Steven Singer dissects Trump’s latest diktat: He wants to limit the federal role and return control to states and districts. Or he might make available billions for school choice (like Obama’s Race to the Top) while slashing Title 1 and other programs.
At the same time, he wants to impose school choice on states and districts. He might even make federal aid conditional on states and districts accepting vouchers and charters.
Steven Singer says it is impossible to do both.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Strange in New York Gov Cuomo has put into the budget free college tuition for all CUNY AND SUNY colleges in New York. Funny thing, in this era of bashing “public” schools the governor is now making colleges in New York all public schools. So, we are going to have private schools and charter schools yet our college level schools will be public schools.
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Could it be that with new voucher/choice legislation fewer and fewer poor children will be enrolled in the ever more privatized “public” schools — so that opening up “free” colleges means that only the already wealthy will be the true benefactors?
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Diane, There’s a typo in your header (Federal Rile?)
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Thanks, I fixed it.
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Both Bush and Obama used coercive tactics to get states to comply with their agendas. I expect Trump to do the same, but he will probably extort the states to apply pressure to forward privatization, particularly in the senseless waste of vouchers. There is no doubt that the federal government has been guilty of overreach with the CCSS and national testing. The feds should only be involved with issues of civil rights. The “true believers” still think privatization promotes civil rights, but they have it backwards. Privatization reduces rights for all students in corporate owned schools.
The evidence has shown charters continue to stumble and often fail. Both the feds and states have wasted millions to clear a path for various privatization schemes. The sad truth is that charters enhance segregation and harm the public schools most students attend. What is particularly reprehensible is that the government is leading the charge along with the familiar billionaires, corporations and grifters. Our governments are attacking their own employees and our young people in an attempt to destabilize public schools. The facts and evidence of failure are ignored because the goal is not to improve education; the goal is to give private actors control of the public money. Our young people and teachers are collateral damage.
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I agree about the coercive tactics. Sessions was eager to cut federal funding to “sanctuary cities.”
Evidence does not matter on the matter of vouchers.
Here is an IES report in my mail today: Impacts of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program After One Year
A new study finds that the nation’s only federally funded private school voucher program for low-income parents had negative impacts on student achievement. However, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) did have positive impacts on parents’ perceptions of safety at their child’s school.
The Institute of Education Sciences released a report today (April, 27th) entitled: Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After One Year. The report, from the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), assesses the program’s effects on test scores and other outcomes measured a year after about 1,800 eligible applicants entered lotteries in 2012, 2013, or 2014 to determine who received a private school scholarship.
Key findings include:
The OSP had a negative impact on mathematics achievement after one year. Math scores were lower for students who were offered or used OSP scholarships, compared to students that applied for but were not offered scholarships. There were no statistically significant impacts on reading scores overall or on reading or math scores for students applying from low-performing schools, to whom the federal act establishing the scholarships gave priority. However, there were negative impacts on both math and reading scores for students who were not applying from low-performing schools and for students in grades K–5.
The program did not have an impact on parents’ or students’ general satisfaction with the school the child attended in that first year. The percent of parents giving their child’s school a grade of A or B was not statistically different when comparing parents of students who were offered or used OSP scholarships with the parents of students not selected for the scholarship offer. There were also no statistically significant differences when looking at student satisfaction with schools.
The program had a positive impact on parents’ perceptions of safety at the school their child attended in that first year. Parents of students who were offered or used OSP scholarships were more likely to indicate that their child’s school was “very safe,” compared with the parents of students not selected for the scholarship offer. Student perceptions of school safety were not significantly different between the groups.
The OSP did not have an impact on parent involvement in education overall. However, for parents of students in grades 6–12, the program had statistically significant positive impacts on involvement in education-related activities and events at home after one year.
I hope someone will take a look at the details of this study. I am not up to it, but the “perception surveys” I have seen prime parents to make responses that they might not volunteer. I also would like to know more about the source of data on “education-related activities and events at home.”
View the brief at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/..
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I don’t know much about the research, I know what my school district to reach out to the parents of ELLs. We went from empty rooms on parents’ nights to filled buses full of parents, but it cost money. We hired translators and arranged for a bus to pick up parents. Other teachers and I have also personally picked up families for meetings. We developed a partnership with parents, and their children benefited from the close relationship that comes from trust and respect.
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DeVos may have learned that her role will be not to dangle funds to entice states to voucherize, but merely to be a voucher cheerleader. It is my hope — pipe dream though it may be — that this latest executive order a l’orange will at least be suggestive to Capitol Hill that mandating annual testing is overreach. I’m in the middle of testing right now. The SBAC testing platform is a joke. It’s torture. It has to stop.
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The law won’t support making federal dollars contingent on breaking state laws. A court will strike down any effort to do so, just as the court did with the “sanctuary city” orders.
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Even if the feds provide block grants to states for vouchers, they should only be able to do so if they can prove it improves outcomes for students. They can’t! The research on vouchers shows they are a total waste of money so why should the feds underwrite failed ideas? Even for charters the evidence is that they are not worth the cost and disruption. They can only get decent results when they are highly selective. Yet, privatization continues its forced march over public schools because the wealthy are buying representatives to back this democracy crushing, union busting, segregationist, corporatist plan.
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I cross posted the article itself, here:https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Trump-Can-t-Limit-Federal-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Public-Education_Public-Interest_School-Reform-170427-859.html#comment656128
with two comments that outline the takeover of public education.
there are embedded links in the comments which take you to some the best posts HERE that nail the WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION. !
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I don’t exactly see this. Pres Trump has issued the order, stating that the feds will lessen the federal role in K-12 education. see
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-executive-order-federal-government-k-12-education
The order appears to me, to be exactly what it says. A reduction in the federal role in K-12 education. I also believe that people on the right and the left, should be cheering. Education properly belongs to the states and municipalities, not some closeted bureaucracy on the Potomac. Local problems, local leaders, local solutions.
Notwithstanding this order, Pres Trump/Sec DeVos, can still be strong supporters of school choice/vouchers. The feds can still advocate for these programs, and provide administrative and logistical support for states who choose to implement school choice.
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Charles,
Either you interfere, or you don’t. It’s not that hard to understand.
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I believe that the feds can interfere with education policy, no dispute. But, the amount and intensity of the interference can be reduced. The states/municipalities ran K-12 education for many years, with no federal intrusion at all. K-12 education is 90+% funded by the states/municipalities, already.
Trump/DeVos can be “cheerleaders” for school choice, core curriculum, and any other pet project they please. But when it gets “shucked down to the cob”, education policy is still a local responsibility, as it should be.
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“Curb the Federal Rile”…….What a wonderful typographical error. What would Freud say?
Let’s make sure not to curb the people’s rile. Diane’s blog is a huge help.
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Bill,
Trump has me “riled up.”
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I’m glad to hear it. None of us would have it any other way. Rile Twitler!
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I wouldn’t have ever realized that, Diane! (LOL)
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The most logical way to look at Trump’s frightening lack in citizen-protective logic: “He’s just setting up his next excuse for giving us, the American people, zero return on our tax dollars.”
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I found a terrific article, that is a fair and balanced appraisal of the potential for the Trump/DeVos agenda for K-12 education in the USA. I found the article enlightening. I agree that DeVos cannot “impose” school choice on the nation, it has to be done state by state. Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, and other states have said “NO!” to school choice, and the feds have not stepped in to change things.
Give it a read:
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She is an uniformed ideologue. They do the most damage because they give no thought to the consequences of their half-baked ideas
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I agree that Ms. DeVos is not always tuned in on the frequency of reality. I have always respected the balance and fairness of the chalkbeat website. The article basically said, that the sky is not falling. We are fortunate in the USA, that the control of public education is “diffused” in the states and territories. Imagine what a mess it would be, if nameless, faceless bureaucrats in WashDC ran the public schools. There should be three words in public education in the USA: Local, local, local.
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“I agree that Ms. DeVos is not always tuned in on the frequency of reality.”
Now that’s a good one, Chas!
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Actually, she’s tuned into the AM radio dial.
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@Duane. I am a telecommunications engineer, and sometimes I talk like one. When I am tired, I say “I need to recharge my batteries”. I am glad you got a chuckle.
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