Governor Rick Scott signed legislation to expand the state’s voucher program, despite the opposition of the state’s PTA associations, the NAACP, the teachers’ unions, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. Critics said the vouchers would drain resources from public schools. The voucher expansion was a high priority for former Governor Jeb Bush, who is a power in the state.
Rita Solnet, president of the Florida chapter of Parents Across America, said:
“Voucher schools will not be held to Florida’s Common Core curriculum nor will they have to deliver its associated, highly trumpeted, high stakes tests that 2.6 M other FL students endure. No merit pay, no need to pursue credentialed teachers, no accountability for $3 billion of public tax dollars.
“Had the Governor not signed SB 850 today, the voucher program would have still grown to nearly $1 billion anyways with the escalators built in.
“Something is very wrong when the agency services 59K students in primarily religious schools and they admittedly provided false numbers for an alleged wait list. Something is very wrong when their non profit president is on video admitting to giving away a million dollars each year to legislators who favor voucher programs.
“Siphoning $3 billion away from 2.6 M students is shameful.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Also breaking news in RI, on a more positive note: NECAP graduation testing requirement delayed until 2017:
http://www.providencejournal.com/politics/content/20140620-house-committee-passes-bills-to-delay-use-of-standardized-tests-as-graduation-requirement.ece
Disgusting….Time to sign up for the Charlie Crist campaign educators… a 2nd term for scott would be disasterous for public schools
I am a new school board member in rural Central Ohio. I have been vehemently speaking out against high stakes testing for many years. I am interested in any new studies concerning developmental readiness as it relates to elementary school children and high stakes testing. I would deeply appreciate any assistance relating to this subject.
Ms. Ravitch, thank you for writing “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”
I thank you for your dedication to our public schools. Our public school system is indeed great. I believe it is our best hope in securing a true Democratic society.
Mary,
Take a further step back on the epistemological and ontological scale to realize the complete invalidities, the errors involved in the educational standards and standardardized testing processes that render any conclusions made “vain and illusory” as Wilson states.
To get a better handle on just how illogical, irrational and unethical those educational malpractices are read his never refuted nor rebutted work Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Is Scott so stupid that he does not know that FL voters defeated Jeb Bush’s voucher plan in 2012 by more than 55% to 45%? Is he just thumbing his nose at the voters and the FL constitution? — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
““Voucher schools will not be held to Florida’s Common Core curriculum nor will they have to deliver its associated, highly trumpeted, high stakes tests that 2.6 M other FL students endure. No merit pay,”
Nearly everything Rita says about the voucher schools is stuff that she and Dr. Ravitch would support.
So what’s so bad about the voucher schools again? Oh right, they “drain” dollars from the public schools that are doing all the bad things you’re against (along with, of course, the obligation to educate the thousands of students who will no longer attend public school, but let’s leave that part out).
WT, how about the separation of church and state? How about hiring credentialed, certified teachers? Also, yes, there is truth in vouchers draining the tax base, and when those vouchers go to hedge fund backed charters, light on supplies and programs so more more more goes into their pockets, then they leave town in disgrace – yes, THAT happens – cry about your taxes being squandered, and tell me how the children were well served by those vouchers.
So much confusion.
Vouchers don’t violate separation of church and state any more than Pell grants do. Try a better argument.
Sorry, but there is actually no evidence that traditional education credentials make any difference.
You’re also confused between vouchers and charters — vouchers are used at private schools, which are not the same thing as charter schools.
WT, it looks like you are the one who is confused here. Let’s learn, shall we? Whether it be via a “voucher” or “tax-credit,” the end-game is still the same.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/education/senator-to-propose-school-vouchers-program.html?_r=1
Here’s the excerpt from the link you need to see:
“About a third of states have already taken steps to redefine public education with a network of vouchers and scholarships that allow families to use state taxpayer funds to educate their children however they want, whether it be in public, charter, private or religious schools, online or at home.”
As you are probably aware (I assume), there is a certain political party who is actively pushing for a nationwide school voucher system. If this were to come to fruition, you don’t think charter schools would play a large part in its implementation?
Donna: this group sends me emails. Robert Boston of this group has described how the voucher and charter movement is set to purposely attack teacher unions.
https://www.au.org
another source on the church/state issue:
“Nevertheless, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ had ruled that an unacceptable amount of religious endorsement and coercion occurred when the District held important civil ceremonies” in Elmbrook Church. … Kennedy’s decision in Greece appeared to raise the threshold for “an unacceptable amount” of religion. Observers were left asking: Could the justices possibly consider the use of a room to constitute more “religious endorsement and coercion” than being asked to rise and bow one’s head in prayer?”
these issues are still in flux….. the same as with the civil rights issues that came before the Supreme Court recently and only Sotomayer objected vocally….
Politicians, lobbyists, the supreme court doesn’t want to get too far out in front of the lobbyists or the corporate world…… or the plutocracy
the quote comes from The New Republic
Common Core will be added in private schools. And, no merit pay is dependent upon the private school. Some private schools actually provide end-of the-year stipends to teachers who get certain results.
The problem with vouchers is it is economic fascism at its finest. Soon America will not have any private schools, except for the 1% schools.
Florida is funding Islamic schools in Florida, google it, Florida haas 12 Islamic school that will be getting state voucher money.
Why is WT biased against the district schools, the real public schools? The district schools will no longer have to educate thousands of pupils? The district schools still have fixed costs that are not reduced even with the loss of students to private schools. In NJ, that would mean they would also lose any state aid. And if those kids return to the real public schools, the tuition does not come back with them, it’s lost to the private schools. Vouchers are a formula for the destruction of public schools (I’m not talking about charters which are public only when it suits their purposes) but that was the intent of vouchers in any case.
Impossible to change the opinion of an ideologue with facts.
Especially when those idiologues have non-fact based idiologies. (words purposely misspelled.)
I believe you meant to write “Impossible to change with facts the opinion of an ideologue.”
MORE really great info on this central page:
http://interactive.sun-sentinel.com/charter-schools-unsupervised/
If you’re banned in NJ public schools, come on down to sunny Florida charters :)….. jokes on the students, parents and community.
this group Diane cites has some good fact sheets and opinion pieces to download
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/parent-resources/
https://www.au.org
americans united: separation of church and state
We know the that vouchers will be gone when the tea partiers understand that they are funding Islamic schools.
Rita Solnet works her heart off for public ed causes so it’s nice to see her work posted here. This is also why I think teachers and parents need to support Nan Rich, otherwise watch what happens when Crist follows the Jeb Bush agenda. If we don’t throw our support for those candidates who support public ed, we deserve what happens.