Edwin Rios of Mother Jones writes here about the dreadful evaluations on Betsy DeVos’ favorite form of school choice: Vouchers.
Researchers used to find that students who received vouchers saw little or no difference in their test scores.
Now a new body of research is reporting that students (who enter the program with low scores) actually lose ground when they transfer to a voucher school.
We had seen these discouraging reports before about Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio.
Now the latest study from D.C. reaches the same conclusion. Students are negatively affected by switching from a public school to a voucher school.
The logic seems clear. The public school has experienced and credentialed teachers. Many voucher schools do not.
School choice advocates (aka reformers) used to claim that they were “saving poor kids from failing schools.”
DeVos, however, told the Washington Post that when the choice movement is fully implemented, all three sectors (public, charter, and voucher) will have the same results. “When school choice policies are fully implemented,” she said, “there should be no differences in achievement among the various types of schools.”
In other words, the children who are now low-performing will continue to be low-performing, and all three sectors will have the same outcomes they have now.
Remind me of the reason for school choice?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
So, Betsey has figured out to reinvent the wheel and make a profit from it…….good to hear.
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Because to get rid of public schools means that unions will be busted up. Teachers will still need a job even if they won’t be paid as well/same as in a public school. That’s how she can justify that there will be no difference in achievement among various types of schools. Public schools will be computerized and run with TFA babysitters.
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When looking at the “no excuses” charter schools always being hyped by so-called reformers, i don’t see babysitters; I see colonizers and prison guards.
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In Ohio, the reason for school choice is campaign donations from contractor school operators’ to the state Republican Party and Gov. Kasich. The derivative reason is the enrichment of the contractor schools’ owners.
Back to the Jesus schools of DeVos.- Irish exile and Civil War General Thomas Meagher
wrote, “I set my face against the alliance of Church and State-here and elsewhere-now and for all-time…I am opposed to the exercise in political affairs of any and every clerical influence whatsoever.”
DeVos has the same lack of understanding about history that Trump does-both were educated in private schools.
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Trump, DeVos and many others including prominent democrats hold on to the magical notion that the “free market” will solve all our problems. Then, they set out the rig the market against their target for privatization, which as we know, is public education and against all those trouble making union workers. Evidence will not deter them in their mission. They keep throwing more money at impediments to forward their flawed and biased plans.
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Retired,
The fundamental purpose of choice is not to help children but to kill unions.
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Unbelievable !
“When school choice policies are fully implemented,” she said, “there should be no differences in achievement among the various types of schools.”
Someone should make a list of these idiotic statements. So, if achievement is found to be different in the various types of schools that parents choose, the problem is merely one of “implementing the policies of school choice.” I need help. What does she mean?
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When school choice policies are fully implemented, most students will perform worse than they did when they were in their public schools. If they pass a law that prohibits examining results, it will be easier for “reformers” to prevail and crush those pesky unions. Billionaires and corporations can then have their way with oodles of public funds.
Parents and concerned citizens are going to have to step up and demand accountability and a change of course based on evidence. Otherwise, the privateers will continue to stack the deck against public education.
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“When school choice policies are fully implemented,” she said, “there should be no differences in achievement among the various types of schools.”
Wow. She knows the results of her experiment before she conducts it!
3/4’s of what DeVos says is conjecture. She makes these big promises of fairy tales and rainbows and she has no earthly idea how any of her privatization plans will play out.
She doesn’t know how privatization will work. None of them know.
She assured those people in Van Wert their public schools would stay strong even with a giant 20 billion dollar voucher program and she can’t assure them of that! She has NO IDEA what will happen to their schools under privatization. None. She doesn’t know what it will cost or how it will affect existing public schools and the community. To say she does is incredibly dishonest.
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Chiara,
She said she is not a numbers person. She is a belief person.
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“3/4’s of what DeVos says is conjecture.”
You’re being way to generous, Chiara. More like 99.9%.
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Say we all go along with privatization and it isn’t as wonderful as all these people say it will be.
What then? Do we get public schools back? How? Petition our state legislature to undo privatization laws? Fat chance. We can’t even get them to pay attention to public schools now and 90% of kids attend them.
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The corporate/religious movement for publicly funded school choice has nothing to do with improving education. The reason is obvious. Betsy Devos and Trump (and most of his deplorable cabinet) are biased racists and they want to totally segregate the population by race and/or socioeconomic levels. Only children that are easy to teach, control, and behave according to the biased, racist, corporate/religious views of this movement will be allowed to cross over out of the segregated segment that the choice movement will cram them into.
Trump and his hardcore minions and supporters want the United States to return to the era of Jim Crow but much worse. If they succeed, South Africa during apartheid will look tame in comparison.
Medical care and the quality education and lifestyles will be stripped from those in the lowest tiers of the cast system this movement is creating.
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David Koch on Aspen’s board, the colonialist views of Marc Andreeson, Peter Thiel’s exclusionary voting preferences, Gates’ cost-cutting schools-in-a-box, etc., they add up to an unprecedented threat to the great American experiment in equality of opportunity.
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Other side of the story regarding these findings. They show only 1 year results. Longer term results (which I think we could all agree are more important) show better. https://www.federationforchildren.org/american-federation-children-response-ies-study/
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John,
Are you seriously quoting Betsy DeVos’ advocacy group to support vouchers?
What about the voucher results from Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana, all from reputable scholars?
Can you give us another quote from DeVos?
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John,
Rhetorically, who are the “Federation for Children’s” vulture philanthropists?
Fordham sponsored Figlio’s research on Ohio vouchers and Fordham expressed surprise at the finding of voucher failure. Whatever to do? Bury the paper? Or, release the paper with a foreword claiming a finding about competition benefit. Can you find, in the paper, research support for the competition benefit finding, because I couldn’t.
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DeVos’ fundamental motivation is religious – to place schools under the control of churches. That means not under the control of teachers, their unions or even of the constitution. Her methods just happen to coincide with free-market capitalists. In order of hierarchy, these extreme fundamentalists, of which there are several in the new administration, believe in:
Church
Family
Disbanding all secular institutions and reforming them under church authority
Ignoring the constitution in favor of religious authority
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