Caitlin Emma, Benjamin Wermund, and Kimberly Hefling, staff writers at politico.com, took a close look at Michigan and answered the question, what hath Betsy DeVos’s obsession with choice done to the schools of Michigan?
Unless you are a choice fanatic like DeVos, the answer is not encouraging.
Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.
Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.
The results in Michigan are so disappointing that even some supporters of school choice are critical of the state’s policies.
“The bottom line should be, ‘Are kids achieving better or worse because of this expansion of choice?’” said Michigan State Board of Education President John Austin, a DeVos critic who also describes himself as a strong charter-school supporter. “It’s destroying learning outcomes … and the DeVoses were a principal agent of that.”
The links are in the article, as well as a puzzle. Check out the link to CREDO at Stanford (funded by the Walton Foundation), which issued a report on Michigan charters and praised them extensively. How does the CREDO finding make sense to Michigan’s low standing on the National Assessment of Education Progress? How does it make sense in light of the fact that Detroit is the worst-performing urban district tested by NAEP?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
CREDOs studies are not methodologically sound. Don’t take my word on this. This is one of several reports>
Problems with CREDO’s Charter School: Understanding the Issues
Andrew Maul’s rejoinder to CREDO’s response
Contact:
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Andrew Maul, (805) 893-7770, amaul@education.ucsb.edu
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/p6so45d
BOULDER, CO (September 28, 2015) – Earlier this summer, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) published a response to professor Andrew Maul’s review of CREDO’s Urban Charter School Study. The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) today released Maul’s reply, in which he thanks CREDO for the response yet explains, point-by-point, why he stands by the following eight concerns he had earlier raised about that study:
The nature of the comparison between charter and traditional public schools in the CREDO studies is not clear;
The matching variables used in CREDO’s studies may not be sufficient to support causal conclusions;
Some lower-performing charter students are systematically excluded from the CREDO studies;
CREDO’s reasons for the systematic exclusion of lower-scoring charter students do not address the potential for bias arising from the exclusion;
The “days of learning” metric used in the CREDO studies is problematic;
The CREDO studies fail to provide sufficient information about the criteria for the selection of urban regions included in the studies;
The CREDO studies lack an appropriate correction for multiple significance tests; and
The CREDO studies have trivial effect sizes.
Maul’s original review and his short rejoinder are published by the NEPC, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. Maul, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, focuses his research on measurement theory, validity, and research design.
Find Maul’s original review of CREDO’s urban-charter report and his full rejoinder here.
The original CREDO report, and the CREDO response to Maul’s review, are currently available at the following urls:
Original report:
Click to access Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf
Peterson’s Response:
Click to access CREDOResponsetoMaulandGabor.pdf
The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. NEPC is housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.
Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. You can learn more about NEPC and sign up for publication updates by visiting http://nepc.colorado.edu/. To learn more about the Think Twice think tank review project, visit http://thinktankreview.org.
CREDO studies are not credible. Don’t take my word for it.
CREDO’s Charter School Research: Understanding the Issues
Andrew Maul’s rejoinder to CREDO’s response
Contact: William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Andrew Maul, (805) 893-7770, amaul@education.ucsb.edu
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/p6so45d
BOULDER, CO (September 28, 2015) – Earlier this summer, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) published a response to professor Andrew Maul’s review of CREDO’s Urban Charter School Study. The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) today released Maul’s reply, in which he thanks CREDO for the response yet explains, point-by-point, why he stands by the following eight concerns he had earlier raised about that study:
The nature of the comparison between charter and traditional public schools in the CREDO studies is not clear;
The matching variables used in CREDO’s studies may not be sufficient to support causal conclusions;
Some lower-performing charter students are systematically excluded from the CREDO studies;
CREDO’s reasons for the systematic exclusion of lower-scoring charter students do not address the potential for bias arising from the exclusion;
The “days of learning” metric used in the CREDO studies is problematic;
The CREDO studies fail to provide sufficient information about the criteria for the selection of urban regions included in the studies;
The CREDO studies lack an appropriate correction for multiple significance tests; and
The CREDO studies have trivial effect sizes.
Find Maul’s original review of CREDO’s urban-charter report and his full rejoinder here
Click to access Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf
CREDO’s response- Response:
Click to access CREDOResponsetoMaulandGabor.pdf
The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. NEPC is housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.
Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. You can learn more about NEPC and sign up for publication updates by visiting http://nepc.colorado.edu/. To learn more about the Think Twice think tank review project, visit http://thinktankreview.org.
The Walton Foundation sees that the for profit charters’ effects on Michigan’s public schools is working exactly as planned. Defund and sell off the public option to the lowest bidder.
Sad story about Wisconsin’s 2014 High School Teacher of the Year:
“Back in 2009, Rick Erickson was happy with his job as a teacher in one of the state’s northernmost school districts on the shores of Lake Superior. He made $35,770 a year teaching chemistry and physics, which wasn’t a lot of money, but then again, he received stellar healthcare and pension benefits, and could talk honestly with administrators about what he needed as a teacher every two years when his union sat down with the school district in collective bargaining sessions.
Then, five years ago, Wisconsin passed Act 10, also known as the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, which dramatically limited the ability of teachers and other public employees to bargain with employers on wages, benefits, and working conditions. After Act 10, Erickson saw his take-home pay drop dramatically: He now makes $30,650. His wife is a teacher, too, and together they make 11 percent less than they did before Act 10. The local union he once led—the Bayfield Education Association—is no longer certified to collectively bargain, so he can’t formally negotiate with the school district for things like prep time and sick days.* He pays more for health care and his pension, and he says both he and his wife may now not be able to retire until they are much older than they had planned.”
That is a REALLY big drop in pay.
” Total teacher compensation in Wisconsin has dropped 8 percent, or $6,500 since Act 10, according to an extensive study by Andrew Litten, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan who used state data showing compensation of all teachers in the state of Wisconsin. What’s more, he found that the most experienced and highest-paid teachers experienced the biggest reduction in benefits. Litten’s research confirms what labor advocates have said for decades: A lack of bargaining power can have a profound effect on what workers receive from their employers.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/unions-wisconsin/509798/
Two bits says the adminimals didn’t have their salaries lowered.
Well folks, the way I see it is that we must contact our senators not only through the NPE email campaign but through calling our senators. The volume of calling the senators gets more noticed by the senators than email. It is easy and fast, taking about two minutes apiece for each senator. Use the following link to get started:
http://civilrights.org/action_center/resources/calling-congress.html
How about you call Booker Duane?
I’m not from New Jersey. They ask for your zip code, which I assume they use to weed out non-constituents. Otherwise I would.
Since the DeVos family has so much Amway money, they should award students scholarships from their own considerable wealth, and stop trying to force taxpayers to underwrite schools that are not for the local community. When taxpayers pay property taxes, they derive benefit from being able to send their children to the local school, and they contribute to enhancing the value of their home. Good schools raise property values. Sending local tax dollars elsewhere is like taxation without representation. This is even more true for vouchers. If a student takes a voucher outside the local district, the other members of the community are forced to bear the harm caused by the loss of revenue without any say. They either have to make up the difference or make the local students do without. They also unknowingly harm the value of their property by helping to defund their local schools. Likewise, voucher schemes that award tax credits to wealthy people places additional tax burden on everyone else when they reduce one person’s tax burden, the burden get shifted to all the other taxpayers without them having any say about it. https://kavips.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/taxation-without-representation-stay-away-from-vouchers/
Since when are private/parochial schools not for the local community? Private/parochial schools benefit the children in their community. Whom do they benefit? The community. True, property taxes go to the school in the community they serve. Wealthy communities have excellent schools, and poor communities have lousy schools. The poverty cycle is perpetuated by this. NO child should have to attend a school, based solely on his zip code, and the affluence of the community.
Good schools raise property values, indeed. Likewise, bad schools lower property values. This leads to “white flight”, exacerbating the problem, and condemning poor children to poor schools, with no tax base.
Sending tax dollars elsewhere is NOT like taxation without representation. I used to work for the US State Department (Africa). US Taxpayers send all kinds of foreign aid to foreigners, our nation determines the amounts and disbursements through the democratic process. I send my tax dollars to Yosemite (California) and Yellowstone (Montana), even though I do not live in these states. I want my government to have a national park system, even though I may never see these natural wonders.
Sending tax dollars to families who opt out of failing public schools, is a fine idea. Let the families exercise choice, this is inherently democratic.
If a family redeems their voucher at a non-public school, the student is still getting the benefit of a publicly-supported education, regardless of the location. The society gets the benefit of having an educated citizen. A win-win situation.
When the family withdraws their funding from the public school, they also withdraw the student. Just as if they moved to another state. The net per-pupil loss to the public school is zero.
When a family transfers a student out of a school, the school is not “harmed”. The school just loses a student, and the money. NO harm done.
Voucher plans that rebate tax payments to upper-income families do no more “harm” than voucher plans that rebate tax payments to lower-income families. A dollar is a dollar. The tax collections that would have been spent for schools that the rich do not use, are forfeited. Why is it fair to tax rich people to support public schools that they are not using? Rich people can afford to pay for two school systems. Lower income people cannot.
You are innumerate and long-winded.
With voucher schemes, schools will choose the students. The myth of parental choice is just that. The proportion of federal dollars that flow to schools is small relative to state and local investments.
When 70% of Detroit charter schools are in the lowest quartile of state schools, then it absolutely DOES NOT benefit the community. The schools doing better, mostly public schools, are having their money split so many ways that now Detroit has WAY more school capacity than it needs. A huge waste of tax money.
There won’t be any real opposition or dissent. Republicans want vouchers and Democrats want more and more and more charter schools. She’ll pass out the goodies to the various ed reform factions and they’ll all support her.
The big losers when the dust settles will be kids in existing public schools.
She offers absolutely nothing positive to kids and parents who use public schools. The best she can do is deny she wants to “dismantle” our schools.
It’s insane, really. No other country in the world would hire and pay an executive and hundreds of staff people to eradicate their public schools.
Thank you Diane. I wish more people would pay attention to the NAPE.I have great worries for the future of our educational system as well as for our country.
From a funding perspective, vouchers, religious schools, and school choice are fine, if all schools are adequately funded, which of course they never are.
From a democratic perspective, how much public effort should be taken to mix students up homogenize them, or on the other hand, allow them to self segregate by religion or ability into schools at the taxpayer’s expense?
The American is a publication in St. Louis which has a deeper attention level for racial issues related to education. I complimented a few people after reading a story about a public school which made the improvements which should be made using the tax revenues available. I said this, (among many other things) to them:
Congratulation to messrs (Assistant education commissioner)Chris Neale, Superintendent Scott Spurgeon and high school Principal Darius Kirk and state board of education member Mike Jones….and speak out against DeVos as her idiocy emerges….but be aware of the Gates-Duncan disciples…..and the designs they have on St. Louis county….and good luck in provoking a fuller, more accurate discussion of important education issues.
Riverview Gardens is the name of the district. The St. Louis American is a fine publication.
Trump and DeVos were out bashing public schools and spreading misinformation.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-claim-media-fake-news-232459#pq=3evNnX
Who told Trump the US spends more on education that any other country? Did he see that on tv? I know he doesn’t read anything.
Are we really being asked to pay the salary of a secretary of education who is opposed to public schools?
Trump and DeVos both went to private schools and neither one of them sound well-informed. They’re not a great advertisement for private schools.