Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski are among the nation’s leading researchers on the subject of school choice. Their book, “The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools” is must reading. Christopher Lubienski is professor of education policy at Indiana University. Sarah Theule Lubienski is a professor of mathematics education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
They can’t understand why Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are pushing vouchers when evidence shows that they actually harm children.
This article appears in Education Week.
“For years, voucher advocates have pointed to a series of more than a dozen reports—usually funded or conducted by voucher proponents—that used randomized approaches, similar to those used in medical research, to isolate the effects of vouchers on treatment groups in citywide programs.
“While other researchers have questioned those reports over the last decade and a half, voucher advocates have claimed that these “gold standard” studies showed vouchers boosting achievement significantly for some students. Furthermore, they liked to point out, no students were harmed by school vouchers.
“But that has all changed.
“In April, the Institute of Education Sciences released a rigorous study showing that the congressionally mandated Opportunity Scholarship Program in the nation’s capital caused significant negative effects on student learning. Students who used vouchers through the program to attend private schools in Washington experienced a 7-percentile-point decline in mathematics and an almost 5-percentile-point decline in reading compared with students who applied to, but were randomly rejected from, the program.
“This report follows recent research on voucher programs in Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana, all producing large, negative effects on learning for voucher students. In Louisiana, an average student using a voucher would end the first year of the program falling from the 50th to the 34th percentile in math. If the student was in 3rd through 5th grade, he or she would end the year even lower, at the 26th percentile.
“The impact of participation in Ohio’s EdChoice program was “unambiguously negative across a variety of model specifications, for both reading and mathematics,” according to a study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute last year. Similar negative findings are reported for Indiana’s statewide voucher program, the largest in the nation.”
That evidence has had no impact on DeVos, however, who wants to spend hundreds of millions on more voucher programs.
The Lubienskis find it equally fascinating to watch voucher advocates twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain away the research consensus on the failure of their favorite cause. Having pinned their careers on test scores, they now have decided that test scores don’t matter after all!
“Some have tried to attribute the negative results to regulations that discourage “better” private schools in certain states from accepting vouchers that would then require their students to take tests. This claim does not hold water when we are also seeing large, negative effects of vouchers in the other states as well.
“Another possible explanation is that most of the research of years past that supported the success of vouchers was funded and conducted by voucher advocates who sought a particular result. However, some of these new, negative findings were also produced by pro-voucher organizations and researchers, to their credit.
“Perhaps a likelier explanation for these poor results has to do with the actual students and schools themselves, including how students were grouped in private and public schools. Prior to the recent batch of research that has cast doubt on vouchers, studies lauding vouchers tended to be based on local and more targeted programs involving relatively small, non-representative sets of students and schools.
“Yet, overall, private schools are actually no more effective, and often less so, than public schools. Indeed, our own research indicates that any apparent advantages for students in private schools are actually more a reflection of the fact that private schools do a better job of attracting—not producing—high-scoring students.
“For our book, The Public School Advantage, we examined two nationally representative data sets to determine whether private schools really offer superior educational programs and outcomes, or whether higher test scores in private schools are simply a reflection of the fact that they serve more advantaged students. Those analyses revealed that, after accounting for differences in demographics, public schools are more effective, particularly in teaching mathematics.
“Research as far as back as the Coleman Report in 1966 indicates that private school students enjoy the beneficial “peer effect” of being around affluent classmates who have abundant educational resources at home and parents who have firsthand experience with school success. These students benefit from the experience of having teachers who are able to focus on solely academic content, rather than the nonacademic needs of some students.
“This peer effect is a significant factor in student learning, but frankly, there are only a limited number of academically advantaged peers to go around. And so, as choice programs expand, the private-school peer effect is diluted. Hence, despite benefits of greater socioeconomic integration for students from low-income families, the benefits may not be scalable in expanding voucher programs that are based on self-selection.
“It makes sense, then, that negative results are now appearing as researchers carefully examine larger-scale programs. Earlier studies looked only at students leaving small groups of (presumably failing) public schools for small groups of private schools that self-selected into the voucher program. Those studies were therefore not representative of the wider populations of public and private schools.
“Yet the newer, larger-scale studies are starting to more closely approximate the nationally representative samples we previously analyzed when coming to our conclusion that public schools, in fact, have an edge over private schools in student learning.
“There is a disturbing disconnect between the predictable, negative effects that vouchers are having on students, and the continued enthusiasm policymakers show for these programs despite the growing consensus that they are causing harm.
“Do we, as parents, taxpayers, and voters, want to fund programs that elevate choice, but lead to detrimental outcomes for children? Is choice a means or an end?”
Work to do what?
As long as we keep thinking that DeVos’ mission is to educate kids, we’ll keep missing the point. Vouchers in fact work wonderfully well for what DeVos intends them to do.
Reason: KA-CHING … $$$$$$$$$$!
To Trump and DeVos, if “Choice” leads to profits and increased wealth for the wealthy, that is the only measure of success that counts. Let’s not forget that most if not all billionaires worship at the altar of avarice where greed is greater than God. That is why they are billionaires, and they are incapable of understanding anyone that does not think like them.
Lloyd Lofthouse
“For years, voucher advocates have pointed to a series of more than a dozen reports—usually funded or conducted by voucher proponents—that used randomized approaches, similar to those used in medical research, to isolate the effects of vouchers on treatment groups in citywide programs.
“While other researchers have questioned those reports over the last decade and a half, voucher advocates have claimed that these “gold standard” studies showed vouchers boosting achievement significantly for some students. Furthermore, they liked to point out, no students were harmed by school vouchers. ”
So my friend Llyod; who has the popular narrative pushed in the media in a deafening assault ? .
“usually funded or conducted by voucher proponents”!!!!!!! .
(or lobbies like NAM)
When we are done with the Robots , we can discuss the skills shortage myth , the one that goes with the meritocracy myth. . All myths that do not seem to show up in the economic data. Myths very conveniently used by the Oligarchy to explain income inequality.
But not now, I am on my way to a resist Trump demo , no time to google my ” alt right ,alternative facts”
It’s actually worse than just preferring vouchers. It’s specifically targeting existing public school funding and shifting it to voucher programs.
It’s designed so public school students take another hit in service to The Movement.
DeVos and Trump found the funding for their privatization push – they took it from kids in public schools.
Correct, and this is yet another example of one of the primary ways that wealth is accumulated. Why use your own money, putting it at risk, when you can use your influence over the political system to use other people’s money instead? Remember Arbitrage?
Has anyone at the US Dept of Ed met with advocates for public schools?
We can insist these publicly-paid member employees meet with people who represent public schools, right?
Isn’t that part of their job? They should do their jobs, no matter their personal opinions on public schools.
The public can read the Secretary’s schedule on the US Dept of Ed site.
Ask her why she doesn’t meet with advocates for 90% of US students.
Is this part of her job? Why doesn’t she do it?
Does anyone have a rejoinder about the methodology for the supposed “gold standard” pro- voucher studies following students who took the voucher and comparing them to those who “won” but stayed in their public schools, who purportedly did worse than those who took the voucher for the private school?
“Free market” charter schools collecting voucher money are proving to be a disaster for taxpayers, both financially and educationally, and such vast amounts of public tax money have already being skimmed away by charter schools and funneled into corporate and the private pockets of politicians’ cronies that the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report that, because of their lack of accountability to the public, charter schools pose a risk to the Department of Education’s goals. The report finds that “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of financial fraud and the artful skimming of tax money into private pockets.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its favorable reporting on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax dollars that are intended to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets and to the bottom lines of hedge funds.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Court, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools at all because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. That’s common sense to any taxpayer: Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money but have virtually no public record accountability of what they do with the tax money they divert from genuine public schools.
There are many tactics used by many charter school operators to reap profit from their schools, even the so-called “non-profits”, such as private charter school boards paying exorbitant sums to lease building space for their school in buildings that are owned by corporations that are in turn owned or controlled by the charter school board members or are REIT investments that are part of a hedge fund’s portfolio. There are many other avenues of making a hidden profit from operating private charter schools.
In addition to the siphoning away of money from needy schools, reports from the NAACP and ACLU have revealed facts about just how charter schools are resegregating our nation’s schools, as well as discriminating racially and socioeconomically against American children of color; and, very detailed nationwide research by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA shows in clear terms that private charter schools suspend extraordinary numbers of black students. Based on these and other findings of racial discrimination in charter schools, the NAACP Board of Directors has passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.
Therefore, in order to assure that tax dollars are being spent wisely and that there is no racism in charter schools, charter schools should minimally (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that the charter schools are accountable to the public; (2) be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) be required to operate so that anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
Those aren’t unreasonable requirements. In fact, they are common sense to taxpayers and to anyone who seeks to assure that America’s children — especially her neediest children — are optimally benefiting from public tax dollars intended for their education. But, after the internal scams of charter schools become exposed to taxpayers through routine public reporting, the charter school industry will dry up and disappear, and the money that the charter school industry has been draining away from America’s neediest children will again flow to those in need.
If charter schools were required to file the same financial statements that public schools file, the skimming of tax money would stop and hedge funds would move on to their next target, leaving the charter school “movement” to dry up.
NO PUBLIC TAX MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC.
Thank you for continuing to re-publish this posted info, Scisne. Excellent post!
Another aspect of vouchers is that many of the small, inexpensive religious schools that would accept a voucher as tuition offer minimally trained “teachers.” This may also account for some of the decline in scores. Perhaps DeVos and company figure that voucher schools will be able to pick up trained teachers cheaply if public opportunities disintegrate. Of course, these teachers will have to give up a decent standard of living, benefits and a pension, a devastating blow to the middle class.
In a free market, the buyer has the right to buy in the cheapest market, and the seller has the right to sell in the dearest market. When publicly-operated schools down-size, and there are layoffs, the laid-off staff will possibly seek alternate employment. Some will be forced to accept a salary/benefit package, less that what the publicly-operated school can offer.
“free market” [sic]
There. Fixed it for you.
In case you’ve missed my explanation before, there is no such thing as a free market. The government determines the market. The only question is in whose favor do they set it. You seem to support setting it in favor of the richest and most powerful at the expense of the rest of us. Never understood the fight for the right to be abused and exploited, but I at least hope your minders are paying you well to do it.
Making education a “free market” is an artificial construct that leads to winners and losers rather than opportunity for all. It I prefer to start with the right of all students to have an excellent education. Instead of trying to manipulate everything into a market, we should be putting students at the center, instead of companies. Steven Singer wrote a great post about what is wrong with assumption that education should be a market. https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/18/heres-an-idea-guarantee-every-child-an-excellent-education/
dienne77
“In case you’ve missed my explanation before, there is no such thing as a free market. The government determines the market. The only question is in whose favor do they set it”
Absolutely correct and that is the basis of the definition of Politics and economics taught in many intro to Political Science classes.
“Economics who gets what , Politics who decided who gets what”
“Politics Who Gets What When and How” Harold Laswell 1936 .
And I hope you will continue to follow that thought down the line, Charles.
I was once a FT priv-sch teacher, back in the ’70’s. While an undergraduate, I spurned state-certification courses in favor of grad courses in my field, & was happy, after obtaining BA, w/my priv-sch salary– 33% less than pubsch teachers’ salary, w/minimal benefits compared to pubsch teachers– as a trade-off for smaller classes filled w/culturally-privileged, wealthy, adv-IQ students, to whom I could teach my own curriculum-design [they bought the books.].
But that could only happen because I was married to a like-minded priv-sch teacher w/whom I shared livg expenses. And no way could that household have supported a family. We were better-trained than TFA’s, but the paradigm was similar: the contract was for 2 yrs, & the admin understood that their priv-sch teachers would have to move on, except for those married to bigger-ticket spouses.
You are describing a cascade of market events wherein higher-paid public-school teachers– most of whom earn sufficient income to support a family if married to another pubsch teacher– or could do so as solo breadwinner, if they move up the admin career path– are busted down by competition to lesser-paid, lesser-benefit charter or voucher school positions.
When publically-operated schools downsize due to ‘school choice’, such qualified teachers will perhaps be available– briefly– to fill those lesser salary/benefit ed openings in ‘choice’ schools. But they will have to re-train/ move on, in order to support children & buy a house. Going forward under the free-market ed-paradigm, the only folks available to staff those lesser salary/benefits positions will be the underqualified/ lesser-educated. They will be ‘paras’, suitable only for delivering scripted lessons or monitoring computer-delivered [CBE] ed.
Of course, DC has a huge charter sector, and anyone who is trying to get out of the regular public schools is either signing up for charters or vouchers. So what the voucher study actually shows is that charter schools are working great!
Simplified thinking for simplistic rationales.
We need a study to answer this question?
Really!??
Serious people had to “research” this.
Has to be a joke.
One of the reasons why we are losing more and more each day is because we have to research why people like DeVos support ideas that are educationally unsound.
It’s like many of us don’t see the writing on the wall.
Sad.
Like.
Duane’s irrefutable argument against testing suggests that all these studies are hogwash. The pro-voucher pro-charter studies tell us nothing about their efficacy and the studies support the other side are mostly specious too. So what are we to do. When all this testing stuff started, I said that we were in trouble. Once we start to define learning in terms of tests, we have started down the wrong road.
I agree. We should be putting the needs of students front and center, not testing. We should be investing in our young people as they are the future. Read Steven Singer’s article I mentioned above for a look at what should be our focus.
Roy,
It comes down to the business thinking of “measuring output” in terms of dollars and cents, with trying to keep input costs at a minimum. This minimal input to get maximum output is fine and dandy for a business. I have no problem with that thinking in the business world as the making a profit has to be one of the main goals, otherwise the enterprise will falter and go out of business.
BUT, and that’s a thousand font BUT, the ultimate goal of the teaching and learning process in community public education is not to make a profit but to ensure, as mandated by state’s constitutions, the promoting of the welfare of the individual student so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry. Therefore, the concern of public education cannot be evaluated via “outputs” such as student grades, student courses taken or invalid student standardized test scores or any of the other supposed “measures” (sic) of said “output”.
The only valid assessment is “Are we providing the necessary services (inputs) that allows each child to “savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.” Anything less, and that assessment should include not only the school’s input but also the student’s and parent’s in an open responsive back and forth fashion. Nothing less should be considered adequate.
It appears that the function of focusing on false “output” indicators is to, as many know here, cast aspersions on the community public schools so that the privateer vultures can come in and pick off the monies that should be dedicated to every child.
And I would give credit to Noel Wilson for that irrefutable argument. I’m just the “disperser” of his brilliant arguments.
There is a growing body of evidence, showing that school choice/vouchers are improving the performance of the children whose parents elect to have more control over their education spending. A major study has been completed in the Milwaukee schools, which shows a substantial improvement in the quality and results of the educational choices exercised by the parents.
A non-partisan group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, has produced a study, where the results are “astonishing”. The study has taken into consideration, the various elements, where a genuine “apples to apples” comparison can be made. see the article at
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445570/school-choice-successes-wisconsin-higher-test-scores
and
http://www.will-law.org/test-scores-student-achievement-school-performance/
the study says:
We find that private schools in the choice programs and public charter schools in Milwaukee and Wisconsin perform significantly better on the ACT and Forward Exams than traditional public schools when a proper apples-to-apples comparison is made.
see also:
Click to access apples.pdf
Charles,
Students in Milwaukee are among the lowest scoring in the nation on the NAEP, regardless of which sector they attend. Everything you cited is absurd rightwing apologetics. Creating three publicly funded sectors has not improved education. It has ruined it. Why not cite Detroit, where charters are numerous? Another choice failure.
Charles lives in a right-wing echo chamber and he has something in common with Trump. They are both married to a Russian and I’m not talking about Trump’s wife. I’m talking about Trump’s other wife or husband, Putin.
On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 7:42 AM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch commented: “Charles, Students in Milwaukee are among the > lowest scoring in the nation on the NAEP, regardless of which sector they > attend. Everything you cited is absurd rightwing apologetics. Creating > three publicly funded sectors has not improved education. It has” >
She pushes vouchers because they are s tax avoidance strategy of the rich and privileged. Donations to education scholarship programs in most states are a tax deduction and sometimes also a federal deduction.