Have you ever wondered what would happen if a state offered vouchers to more than half its students?
The Louisiana Department of Education just learned the answer to that question. It made the offer to 450,000 students. Not quite 9,000 students applied to enroll in the voucher program that begins in September. That’s 2% of the eligibles.
That means that 98% of the 450,000 students who were eligible declined to apply.
Not exactly a stampede for the exits. No big rush to enroll in the little church schools that are supposedly better than the public schools that John White supervises.
The State Department of Education tried to spin it differently. At first, they said that 10,000 applied, which far exceeded their expectations. But it turned out that 1,000 of the applicants already had vouchers in New Orleans. As usual, they were playing the media for headlines.
To date, the nonpublic schools of the state have offered to enroll only 5,000 students, so some decisions will have to be made about how to handle the mismatch.
Meanwhile Commissioner White announced some loose regulations about enrollment and financial reporting that will apply to the voucher schools, but nothing about academic expectations. According to the story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the statewide voucher program is supposed to be modeled along the lines of a New Orleans pilot program that has been running since 2008, with varied results:
“As originally envisioned in legislation championed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the statewide expansion of vouchers this year would have mirrored the pilot program that’s been up and running in New Orleans since 2008. In the pilot, students on vouchers take the state’s LEAP exams, but, unlike charter schools, they don’t face any particular consequences for poor results. Test scores at the roughly two dozen private schools already in the program have varied widely.”
It is not clear whether the private and religious schools that accept public money will be required to meet academic standards set by the state, whether the voucher students will take the state tests, and whether there will be “any particular consequences for poor results.”
One of the prime movers of the “reform” movement in Louisiana, Leslie Jacobs, complained a year ago that the voucher schools in New Orleans were getting poor results. She called for performance standards for the voucher schools. But it doesn’t seem likely to happen on a state level. The governor and the commissioner don’t want to interfere in the private schools, other than to send money. They want to hold the public schools accountable to standards, but allow students leave for nonpublic schools with no standards or accountability.
It is also unclear whether the state will expect the voucher schools to teach modern science or will be content to see thousands of public school students taught Creationism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Although I agree with your educational agenda whole-heartedly, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that these private schools have “no standards”. As you must know, many private schools go through rigorous accreditation processes to ensure quality. In addition, those I am most closely associated with seek to exceed the often too low standards set by public schools. I fully concur that making our public school system strong and empowering our public school teachers is the best way to improve education in America; however, I don’t think private schools are necessarily the enemy.
The public schools in my area are accredited by SACS, the same regional accreditation agency that accredits my son’s parochial school and all of the reputable private schools in town. Frankly, that accreditation hasn’t insured that the public schools are really any good; accountability has narrowed the curricula to the point where they cannot teach a well-rounded program and SACS seems to overlook this problem. In my area, the more costly and well-known and larger schools do exceed the public school standards and SACS standards for students taking honors and AP classes, but the regular classes are not better (in high school). By offering higher standards for high level courses the better private schools are able to attract the best students, who are not being served in public schools anymore, away from public schools. On the other hand, there are also lots of small, primarily church-run, schools that do not exceed public school standards and which are not accredited by a reputable agency. The public schools try to push low-performing kids off onto those schools. I agree that the best way to improve education in this country is to have strong public schools and I would rather send my kids to public school, but after years of accountability my kids can no longer get a good education in the public schools. One thing I have noticed — the better private schools are organized as non-profits while the for-profit schools do not treat children well.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Here was a letter to the editor that ran in a local paper on the accreditation in NH
To the Editor:
“The New England Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation deemed irrelevant.” According to Hollis Brookline High School Principal, Cynthia Matte, this was the response that she received from prestigious Dartmouth University and the University of New Hampshire when she asked them about the importance of the NEASC Accreditation.
This bombshell was disclosed at the Aug. 17 Co-op School Board meeting when Vincent Bennett, a resident of Hollis, approached the microphone and asked that very question.
His follow-up question to the Co-op School Board was very simple.
Are you asking the taxpayers of Hollis and Brookline to potentially pay more than half a million dollars for portable classrooms to meet the space requirements of NEASC when the two major colleges of New Hampshire have deemed this accreditation irrelevant?
It is time we put substance over symbolism. We need to focus our resources on ensuring all our students are receiving a great education.
We all know a quality education is achieved through exceptional teachers and a first rate curriculum; not square footage.
DEBBIE PUCCI
Hollis
http://www.cabinet.com/hollisbrooklinejournalhollisletters/931259-308/neasc-accreditation-irrelevant.html
So then why fear them? Someone said the other day that this will shut down public schools. A scare tactic in my opinion.
If only 2% of the students use them, why fear school choice?
I believe that most parents want their children in the local public school. It’s where they live and it’s in their own community.
They simply want a QUALITY education for their children.
If the public school is working for 98% of the children but NOT 2% of the children, why should they be forced to go to the public school?
Why should the govt. be forcing Ed. reforms on teachers?
All of these attempts to control parents and teachers makes for angry people.
I think the “no standards” comment comes from the idea that many long-standing, high-performing private schools will not want anything to do with the voucher programs. At least that is my opinion on this matter. Every time people talk about vouchers on my local newspaper’s comments pages, I always ask them what they think the students and parents at [fill in name of a local, established private school] would do if a bus from [fill in local high-povery/crime-ridden neighborhood] showed up on a bus with vouchers. They never respond. My answer is that those existing families would run!
Therefore, the majority of vouchers may end up going to start-ups, where there is uncertainty about their prospects for success. It’s akin to the way many feel about all of the pop-up online colleges and colleges in shopping centers around town who advertise on daytime TV offering degrees in medical transcription, nursing, paralegal, stenography, etc.
In NH, we do not have a voucher program however the legislature just passed a tuition tax credit bill. Those using the tuition tax credits will be means tested so this is targeted towards families who cannot afford private schools.
Right now many religious schools take students on a charity basis. This will mean that a few more will qualify.
Elite private schools may still be out of the reach for these families. However there are other options, like the Parochial schools.
Even some of our elite private schools in NH (I’m thinking Phillips Exeter) takes in students on a charity basis.
The evidence to date is that the high-quality private schools are taking either few or no voucher students (by few, I mean 3 or 4 in kindergarten). The vast majority of voucher schools are religious schools that teach creationism and use textbooks that teach a theological view of history and other subjects. Their standards are faith-based.
Ok, so is that a problem?
Yes. It is a problem.
As a matter of MY religious freedom. I don’t want a particular religion taught in schools. This is as American as apple pie and has an even older provenance. I do, as did Jefferson and the American tradition in general, endorse public support for teaching the best _knowledge_ that is available as a means to the end of creating competent citizens able to make responsible judgments in support of a democratic society.
It’s a problem if they’re using public tax dollars due to separation of church and state. If they’re using their own private funds, then they can do as they please.
A voucher allows a parent to choose the school for their child. This can be a religious school or a private school. It does not bring religion in to a public school.
So I’m unclear as to why that would be a problem for anyone?
The voucher does not impose religion on a public school student.
Read more closely: The objection is to MY paying for YOUR kid to get an education driven by and subservient to a PARTICULAR religion. The American tradition is all about (real) knowledge and creating well-educated citizens. Schools that teach that the Loch Ness monster is really a dinosaur and that _that_ proves that evolution is wrong….that’s teaching ignorance.
John, do you know how much is in a public school that I have to pay for that I do not approve of? We all pay for many things we object to.
A voucher normally comes no where near what parents pay in taxes so essentially they are getting a small portion of THEIR money they earned back.
It’s not really up to you to choose the best education for parents. It’s up to them. IF they want a religious school, so be it.
If teachers do not want the Govt. micromanaging their schools/pay structure/classroom, why on earth should we be micromanaging an education for someone else’s child?
This is where you lose me. I hear complaints about the Governors pushing merit pay, teacher evaluations and every other dumb idea. This should not be dictated by the State.
However we should not dictate what school is best for someone’s child.
Mom, you asked why religious schooling would “be a problem for anyone” and I’ve pointed you to the all-american tradition of refusing public support for religious education and religious offices of all kinds. The rejection of the very concept of “the established church” is a core part of democracy as developed in the United States.
You haven’t responded to that point but obfuscate with stuff about how much people pay in taxes and something about teachers not wanting to be micromanaged and people having to support through taxes some things which we don’t like.
Parents may teach their children any sort of nonsense they choose. No argument. But they may not, at least not inside the American tradition we grew up in, get the government to pay for religiously certified instruction.
What is in play is, in substantial part, a bid to change that tradition and sanction the state paying for religiously motivated instruction. I’m not going to pretend that something else is happening here.
Great job, Diane! Once again you have looked under the surface to find the real story seeping out of the bayous here in Louisiana. Whether we call them “start ups” or “pop ups” or just plain old tin buildings, the reference is just a little too much like a food truck. Run in, serve the clientele, make your money, and move to another spot. Keep going where the money is; doesn’t matter if what you’re serving is good for the people you’re serving it to or whether there is any quality control.
As a Louisianian, I can tell you that this whole effort was a solution in search of a problem. While our schools are not the best in the nation, few people with children enrolled in public schools have been clamoring for the state to abandon public education to the private sector. Rather, they want their schools improved, not continually slashed by the budget ax of a governor and legislature that feels it’s more important to not tax the energy industry than to improve the educational system.
Every thing about what is happening in Louisiana is unclear. Rules are being written on a daily basis. With most schools starting in less than a month, I don’t think the rules will be as they should be nor be understood. The bills passed were certainly not. They were passed faster than a speeding bullet. That speeding bullet’s target….the demise of public schools.
On one hand, the public schools set themselves up for a federal take over.
Now that’s exactly what they are doing.
Any legislation that is passed has to go to the rules committee where the real micromanaging begins.
I wonder how long it will be, before teachers are obsolete and the computers are the teachers.
Taxpayers will NOT want to fund high salaries and pensions for babysitters in the classroom.
When the Progressive educators push Constructivism, fuzzy math, whole language, social engineering, political indoctrination the first person to blame is the teacher.
In our state, people are thrilled with the idea of blended learning and computers teaching the kids.
Why? They actually think that the computers will do a better job.
I keep asking people, if the school administrators chose a lousy textbook and program for the kids, what makes you think they will chose quality software?
This is when they finally think, maybe the computer will not be the magic fix in public ed.
Writing on the wall: The San Diego reform of 1997 jolted a few teachers into realizing our profession was in trouble and our union was not on our side. The voucher option made clear the already slim funding of the public schools would soon have competition from a private sector with no regulation. Ninth graders got it. Their kids would have less than they had then.
Under the guise of “literacy” the reformers attempted to cut cookies all the same, grades K thru 12. Those whose brains and consciences that were not lopped off were demonized, and the union helped. I may get censored for this, but what’s the point of literacy if we can’t report the facts without fear of retaliation?
Censoring those who saw it coming via union indifference only gave the voucher plot time to thicken. If only people were less quick to call others crazy. That’s how the privateers bought 15 years. Glad we’re talking about it now. It helps. Thank you, Diane, for what you are doing. Thanks for reading, all.