Scott Sargrad is in charge of K-12 education policy at the Center for American Policy. CAP has been one of the leading advocates for privately managed charters. This article explains in lucid prose why vouchers are a terrible strategy and how they actually harm most children who use them. He could have written the same article about charters, which suck money and top students away from public schools and weaken the very schools we should be helping.
He writes that no matter how many anecdotes you hear about vouchers, the bottom line is they they are a bad bet:
“But if our goal as a country is to provide an excellent education for every child, private school voucher schemes that send taxpayer dollars away from public schools and into private schools are too risky a gamble…
“It’s worth pausing for a moment to examine just how stunning the results of these studies are. In Indiana and the District of Columbia, students receiving vouchers actually moved backward in math, and made no progress in reading. In both Ohio and Louisiana, the students did significantly worse in both reading and math compared to their peers who remained in public schools – with students in Louisiana moving from the 50th percentile to the 34th percentile in math after just one year.
“And despite frequent claims that parents are happier after using a voucher, the evaluation of the District of Columbia program found no impact on parent or student satisfaction or parent involvement. (To be fair, the study found that parents perceived their private schools as safer – although the students did not.)
“It might be tempting to consider allowing for small, limited voucher programs that are carefully targeted to the neediest students and include important civil rights, antidiscrimination and transparency protections. Unfortunately, history shows clearly that this is never the case. Some of the biggest supporters of vouchers – including Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – are explicitly against these kinds of protections, casting them as over-regulation that limits choice.
“In fact, voucher programs often start small – such as targeting students with disabilities or families with lower incomes. Then proponents slowly but surely expand eligibility to all students and raise or eliminate income caps. Eventually, students using vouchers are those who have never enrolled in a public school, and increased spending on voucher programs leads to budget crunches that could harm public schools.
“Of course, public schools are not perfect – not even close. That’s why instead of directing taxpayer dollars to private school voucher schemes, states and the federal government should be investing public money in improving public schools.”
He goes on to encourage choice within public schools, including charters, but surely he knows that charters are as discriminatory as voucher schools and just as likely to be corrupt because of the typical absence of oversight or accountability. The “effective” charters are those that cherrypick their students, avoid those with disabilities, and push out students who can’t get high scores.
Charter Schools, by definition, are privately managed. They are not public schools. No matter what their allies call them, no matter what they call themselves, they are private schools that are bankrolled by public money.
Sorry, CAP, you can’t reject half of the Betsy DeVos agenda and embrace the other half.
The charter industry does not collaborate with public schools. It seeks to weaken them, not help them.
CAP, either support public schools or school choice. There is no middle ground. One is public, the other is not. Which side are you on?
More should speak out regarding Vouchers and Charter Schools.
The public should not be seduced by all the hype around charters and/or vouchers. More schools do not equal better schools. In a zero sum game, more schools equal weakened schools. Likewise, an investment in strong public schools is an investment in a community. Charters and vouchers promote a disinvestment in a community for meager or even negative results. Shipping local tax dollars out of a community and into corporate pockets enriches investors. Local tax dollars that stay in a community builds the community without all the waste, fraud and dirty dealings associated with the charter industry. Building options within public districts or through consortiums is a much more efficient way to provide choices for students. Local citizens stay in control of their tax dollars, and they retain democratic governance over their schools. This is a much wiser “choice.”
I also think too many representatives have been more than willing to “sell out” public schools as they are constantly seeking to build their warchests. Local groups should meet with representatives and advise them to support public education, or they will lose votes. It is the only power citizens have over local representatives that are more than happy to abrogate their responsibility to our young people. It is easier for them to accept the cash and look the other way. Unfortunately, money buys access. Gates knows this better than anyone.
You are right, retired teacher.
The charter industry does not collaborate with public schools. It seeks to weaken them, not help them.
Yes, and the Gates-funded “compacts,”intended to help charters “make nice” while taking over decisions in local districts are a perfect example. What possible harm could result from “co-location” charters squatting in school facilities they have not paid for? What possible harm could arise from a school district “sharing” its services for special education with charter schools? And so on down the line, including transportation, food services, and so on. Charter operators are on the take, literally, from public schools and tax dollars earmarked for students not the pockets of charter schools–corporate schools.
I just spent several days in Grand Rapids Michigan. The DeVos family own the city.
All the school “sectors” are poaching each others’ students. There’s billboards all over the place. There’s no “cooperation” or “collaboration”- it’s a free for all.
They’re going to end up with a bunch of fragmented, poorly-funded schools with bewildered parents wandering around trying to parse the ed reform marketing from the truth.
This is what DeVos wants for the whole country.
It is that time of year: Thanks for the report.
Why doesn’t someone in ed reform try actually advocating for public schools?
It’s nice that they spend all this time conducting battles between the charter factions and the voucher factions, but how is anything they do relevant to kids in public schools?
Why should we listen to them? Do they offer any added value to kids in public schools?
I love the new advocacy of public charters over private vouchers. It is a distinction without a difference. Charters and vouchers steal money from public schools to provide an education to the children they deem worthy. Public school teachers are privileged to teach children with and without special needs. They may have recently arrived and speak not a word of English. Some have never attended school in their native countries. Others have been traumatized by wars, domestic violence and hunger. It is wonderful that the rich and powerful have the stamina to fight meaningless semantic battles.
CAP isn’t stupid enough to think public charters exist. They know the accurate description is contractor schools.
I had to check back to make sure there were quotation marks around his comments since his remarks about vouchers sounded like you could have written them. Too bad he refuses to see the harm that charters are doing to real public schools.
Read the titles of the articles Scargrad wrote (linked at CAP) e.g “Investing in Educator Capacity”. The vernacular fits the language of “human capital pipelines”, the description a Gates-funded organization used for schools.
On which side is CAP? They serve the oligarchy.
They advocate the same expansion of the Gates’ agenda into higher ed that Sen. Rubio proposed as legislation in March 2017 (CAP’s plan – “It’s Time for a Quality Alternative to College Accreditation”, Forbes Nov. 2016. The plan was co-written by a former New America employee. Gates funds New America.)
CAP is a substantial reason Hillary lost. Hillary’s campaign manager Podesto founded CAP. Walton heirs, Gates, et. al. fund CAP. Between 2013-2105, Gates gave CAP $2.2 mil. The VP of Education Policy at CAP was formerly TFA. During Hillary’s run for president, the CEO of the P.R. firm that Podesto started with his brother (and, his brother was involved in during the campaign) had as CEO, the former deputy campaign manager for Gov. Jeb Bush. Podesto is in a video on a dais with Jeb Bush and Chester Finn, calling for donors to support candidates who will push privatized education.
Public education is America’s most important common good and the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose its privatization. But, IMO, electoral wins are less important to CAP than serving the interests of the richest 0.1%.
The best thing the Democratic Party can do is oust neoliberals like those CAP represents.
Weingarten instead of building support for public schools by enlisting the aid of other unions, was thick with Hillary’s campaign, going so far as to offend the nurses’ union, based on leaked e-mails from the campaign.
Great synopsis Linda!