational policy and research. One of them is the New York Times. In the February 24, 2017 edition, Kevin Carey writes "Dismal Results From Vouchers Surprise Researchers". The article reports the results of several research studies showing that children who used vouchers to transfer to a private school did not make the achievement gains so loudly touted by school choice advocates. I am pretty sure that I won't see Trump tweeting about these results. I wonder if Betsy DeVos reads the New York Times?  If not, then surely she must read sources like the conservative think tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute when they and the Walton Family Foundation financially support research on school choice programs that she too, prior to her confirmation as Education Secretary, has bankrolled. Surely she must read the results of the Indiana Voucher program (published in late 2015). Surely she must read the results of Louisiana's voucher program (published in Feb. 2015). All of these major research projects reported that vouchers for transfer to private schools did not result in the expected achievement gains so many politicians were spewing and throwing money at. In Indiana, where now Vice President Pence was then governor, the researchers found "in mathematics voucher students who transfer to private schools experienced significant losses in achievement. They also saw no improvement in reading. In Louisiana, predominantly low income, black students who transferred from public schools to private schools using vouchers experienced "large negative results in both reading and math......those who started at the 50th percentile in math....dropped to the 26th percentile in a single year." The Thomas B. Fordham Institute reported the results of yet another study of a voucher program in Ohio. "Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools."

 

     What's going on?  It is likely that the same dynamics that influence test scores of children in public school. Starting with the Bush Administration the No Child Left Behind legislation started the move toward learning proficiency standards, accountability, and teacher evaluation. All three of these initiatives have both positive and negative consequences. When private schools are required to accept ALL children, achievement test scores will not be uniformly high/exceeding expectations. Students from low income backgrounds start school with varying levels of achievement gaps that other students do not. It doesn't matter if they are in a private or public school. From the research that I have read, public charter schools (many that operate as a profit making business with little or no public oversight) offer the same varying achievement results.

 

  So, from my view and many years in education, politics have continuously attempted to remove the federal government from supporting public education. In her confirmation hearings, Betsy DeVos stated she believes the federal government has a role in special education, but had precious few details to offer what that role might be. Mmm....drain resources away from public schools and transfer them to private or charter schools (most of whom are not required to follow the same mandates and regulations as public schools - UNFAIR competition) that have little or not public oversight. With the transfer of public money from public schools to private and charter schools, the public schools lose out. More importantly, our democracy loses out to the principles of market based which inherently emphasizes competition for survival. When did we only want to educate 'some' of the children in the USA? ALL children should receive access to an excellent public education and the direction we are headed will produce 'winners' and 'losers', the refrain of a competitive business model that cares only for its bottom line.

 

PS  Did we all see or hear that Betsy DeVos reportedly expressed her discomfit with Trump's revocation of Obama's policy guidance to schools regarding bathroom use for transgender students?  Reportedly, the Department of Justice and Department of Education had to sign off, ie agree to, to the revocation. She could have held firm and stood up for students all over the US. Instead Attorney General Jeff Sessions convinced her to sign off.  A little too much like Susan Collins not voting against DeVos in committee, thus allowing DeVos to be nominated and eventually sworn in to her new post. It's a man's world after all, in the Trump White House. Oh, that's another post!