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Martin Carnoy: Vouchers Will Not Help the Neediest Students

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2017 //
55

Martin Carnoy is a professor at Stanford University who has studied education systems around the world.

Carnoy wrote a report for the Economic Policy Institute about the efficacy of vouchers, or their lack thereof. The report is titled “School Vouchers Are Not a Proven Strategy for Improving Student Achievement.” Carnoy reviews the longest-running voucher programs in the U.S. and other countries and finds little evidence that they improve student achievement.

Here is his summary:

“This report seeks to inform that debate by summarizing the evidence base on vouchers. Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs. In the few cases in which test scores increased, other factors, namely increased public accountability, not private school competition, seem to be more likely drivers. And high rates of attrition from private schools among voucher users in several studies raises concerns. The second largest and longest-standing U.S. voucher program, in Milwaukee, offers no solid evidence of student gains in either private or public schools.

“In the only area in which there is evidence of small improvements in voucher schools—in high school graduation and college enrollment rates—there are no data to show whether the gains are the result of schools shedding lower-performing students or engaging in positive practices. Also, high school graduation rates have risen sharply in public schools across the board in the last 10 years, with those increases much larger than the small effect estimated on graduation rates from attending a voucher school.

“The lack of evidence that vouchers significantly improve student achievement (test scores), coupled with the evidence of a modest, at best, impact on educational attainment (graduation rates), suggests that an ideological preference for education markets over equity and public accountability is what is driving the push to expand voucher programs. Ideology is not a compelling enough reason to switch to vouchers, given the risks. These risks include increased school segregation; the loss of a common, secular educational experience; and the possibility that the flow of inexperienced young teachers filling the lower-paying jobs in private schools will dry up once the security and benefits offered to more experienced teachers in public schools disappear.

“The report suggests that giving every parent and student a great “choice” of educational offerings is better accomplished by supporting and strengthening neighborhood public schools with a menu of proven policies, from early childhood education to after-school and summer programs to improved teacher pre-service training to improved student health and nutrition programs. All of these yield much higher returns than the minor, if any, gains that have been estimated for voucher students.”

Carnoy published a shorter version of the report for a popular audience. He wrote an article for the New York Daily News explaining why Trump and DeVos are wrong about school choice, specifically vouchers.

He reviews recent research in plain language. Kids don’t benefit. In some places, they actually lose ground.

As I have often written in this space, if vouchers, charters, and school choice were the solution to the problems of urban education, Milwaukee would be the model district of the nation, as it has had choice since 1990. That’s two full generations of students.

He writes:

If the President and his new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, were right about choice, Milwaukee would be among the highest-scoring urban school districts in the nation. Milwaukee’s private students would be outscoring those in public schools, and students in public schools would have made large gains because of the intense competition from private and charter schools.

None of that is the case. Research over a four-year period that compared the gains of voucher and public school students in Milwaukee showed that the voucher students did no better. And it’s African Americans, who make up roughly two-thirds of Milwaukee’s student body, who are the main recipients of vouchers and also most likely to attend charter schools.

When we compare the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores — that’s the gold standard of achievement tests — of black students in eighth-grade math and reading in 13 urban U.S. school districts, black students in Milwaukee have lower eighth-grade math scores than students in every city but Detroit — notably, another urban district with a high level of school choice.

In reading, Milwaukee’s black eighth-graders do even more poorly. They score lower than black eighth-graders in all other 12 city school districts.

How many billions will we waste on this failed free-market ideology? As Carnoy points out, investing in proven strategies in public schools with credentialed teachers would have long-term benefits.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Milwaukee, School Choice, Vouchers

Milwaukee: The Failed Promise of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2017 //
13

Milwaukee has had vouchers since 1990. The program was expanded to include religious schools in 1998. Voucher advocates, led by former superintendent Howard Fuller, insisted that school choice was the best way to raise the woeful academic performance of black students. Fuller, a social worker and one-time advocate for black nationalism, is now head of the pro-choice Black Alliance for Educational Options. Fuller, the one-time radical, has long been subsidized by rightwing foundations, including the Bradley Foundation and the Walton Foundation (and the Gates Foundation). None of the whites who run these foundations have any credibility in black communities, but Fuller is an effective salesman for their segregationist ideas.

In the early days of vouchers and charters, advocates promised that school choice would cause schools to get better by competing for students. School choice would bring about a rising tide that would lift all boats. Public schools would improve, they said, adopting new programs and higher standards to retain their students and beat the competition. John Chubb and Terry Moe published a seminal work in 1990 called “Politics, Markets, and Schools” in which they argued that all reforms of the existing system were doomed to fail because of its democratic governance and the power of the unions; they boldly claimed that school choice is a “panacea.”

That was the same year that Milwaukee first offered vouchers.

For several years, the Milwaukee voucher program was evaluated by opposing groups. Some said it helped students, others said it didn’t. Over time, critics and supporters reached a consensus view. The voucher program overall had no impact on student performance but parents were happier. Although students were not better prepared academically, they had a higher graduation rate, but they had such high attrition rates that the students least likely to graduate had already dropped out or returned to public schools.

Meanwhile, the public schools enrolled far higher proportions of students with disabilities because the voucher schools and charter schools said they could not meet their needs. The choice schools were also able to eliminate students who were disciplinary problems or academically unable and send them back to public schools.

This article portrays the situation in Milwaukee to mark the 25th anniversary of vouchers, in 2014. Nothing has changed since then. The evaluation industry has moved on. The consensus holds: students in voucher schools do not make greater test score gains than those in public schools. Public schools do not improve as a result of competition. Public schools lose funding to voucher schools and charter schools, which makes them less able to compete. Public schools get the students that the private voucher schools don’t want.

Pro-choice evaluators have reached the same conclusions in D.C. and Cleveland. No rising tide.

And this is the failed program that Betsy DeVos wants to spread across the nation. We now know that vouchers do not save poor kids from failing schools. Vouchers have no purpose other than to undermine public schools.

Categories Milwaukee, Vouchers

Barbara Miner: If You Care about Public Schools and Democracy, Beware of DeVos’ Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2017 //
27

Barbara Miner is a veteran journalist based in Milwaukee, where she writes often about the stat’s disastrous voucher plan. In 2013, she published a book called “Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American City.”

In this article in the Los Angeles Times, Miner warns that the public must keep watch on DeVos because her goal is to legitimize vouchers for religious schools across the nation.

She warns:

“DeVos, now confirmed as secretary of Education, is not just another inexperienced member of the president’s Cabinet. She is an ideologue with a singular educational passion — replacing our system of democratically controlled public schools with a universal voucher program that privileges private and religious ones.

“If you care about our public schools and our democracy, you should be worried.”

Miner describes how Milwaukee and Wisconsin were taken in by bait and switch.

“Milwaukee’s program began in 1990, when the state Legislature passed a bill allowing 300 students in seven nonsectarian private schools to receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers. It was billed as a small, low-cost experiment to help poor black children, and had a five-year sunset clause.

“That was the bait. The first “switch” came a few weeks later, when the Republican governor eliminated the sunset clause. Ever since, vouchers have been a divisive yet permanent fixture in Wisconsin.

“Conservatives have consistently expanded the program, especially when Republicans controlled the state government. (Vouchers have never been put to a public vote in Wisconsin.) Today, some 33,000 students in 212 schools receive publicly funded vouchers, not just in Milwaukee but throughout Wisconsin. If it were its own school district, the voucher program would be the state’s second largest. The overwhelming majority of the schools are religious.

“Voucher schools are private schools that have applied for a state-funded program that pays tuition for some or all of its student body. Even if every single student at a school receives a publicly funded voucher, as is the case in 22 of Milwaukee’s schools, that school is still defined as private.

“Because they are defined as “private,” voucher schools operate by separate rules, with minimal public oversight or transparency. They can sidestep basic constitutional protections such as freedom of speech. They do not have to provide the same level of second-language or special-education services. They can suspend or expel students without legal due process. They can ignore the state’s requirements for open meetings and records. They can disregard state law prohibiting discrimination against students on grounds of sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, or marital or parental status.”

Since 1990, the people of Wisconsin have paid more than $2 billion for vouchers, mostly to religious institutions. This has been an expensive experiment.

“Privatizing an essential public function and forcing the public to pay for it, even while removing it from meaningful public oversight, weakens our democracy.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Funding, Milwaukee, Privatization, Vouchers, Wisconsin

A Wake-Up Call for Fred Hiatt, Editorial Page Editor of the Washington Post

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2017 //
107

Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, wrote an uninformed opinion piece urging Trump to invite cities to become “laboratories of choice,” where every student could go to the school of his or her choice. He says this would be “the right kind of choice.” “Uninformed” is the polite term. I was tempted to say “absurd” or idiotic,” but decided to be polite.

 

He begins his article by reciting the specious claims of the right wingers that everyone exercises choice except the poor. I know these claims because I was part of three rightwing think tanks where they were repeated again and again. Some people choose parochial schools; some choose private schools; others choose safe suburbs and neighborhoods. Only the poor are “stuck” in “failing schools.”

 

The assumption behind these assertions is that choosing schools will improve education. But there is no evidence for this claim.

 

Here is some news for Mr. Hiatt.

 

We already have laboratories of choice. First, there is New Orleans, which has no public schools. The scores are up, but most of the charter schools continue to be low-performing, probably because they have the poor kids who were not accepted in the top-performing charters. The district as a whole is low-performing in relation to the state, which is one of the lowest-performing in the nation.

 

Then there is Milwaukee, which has had vouchers and charters for 25 years. Three sectors compete, and all are low-performing. How is that for a “laboratory of choice,” Mr. Hiatt?

 

Then there is Detroit, in Betsy DeVos’ home state of Michigan. Detroit is the lowest-performing urban district tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It is overrun by charters, many of them operating for profit. Now there is another fine example of a failing “laboratory of choice.”

 

Mr. Hiatt, why don’t you take a look at other nations’ school system. The one that most people admire, Finland, has well-resourced schools, highly educated teachers, professional autonomy, a strong professional union, and excellent results. What it does not have is standardized testing, competition, or choice.

 

Please, Fred, read my last two books Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Read Samuel Abrams’ Education and the Commercial Mindset. Read Mercedes Schneider’s School Choice. Pay attention. Be informed before you write.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Privatization, School Choice, Segregation, Vouchers

Three (No, Four) State Elections that Turned Out Well–and Our Plans for the Future

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2016 //
21

Voters in Massachusetts rejected Question 2, which would have authorized a dozen new charter schools every year. The margin, at last word, was 62-38%.

Voters in Georgia rejected Amendment 1, which would have allowed the Governor to take over low-scoring schools and put them in an “Opportunity School District,” a district of charter schools, whether for-profit or non-profit. Georgians apparently didn’t like the idea of abolishing local control of their schools. The vote was similar to Massachusetts, 60-40%. Voters were not fooled by the deceptive language.

Voters in Washington State re-elected the Supreme Court judges who declared that charter schools are not public schools, rejecting the judges supported by Bill Gates.

Our fight for public education continues. Now, with Donald Trump as President, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) works in our favor. He will turn over federal funds to the states without strings, and we will fight in every state to make sure that those funds are allocated to provide a better education for all children. From the results in Massachusetts and Georgia, we know that the majority is on the side of public schools.

We will win some, we will lose some, but we won’t give up. We will do what is right for children. We will defend teachers and the teaching profession. We will defend democratically-controlled public education. We will protect the public good.

Do not despair. Join the Network for Public Education. Plan to join us next October in Oakland, California, and help us plan for the future.

*PS: Wendy Lecker, civil rights lawyer, points out in the comments that voters in Kansas retained all the judges who ruled in favor of full funding for public schools, rebuffing Governor Brownback.
http://kcur.org/post/all-kansas-supreme-court-justices-retained

Categories Education Reform, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Supporting public schools, Washington State

Big Victory for Milwaukee: No State Takeover!

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2016 //
3

The Milwaukee Public Schools, teachers and parents celebrated a victory over a vindictive legislative cabal that hoped to start the privatization of the public schools. Their marks on the state report card (another fraudulent measure of schools) improved so much that its schools were safe from the takeover.

It’s a huge victory for MPS and the many public school advocates—including Schools and Communities United, the teachers’ union and MPS parents—who pushed back on the takeover.

MPS had been targeted for a takeover via the Abele-controlled Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program (OSPP), inserted into the state budget last year by Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield). The OSPP had no legislative hearings, was the subject of zero official forums in Milwaukee, lacked adequate funding and wasn’t requested by anyone in Milwaukee who truly understands the challenges urban schools face. Rather, the OSPP takeover was imposed on MPS by suburban lawmakers and agreed to by a county executive who lacks a college degree and has no experience in education policy. It was simply a way to privatize public assets and deprive Milwaukeeans—primarily black and brown Milwaukeeans—the right to vote for school representatives.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Milwaukee, Privatization

Larry Miller: Some of Trump’s Most Memorable Lines

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2016 //
4

Larry Miller is an editor at Rethinking Schools. He taught in the Milwaukee Public Schools for 17 years. He was elected to the Milwaukee school board in 2009.

Governor Scott Walker is doing his best to eliminate public education in Milwaukee by expanding vouchers and charters, even though the public schools are more successful than either of the privatized alternatives.

In this entertaining post, Miller cites some of Donald Trump’s most outrageous statements. He notes that Alberta Darling, who is Governor Walker’s ally in seeking to destroy public education, is support the “racist buffoon” candidate for the Presidency.

Categories Milwaukee, Trump

Tim Slekar: The Milwaukee Takeover Was Racist and Should be Abandoned

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2016 //
4

Tim Slekar, dean of Edgewood College in Wisconsin, is one of the bravest people in the resistance to corporate reform.

He was involved in the opt out movement long before others (like me) joined in.

He has used all kinds of media to refute the attacks on teachers and public schools.

Here he challenges the law that allowed the state of Wisconsin to take over some low-scoring public schools in Milwaukee.

Tim asks, now that the commissioner appointed to run the privatization district, Demond Means, has resigned, what will County Executive Chris Abele do?

Now what? What will County Executive Abele do now? Will he continue to “uphold the law?” Or will he muster the courage needed to express solidarity with the parents, teachers, and children and execute his duty as a citizen to peacefully disobey an unjust and unethical law? Will he denounce a law that is founded on discriminatory assumptions about communities of color and animated disdain for people in poverty?

Or will he simply reappoint a new commissioner and “uphold” a law born out of privileged and contempt for our brothers and sisters that remain strangled by systemic racism and crushing poverty?

Tim is there. He knows what is happening. I listen to him. So should you.

I am still waiting for someone to give me an example of a successful state takeover of a low-scoring school, one that did something other than change the students to high-scoring students.

Categories Milwaukee, Turnaround Schools, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Milwaukee: Leader of State “Turnaround District” Resigns

By dianeravitch
June 30, 2016 //
9

Parents and educators in Milwaukee have fought against Governor Scott Walker’s efforts to take over Milwaukee Public Schools. Walker was relentless, and he persuaded the Republican-dominated legislature to create an “Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program” to begin the state takeover of low-performing schools. No money was appropriated for the program. A leader was hired, Desmond Means, to start the takeover district.

Desmond Means resigned.

Please bear in mind that no state takeover district has ever succeeded in improving schools. This game of changing the governance structure is a shell game. Tennessee did it. Michigan did it. Georgia and North Carolina are starting to do it.

It doesn’t work because it doesn’t improve schools or teaching. And it doesn’t help children.

Reformers try these stunts because they think that democracy is the problem.

When will they ever learn?

Categories Milwaukee, Turnaround Schools, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Michael R. Ford: 41% of Voucher Schools in Milwaukee Have Closed Since the Start of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2016 //
9

Michael R. Ford, a professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, reports that 41% of private schools that received vouchers have closed their doors since the inception of the voucher program. Milwaukee has the nation’s oldest voucher program, and anyone looking for the miracle of school choice should look elsewhere. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Milwaukee continues to be one of the nation’s lowest performing urban districts. Milwaukee has had charters and vouchers for 25 years–two generations of students. If charters and vouchers were the answer to the problems of students and schools in urban districts, Milwaukee should be a shining star of student success. It is not.

Ford writes:

Forty-one percent of all private schools that participated in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) between 1991 and 2015 failed. I do not mean failed as in they did not deliver academically, I mean failed as in they no longer exist. These 102 schools either closed after having their voucher revenue cut off by the Department of Public Instruction, or simply shut their doors. The failure rate for entrepreneurial start-up schools is even worse: 67.8 percent.

Fredrik Andersson and I discuss these data in a new article just published online in Policy Studies Journal entitled “Determinants of Organizational Failure in the Milwaukee School Voucher Program.” We frame the article in the context of public and educational entrepreneurship “with the goal of explaining the factors that put voucher schools specifically, and public entrepreneurial public polices in general, at greater failure risk.” The Milwaukee voucher case is particularly fertile ground for this line of inquiry due its long history, organizational churn, and relevance as the birthplace of the modern school voucher movement.

We test several hypotheses using a survival model and find:

Start-up voucher schools have a much higher failure rate. It takes almost ten years for a new voucher school to lower its failure risk to that of previously existing schools;

When new MPCP schools fail they tend to fail quickly, on average just 4.3 years into program participation;

Schools without a religious affiliation are more likely to fail;

Stricter program regulations led to more failure; and

Schools can reduce their failure risk by gaining market-share.

Read his research article for the full findings.

Categories Education Reform, Failure, Milwaukee, Vouchers
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