Steven Singer read the article explaining that voucher schools do not increase test scores, a fact now confirmed by multiple studies and evaluation, but they do make racism acceptable.
He writes:
For decades, school voucher advocates claimed that sending poor kids to private schools with public tax dollars was acceptable because doing so would raise students’ test scores.
However, in the few cases where voucher students are even required to take the same standardized tests as public school students, the results have been dismal.
In short, poor kids at private schools don’t get better test scores.
So why are we spending billions of public tax dollars to send kids to privately run schools?
A 2018 Department of Education evaluation of the Washington, D.C., voucher program found that public school students permitted to attend a private or parochial school at public expense ended up getting worse scores than they had at public school.
Their scores went down 10 points in math and stayed about the same in reading.
These are not the pie in the sky results we were promised when we poured our tax money into private hands.
However, corporate education propaganda site, The 74, published a defense of these results that – frankly – makes some pretty jaw dropping claims.
The article is “More Regulation of D.C. School Vouchers Won’t Help Students. It Will Just Give Families Fewer Choices for Their Kids” by far right Cato Institute think tanker Corey DeAngelis.
In his piece, not only does he call for less accountability for voucher schools, he downplays the importance of standardized test scores.
And he has a point. Test scores aren’t a valid reflection of student learning – but that’s something public school advocates have been saying for decades in response to charter and voucher school cheerleaders like DeAngelis.
Supply side lobbyists have been claiming we need school privatization BECAUSE it will increase test scores. Now that we find this claim is completely bogus, the privatizers are changing their tune.
The new song is, “why shouldn’t parents be able to choose a school that has a ‘culture’ more to their liking?”
Singer hears a racist dog whistle in that reference to “culture.”
So parents don’t like the CULTURE of public schools. And they’re afraid public schools aren’t as SAFE.
Hmm. I wonder what culture these parents are objecting to. I wonder why they would think public schools wouldn’t be as safe.
Could it perhaps be fear of black students!?
Give DeAnglis credit for his honesty. No more happy talk about higher scores. It’s all about picking a school where the children look like you. Why are we surprised?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In our country the free market fanatics, the Christian right and the libertarians have allied to elect politicians that are immoral and corrupt enough to legitimize segregation under the guise of “choice.” It has taken several decades after the Brown decision for us to get us to this point, but this is where we are. Our government is complicit in targeting public education for destruction. Evidence, facts and reason will not save public education. Outraged, engaged citizens that defend public education and show up to vote are the only hope.
Here’s an ed reform analysis by local media in Dayton:
“Of the 70 school buildings in Dayton that receive public money to educate the city’s children, only 27 are actually Dayton Public Schools. The rest are publicly funded charter schools or private schools for which kids can get vouchers from the state to help cover tuition. In fact, nearly 40 percent of the students DPS is eligible to serve go elsewhere.
But many charter and private schools have worse test scores than DPS. ”
You won’t read about Dayton ed reform in the NYTimes or in any of the ed reform publications or outlets- to get any real sense of how ed reform looks on the ground you have to read local media.
The truth of these reforms is much, much different up close.
https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/map-how-charter-private-schools-compare-dayton-public-schools/Lx7DehlEAL8396cfxWLXzK/
The real damage in Ohio hasn’t been done by charters and vouchers. It’s been done by the national ed reform movement, who told lawmakers “choice!” was an easy, cheap “miracle” that meant they could utterly neglect public schools, which they were more than happy to do.
They could gut public school funding, make careers out of bashing public schools, public school students and public school teachers, and as long as they spouted the ed reform line on “choice!” they could tell themselves they were “improving public education”.
They’ve abandoned our schools and ed reformers have cheered them along every step of the way. It doesn’t matter if no one in Columbus bothers with public schools- all ed reformers ask is that they cheerlead charters and vouchers.
85% of the kids in the state- the kids who happen to attend the unfashionable PUBLIC schools- have suffered as a result.
It’s a net loss.
Here’s the US Department of Education yesterday, outlining their “solution” to public education:
“We are committed to expanding education freedom for all families across America. You’ve probably heard me described as “pro-school choice.” Well, I am, but choice in education is not defined by picking this building or that school, using this voucher or that scholarship. And it’s not public versus private. Parochial versus charter. Homeschool versus virtual.
It shouldn’t be “versus” anything, because choice in education is bigger than that.
Choice is really about freedom! Freedom to learn, and to learn differently. Freedom to explore. Freedom to fail, to learn from falling and to get back up and try again. It’s freedom to find the best way for you to learn and grow…to find the engaging combination that unleashes your curiosity and unlocks your individual potential.”
See? It’s easy! They don’t have to lift a finger to have a great education system. Nor do they have to PAY for it. They’ll simply cheerlead charters and vouchers and bash public schools and the magic of markets will take care of the rest.
This is a fantasy, but politicians love it, because no one has to invest anything at all! It’s the easiest thing in the world to sell- it’s “free”!
When it comes down to it, a lot of people talk a good multicultural game but most seem to prefer tribalism. The tribes in America are sorted by race, ethnicity, religion. socio-economic status, educational attainment, political affiliation, etc. So is this really a form of racist segregation?
Multiple voucher studies in Sweden and Chile show that the predictable result of vouchers is segregation—by race, income, religion, social class
I can’t figure out why I’m paying ed reformers at all. If the goal is privatization and handing out a low value voucher to families, then all I need is a competent bookkeeper.
We could cut this consultant sector down to nothing and outsource the whole thing to a contractor who cuts checks.
You could abolish the whole K-12 division of the US Department of Ed and state educational agencies. If all they do is provide funding to contractors why do we need that at all? Privatize that and they can all go home.
Trump’s rhetoric is also filled with references to the term culture and it used as a dog-whistle for racists and opponents to those “aliens,” the immigrants. He used the term culture in this way more then once while in Europe. It is clearly consistent with the 74’s posturing about civil rights while promoting means to segregate/re-segregate schools on the basis of race and social class. People long considered minorities are, in fact the new emerging majority. Guess who that scares?
YES. Many “choice school” separations are due to a covert elitism which ultimately comes out as code for: a certain type of family catered to and preferred.
How many studies need to be done. WE know what works in this country and what doesn’t work. This hand wringing is so tiring to the minorities whose lives are being shortchanged by the majority. True educators have no one to blame but themselves, we allowed public schools budgets be cut, and we allowed Wall Street to dictate the world of pretend charters. So lets stop the hand wringing and vote people in office who are going to do something. If you believe the million dollar lie by Facebook for Newark New Jersey you will believe anything that the so called better than us rich people have to say
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Bill Gates, google, Verizon and the technology companies who are doing so much good while laughing all the way to the bank. They dont care about education no matter how much he cares about the world which I don’t see anything happening to better the world but what do I know. We saw how Mr. Musk acted when no one wanted to use his submarine to rescues the children. He became ugly and called people names, so why in the world would anyone believe that these racist white people care about minorities except in the plantation mode.
Calls for choice because of school culture and safety aren’t racist dog whistles; they are racist bullhorns.