Betsy DeVos has spent decades advocating for school choice.
What a shock for her when she met the teachers of the year and they told her that charters and vouchers were defunding their schools.
Archives for category: School Choice
The Florida Education Association decries Governor Scott’s efforts to take credit for Florida’s test scores on NAEP. He and his allies in the Legislature have been consistently hostile to public schools and their teachers. Don’t believe the myth of the Florida success story. It is not a model for the nation. The state is consistently in the middle of the pack nationally, as I showed here.
April 10, 2018 CONTACT: Joni Branch, (850) 201-3223 or (850) 544-7055
FEA: Scott doesn’t get the credit for Florida students’ achievements
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott is crowing today about Florida’s results on the just-released 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Indeed, Florida showed improvement from 2015 to 2017 in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade reading and math. In a larger context, a look at past NAEP reports shows that Florida has just been holding steady since Rick Scott took office, with ups and downs along the way.
Whatever achievements Florida’s students make are no thanks to Rick Scott. The FEA would congratulate instead the people who do the work – teachers, education staff professionals and students – despite all the obstacles put in their path.
To Rick Scott and the Legislature, thanks for:
An ever-worsening shortage of qualified teachers
Teacher pay that lags the national average by $9,000, making it difficult to attract and keep new teachers
Education funding that hasn’t kept pace with inflation, and is still $1,000 below 2007 per-student levels (inflation adjusted)
An increase of just 47 cents per student in the new state budget
Working to weaken public education by channeling tax dollars to unaccountable private schools and charters
“Gov. Scott is trying to spin political gold from assessment results that, over the long term, don’t back him up,” said FEA President Joanne McCall. “But we’re happy to give credit where credit is due, to the teachers, education staff professionals and students who continue to achieve no matter how many roadblocks this administration has put in their way.”
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The Center for American Progress published a useful review of voucher research, which concludes that going to a voucher school is equivalent to losing 1/3 of a year of schooling. Over the past year or so, I have posted the individual studies of vouchers as they appeared, and it is helpful to have them summarized in one place.
The authors of this research review—Ulrich Boser, Meg Bender, and Erin Roth—are senior analysts at CAP. They have done a good job in pulling together the many studies and analyzing the negative effects of vouchers on children. Researchers do not agree on the wisdom of converting test score gains or losses into “days of learning,” a strategy invented by researchers at CREDO, but the authors here use the device against the choice advocates who use it to bash public schools.
CAP is a puzzle to me. Throughout the Obama years, it was a safe haven and cheerleading squad for everything associated with the Obama administration, including the failed, odious, and ineffective Race to the Top.
As this carefully researched paper makes clear, CAP opposes vouchers. But where is CAP on charters? Is it still defending the Obama-Duncan line that school choice is good and traditional public schools are not? Is it willing to do the same research-based review of charters that it did of vouchers?
Does CAP still believe in school choice? Does it support half of the Trump-DeVos agenda? Or will it help return the Democratic Party to its roots by acknowledging the importance of strong public schools, democratically governed, subject to state and federal laws, doors open to all?
Betsy DeVos thinks that school choice is just swell. After all, she said, people should be able to choose schools the way they choose modes of transportation, like hailing an Uber or Lyft instead of a licensed taxi.
Mitchell Robinson explains why she is wrong.
A professor of music education at Michigan State University, Robinson knows that school choice has not improved education in DeVos’s state. It has actually been a bust. Not only has it failed to improve education, it has played havoc with district budgets.
The point of choice is choice, with no discernible benefits other than investors.
Mark Weber, who blogs as Jersey Jazzman, was interested in a part of the DeVos’ 60 Minutes interview that most reviewers overlooked. She made the claim, based on “studies show” that competition with private schools improves public schools. He devotes this post to debunking that claim.
The effects of competition are tiny. They are “not modest,” he writes. They are “tiny.”
He asks, is choice a reasonable substitute for equitable funding, and not surprisingly, concludes that it is not.
If “choice” is introduced as a substitute for things like adequate and equitable funding, the overall progress of the system will be impeded. The sad fact is that the “Florida Miracle” has been grossly oversold; the state is a relatively poor performer compared to other states that make more of an investment in public education. Can that all be attributed to policy? No, of course not… but Florida is a state that makes little effort to fund its schools.
In any case, DeVos’s contention that public, district schools see improvement when there is competitive pressure is just not held up in any practical sense by research like this. As I said in my last post, the effects sizes of things like this are almost always small. In this case, the effect is exceptionally small; in practical terms, it’s next to nothing.
The idea that we’re going to make substantial educational progress by injecting competition into our public education system just doesn’t have much evidence to support it. I wish I could say that conservatives like DeVos were the only ones who believe in this fallacy; unfortunately, that’s just not the case. Too many people who really should know better have put their faith in “choice,” rather than admitting that chronic childhood poverty, endemic racism, and inequitable and inadequate school funding are at the root of the problem.
Jamil Smith writes in Rolling Stone that we are indeed governed by a kakistocracy (the worst people in the nation). Betsy DeVos is living proof of it. She demonstrated what a kakistocracy is when she was interviewed on 60 Minutes.
I worry less about Kim Jong-Un than I do Betsy DeVos. The North Korean dictator, for one, doesn’t have dominion over the educational futures of nearly 51 million elementary and secondary students and countless more in college. Barring a nuclear attack, of course, the wealthy charter-school champion is poised to play a much larger role than Kim will in determining the future of United States. The sophomoric invective he directs at us pales in comparison to the utter disrespect that President Trump demonstrated by nominating her to lead the Department of Education in the first place. To build a United States government of the worst people, one must not merely be amateurish. It requires a special hatred for America to form a kakistocracy…
Those who have yet to hear (or sound) the deafening alarms about this administration use words like “polarizing” rather than “dangerous” to describe Trump officials like DeVos, still nurturing notions that this president and his Cabinet can actually operate the franchise they’ve been trusted with. The reality is that the United States is now learning to live without a functional president or government. They are out of ideas, save those that feed the cultural insecurities of their base. “Infrastructure Week” has become a punchline. Puerto Rico has been abandoned, as has Flint. What makes all this worse is that this was the plan, born from Trump’s lack of knowledge, varied bigotries, and intellectual incuriosity. We Americans are on our own, and what we saw Sunday night from DeVos was only a reminder.
No, she is not stupid. She is on a mission to destroy public schools and to replace them with privately managed charter schools and religious schools. She no longer pretends that schools get better when everyone chooses. She wants choice for the sake of choice. This is not about “the children.” It is about a powerful religious ideology that overrides everyone who disagrees, as well as evidence and facts.
Another victory for the Trump-DeVos agenda of school choice, this one in Puerto Rico, which is still struggling to recover from massive hurricane damage.
Politico Morning Education reports:
SCHOOL CHOICE PROPOSAL MOVES AHEAD IN PUERTO RICO: One of the island’s legislative chambers approved this week an education reform plan that would usher in charter schools to the territory and roll out a program of school vouchers in 2019. The plan was pitched by Gov. Ricardo Rossello as the island’s education system grappled with a tough recovery and mass migration to the states following Hurricane Maria. It has been criticized by teachers unions, which fear that turning over education to private entities will disrupt public schools there.
– The legislation allows for the creation of charter schools, or for the conversion of existing public schools into charters. Schools must be run by non-profit operators, and must be non-sectarian. Students from across the island would be able to participate in enrollment lotteries, though schools have to give preference to students in neighboring communities. Teachers who chose to work for charter schools in Puerto Rico would be given a leave of absence from the Education Department, which would hold their jobs for up to two years.
– Responding to concerns that Puerto Rico’s system would emulate post-Katrina New Orleans, where nearly all students attend charter schools, lawmakers instituted a cap on the number of charter schools equal to 10 percent of all public schools there.
– As for school vouchers, lawmakers are proposing a rollout in the 2019-2020 school year that would allow 3 percent of students to attend schools of their choosing – including private schools. That number would rise to 5 percent the following year. It’s unclear how much money would be granted to each student, but the legislation calls for no more than 70 percent of what is already allocated per public school student.
The lesson: If you can’t fund your schools adequately, offer school choice instead. It will intensify social and economic segregation and it won’t improve education, but it will give the illusion of reform.
Expanding charter schools is the passion of Betsy DeVos.
Lest we forget, it was also the passion of the Obama administration, which spent eight years promoting the wonders of charter schools.
In the last months of the Obama Administration, with John King as Secretary of Education, the U.S. Department of Education awarded $100 million to California and to KIPP to open more charter schools.
“KIPP Public Charter Schools and the California Department of Education have received federal grants together worth nearly $100 million to expand and start more public charter schools.
“The California Department of Education won $49.9 million to run a grant competition for charter school operators, to support nearly 500 new and expanded public charter schools.
“A consortium of the KIPP Foundation and the KIPP California Region won nearly $48.8 million over three years.
“Among schools benefiting from the award are four growing KIPP Bay Area schools: KIPP Heritage Academy and KIPP Prize Preparatory Academy in San Jose, KIPP Excelencia Community Prep in Redwood City and KIPP Bridge Academy in Oakland. Each of the schools may receive up to $500,000 over the three-year grant period for expansion.”
All that money to expand a charter chain that was first introduced to a national audience in performance at the Republican convention of 2000, when George W. Bush was nominated for the Presidency.
Betsy DeVos will enjoy the results, but hold Secretaries Arne Duncan and John King and President Obama accountable. John King is now president of Education Trust, which supports high-stakes testing as the path to equity (which it never has been and never will be since all standardized tests mirror family income). Arne Duncan works for Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective.
Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, test scores have been defined by federal law as the goal of education. Schools and teachers that “produce”higher scores are good, schools and teachers that don’t are “bad,” and likely to suffer termination. The assumption is that higher test scores produce better life outcomes, and that is that.
In late 2016, Jay P. Greene produced a short and brilliant paper that challenged that assumption. I have fallen into the habit of asking myself whether the young people who are super-stars in many non-academic fields had high scores and guessing they did not. Fortunately, it is only in schools where students get branded with numbers like Jean Val Jean of “Les Miserables.” Outside school, they can dazzle the world as athletes, musicians, inventors, or mechanics, without a brand.
Greene writes:
“If increasing test scores is a good indicator of improving later life outcomes, we should see roughly the same direction and magnitude in changes of scores and later outcomes in most rigorously identified studies. We do not. I’m not saying we never see a connection between changing test scores and changing later life outcomes (e.g. Chetty, et al); I’m just saying that we do not regularly see that relationship. For an indicator to be reliable, it should yield accurate predictions nearly all, or at least most, of the time.
“To illustrate the un-reliability of test score changes, I’m going to focus on rigorously identified research on school choice programs where we have later life outcomes. We could find plenty of examples of disconnect from other policy interventions, such as pre-school programs, but I am focusing on school choice because I know this literature best. The fact that we can find a disconnect between test score changes and later life outcomes in any literature, let alone in several, should undermine our confidence in test scores as a reliable indicator.
“I should also emphasize that by looking at rigorous research I am rigging things in favor of test scores. If we explored the most common use of test scores — examining the level of proficiency — there are no credible researchers who believe that is a reliable indicator of school or program quality. Even measures of growth in test scores or VAM are not rigorously identified indicators of school or program quality as they do not reveal what the growth would have been in the absence of that school or program. So, I think almost every credible researcher would agree that the vast majority of ways in which test scores are used by policymakers, regulators, portfolio managers, foundation officials, and other policy elites cannot be reliable indicators of the ability of schools or programs to improve later life outcomes.”
I would add that Chetty et al did not establish a causal relationship between teacher VAM and later life outcomes, only a correlation. The claim that my fourth grade teacher “caused” me not to become pregnant a decade later strains credulity. At least mine.
Greene’s essay includes an excellent reading list of studies showing high test scores but no change in high school graduation rate or college attendance.
The Milwaukee and D.C. voucher studies that show a gain in high school graduation rate should note the high attrition rate from these programs, which inflates the graduation rate.
Imagine saying to a governor, I have a policy intervention that will raise test scores but will have little or no effect on life outcomes. Would they jump at the offer? Based on the political activity of the past 15 years, the answer is yes.
Overall, however, a seminal essay from a prominent pro-choice scholar.
John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, writes here about the run-up to a possible teachers’ strike. Teachers’ salaries in Oklahoma are near the lowest in the nation. Coincidentally or not, supporters of school choice are massing this morning Choice advocates are rallying this morning at the State Capitol to demand more funding for charters and vouchers. The choice advocates don’t care about teachers’ salaries, teacher shortage, or the experience of those who teach their children.
John Thompson writes:
“Oklahoma gives $500 million a year in tax breaks to energy companies, but it is #1 in the nation in cutting state funding for education, reducing formula funding by 28%. We are either third from last or last in the nation in teacher pay. Teachers have not received a state pay increase for a decade; the starting salary is $31,600 for a first-year teacher. State employees have not received an across the board pay raise in 12 years.
“As the rest of the nation watches the grassroots rebellion of teachers that is likely to lead to an April 2 walkout of both teachers and state employees, outsiders should be aware that before the legislature could address our fiscal crisis, it has had to deal with more pressing priorities.
Another year goes by, and Oklahoma still leads the nation for cuts to education
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/07/good-jobs-first/are-oklahoma-teachers-lowest-paid-nearly/
http://newsok.com/oklahoma-teachers-continue-wait-for-pay-raise-a-decade-after-last-increase/article/5580331
http://newsok.com/article/5586584?slideout=1
“The first priority which had to be resolved before Oklahoma could address the budget was brought up by my legislator, Rep. Jason Dunnington (D-OKC). He wanted Imad Enchassi, senior imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, to serve as the House Chaplain for a Day. Enchassi is one of the state’s most thoughtful, articulate, and witty leaders. However, the Republican leadership continued to block the iman’s application They changed their rules requiring clergy participating in the House Chaplain Program “be from the representative’s own place of worship.”
“After 250 Christians, Jews, and Muslims showed up in the Capitol rotunda to hear Enchassi lead an Islamic prayer, the Republican leadership had to change the guidelines once again. After all, they needed the rules necessary for keeping political issues out of their daily prayers …
“Sure enough, a second priority emerged when the Senate leadership had to defend a Baptist minister’s 15 minute prayer/serman to that legislative body. He blamed school shootings on gay marriage.
“The pastor said:
‘Feb. 14 (a young man) went into a school and killed 17 of our people, our kids. What is going on? What is going on? … Do we really believe that we can create immorality in our laws? Do we really believe that we can redefine marriage from the word of God to something in our own mind and there not be a response? Do we really believe we can tell God to get lost from our schools and our halls of legislation and there be no response? Do we really believe that?’
http://newsok.com/interfaith-leaders-say-legislatures-chaplain-program-excludes-non-christians/article/5583810
https://www.thelostogle.com/2018/03/02/angry-baptist-minister-makes-triumphant-return-to-oklahoma-capitol/
“The legislative load in the wake of recent school shootings was somewhat easier because Oklahoma had already authorized teachers to carry guns at schools, but the law required 74 hours of training. So surely teachers who care about their students should agree to put their pay on the back burner until the required training was reduced …
“Then the right to carry concealed guns into churches had to be reinforced, once again. Non-Oklahomans should understand why Sen. John Bennett (R-Sallisaw) felt compelled to protect churchgoers’ right to arm themselves against “knuckleheads” and “evil people.” His new priority was legislative action for implementing Matthew 26:52, which says “those who take up the sword die by the sword.”
”But Bennett, who has called Islam a “cancer” and who said that state employees seeking a pay raise are engaging in “terrorism,” didn’t include mosques. Consequently, another Republican had to file a bill protecting guns in all houses of worship.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/oklahoma/articles/2018-02-28/oklahoma-panel-oks-plan-to-ease-training-for-armed-teachers
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/capitol_report/guns-in-churches-bill-passes-oklahoma-house-would-extend-stand/article_0209a184-5573-56b7-8adb-3395049f68f8.html
http://newsok.com/article/5570937
“Oklahoma’s refusal to accept Obamacare contributed to the enormous hole in the budget that created the education crisis. So, another priority was passing legislation and preparing Gov. Mary Fallin’s order that work requirements must be attached to Medicaid.
“As the April 2 strike deadline approaches, legislative leaders have suggested legislation allowing ad valorem taxes dedicated to capital expenditures be redirected towards salaries. That would free some rich communities to offer a raise. And the word is that equally eccentric funding ideas will be floated.
“It is tougher to raise revenue in Oklahoma than in West Virginia because a constitutional amendment requires a 75% majority to increase taxes. We should not forget, however, why that provision became law.
“In 1992, after a decade of economic collapse due to deindustrialization spurred by Reaganomics, the oil downturn, the banking and savings and loan collapse, AIDS, and the crack and gangs epidemic, HB1017 was passed. After a four-day strike, the tax was passed, saving our schools, but the backlash killed all but one tax increase since then.
“So, Oklahoma’s April tornado season is likely to be upstaged by a bottom-up teachers’ revolt. It is likely to produce a political battle royal which will be worthy of the attention of readers across the nation. Stay tuned.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 