Mercedes Schneider teaches high school English in Louisiana. She has ten weeks of unpaid vacation. What did she do on her vacation? She wrote a book about school choice. She set herself a goal of 1,000 words a day, and she stuck to it. She has written three books in three years. The first one was a bestiary of corporate reformers called “A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education.” The second was “Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?” A book a year! My first book took seven years. I am impressed.
Archives for category: School Choice
EduShyster interviewed Seth Rau, a prominent young reformer in Nevada, about the Silver State’s “universal choice” or “Education Savings Account” program, which gives every student $5,700 to spend in the school of their choice.
Rau is policy director for the reform organization “Nevada Succeeds.” He is an alum of Teach for America; he taught for two years in a charter school. The conservative Thomas B. Fordham named him the “Wisest Wonk” in the nation for a paper in which he said that schools should be regulated lightly, like brothels in Nevada.
Despite his sterling reform bona fides, Rau is not your typical reformer. He does not celebrate the great successes of charters and vouchers. He is honest about the flaws of both, including the ESA that was recently adopted in Nevada.
EduShyster asked where should a student with a backpack full of $5,700 go to school.
He answered that the charters in Nevada were nothing to brag about:
In Nevada, the miracle of the high-performing seats that you’re so familiar with in Massachusetts never happened. For the most part our district charter schools are strongly underperforming. There’s also been a heavy reliance on virtual charter schools. More than a quarter of the students who attend charters attend virtual schools, which have been a disaster for many kids. For example, Nevada Virtual Academy was the largest charter school in the state and had a 32.5% graduation rate in 2011-2012.
The charter sector is growing, he said, especially in suburbs where students are high-performing. The charter scores are rising because “they’re not serving students who are actually in poverty.”
When EduShyster asks about access to private schools, Rau says that those schools are for the children of the 1%. So who will benefit from the ESA-style vouchers?
Rau answers:
I’ve heard people extolling Education Savings Accounts, saying that this is going to be the great solution to poverty, but equity is not the goal of the ESA. This bill will benefit middle class and upper middle class constituencies….That’s going to be the majority of people who use the ESA program. They’ll come from our limited middle class or upper middle class who are dissatisfied with the school district or with charters for one reason or another.
I am not ready to nominate Rau to the honor roll yet, as I save that honor for champions of public education, but I happily name him the “Wisest Wonk” of the reform movement for his willingness to tell the truth about the poor performance of charters and to admit that the ESA (vouchers) won’t help the majority of poor kids. If other reformers owned up to basic facts as Rau does, we would have a different conversation about education in this country.
Education Next is an influential rightwing publication. Its editors are mostly fellows at the free-market Hoover Institution. It is based at Harvard University, because its editor-in-chief is Paul Peterson, who holds a chair at Harvard. Peterson is one of the leading voices (perhaps THE leading voice) in the academic world for free markets and unfettered choice. He was once a strong supporter of public schools; he is now a strong advocate for vouchers, charters, and anything but public schools. Paul Peterson is a tenured professor who opposes teacher tenure. He also opposes teachers’ unions; he believes they are selfish and greedy and disrupt the working of the free market. Of course, professors at Harvard make double or triple what the average K-12 teacher earns in a year and work far fewer hours (nine hours a week of class time? three hours? none?). Paul, whom I knew well when I was a senior fellow at Hoover, is an amiable guy. He is also one of the most prolific of the academic boosters for privatization.
Paul Peterson’s influence can be seen in the new movement for vouchers, which have repeatedly been voted down by the public. He has trained a large number of scholars who are dedicated advocates of free-market policies and school choice. One of his former students, Patrick Wolf, is the official evaluator of the voucher programs in the District of Columbia, Milwaukee, and Louisiana. Wolf holds an endowed chair in the “Department of Educational Reform” at the University of Arkansas, a department led by another Peterson student, Jay Greene. Peterson and Wolf have written a number of articles together about school choice. On his website, Wolf says that he has received $20 million in grants and contracts for his research studies.
Peterson’s latest piece, written with Martin West, another of his former graduate students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, says that the public doesn’t believe that unions should be able to collect dues from people who don’t want to belong to the union but enjoy the benefits that the union negotiates for them. If the public doesn’t believe in unions, then presumably the courts should be willing to strip them of the revenues that enable them to represent workers and to exert influence to protect workers.
Do workers need unions? Growing up as I did in the 1940s and 1950s, unions were seen as a force for progressive change, as the defender of workers, as builders of the middle class. I have never belonged to a union but I continue to believe that without unions, workers will be exploited, treated as chattel, paid below the minimum wage, expected to work long hours in poor conditions, and fired with or without cause. The New York Times recently reported on protests by farm workers, some of whom work nearly 70 hours a week, seven days a week, in substandard conditions. One said that he would be grateful to have one day off a week.
I can’t help but think of a recent tweet by teacher Steven Singer: #Unions are the only reason we have weekends, vacations, overtime pay, 8-hour work day, sick leave, etc.
As unions disappear in the private sector, we see vast numbers of workers who work long hours, do not receive minimum wage or sick days. We see workers who are exploited by corporations that do not have a human face and discard people like trash. To be anti-union is to be anti-worker and anti-middle-class. Unions have their flaws, but their fundamental role is to create better lives for their members. To lose them will exacerbate the growing divide between the 1% and the poor and will hasten the shrinkage of the middle class. That’s bad for America. It’s bad for families and communities. It’s bad for children. It is shameful.
In large part because of Jeb Bush, Florida is a national leader in privatization. It now has more than 100,000 students using vouchers for private schools, including religious schools, despite the fact that Florida voters rejected a Constitutional amendment to allow vouchers in 2012 by 58-42. The will of the voters is an inconvenient distraction to the privatization industry, nothing more.
Even more are enrolled in a burgeoning charter industry, despite the fact that charters regularly open and close, stranding students, and charters dominate the list of the state’s lowest-performing schools. Of course, Florida is a haven for for-profit entrepreneurs, who are encouraged by the state to open and compete with public schools, while sucking taxpayer dollars out of those public schools and funneling it to their investors.
With so much unrestrained school choice, Florida should be the state with the highest test scores and the highest graduation rate. It is not.
On the NAEP, Florida is smack dab at the national average in 4th grade math; significantly below the national average in 8th grade math; significantly above the national average in 4th grade reading; at the national average in 8th grade reading.
The only bright spot is 4th grade reading, and the performance there might be attributable to the state Constitutional amendment to reduce class size in the early grades, which voters approved despite Jeb’s opposition.
Florida’s high school graduation rate is 76% (over four years), as compared to a national average of 81%. Florida’s graduation rate is below that of Alabama, Arkansas, and tied with Mississippi.
What exactly has school choice done for students in Florida except to undermine public education? How does that help students? How does that improve education? Do taxpayers know how many millions of dollars have been wasted due to fraud, incompetence, and mismanagement? And how many millions have been siphoned off to pay investors instead of going to the classroom?
Arthur Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., has a warning for Democrats that school choice is a bad choice.
He omits Republicans because they have become the party of school choice and privatization.
School choice is an alluring term, but the reality is far different from the rhetoric.
He writes:
“In our culture the “the right to choose” suggests an almost inalienable individual right, making for powerfully resonant political rhetoric. However, behind the easy-to-swallow positive connotation of choice, there is underlying message in its use in the context of education. If stated explicitly, the message might cause a little indigestion: Be out for yourself and don’t worry so much about your neighbors or community…
“However, what is moral or sensible for an individual does not make for sound or just education policy for a society. The moral burden falls not on parents, but on those who knowingly advance the wellbeing of the few at the expense of the many….
“Supporters of equity and democracy must depend upon and develop agency and hope for community solutions because when there is only despair, the only rational course of action is individual survival. Ideological supporters of privatization understand this and actively undermine democratic participation and the promise of collective solutions. That is why since the 1980’s they have followed an explicit starve-the-beast strategy to defund public institutions in order to undermine quality, public trust, and confidence. That is why they favor private charter boards over elected school boards.
I have come to believe that the struggle for equity must include a tandem strategy of opposition and advocacy.
Friends of equity need to oppose funding charter school, not because choice is inherently a bad idea but because the spread of charter schools is morally corrosive and drains money from other local schools. Since funds are always limited, the opportunities for the few come with the sacrifice of others. “They are stealing your child’s future,” might be an appropriate opposition slogan. …
“Progress requires an opt-in campaign for local public schools based on community rather than individualist values. Advocacy should highlight the fundamental characteristics of effective public schools both in the U.S. and abroad and contrast these with prevalent market-based solutions….
“Candidates need to hear from the public: There are better choices than school choice to improve education.”
Angie Sullivan teaches K-2 in Nevada. She follows state policies closely and asks questions.
She is a prolific writer. I wish she would run for the Legislature but then the kids would lose a good teacher.
She sent the following to her large email list (that includes legislators and journalists):
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nevada-places-a-bet-on-school-choice-1434319588
My main points of concern are:
Who is an approved vendor to provide the receipts for obtaining the $5K?
For instance – can a school teacher get a business license and have a private school in their home with ten students and make $50K a year?
The ninety day attendance rule – does this happen every year or once you have attend in your days do your 90 days – can you receive the money every year for the next 13 years?
Fraud – we poorly regulate our charters and schoolers already. This has the potential to create all sorts of scamming education business much like the for profit colleges that already riddle the Vegas Valley.
Could someone potentially move here for 90 days with their children and then go back to Virginia and receive their $15K check for the rest of the children’s careers?
Who decides who is an approved educational service? The Charter Authority does not even list a portion of the failing charters. Will we have huge lists of approved vendors coming and going? Does the regulating body have to follow the open meeting laws or any of the transparency rules?
This has the potential to become the biggest disaster and waste of tax payer money in America. Not to mention siphon every cent from the public schools essentially wiping then out.
We could become the state where parents visit Nevada for 90 days and take their kids home to Connecticut collect their check. The zone variance system in Vegas already shows that parents will game whatever system is in place to attend wherever they want whenever they like.
Any other teachers want to chime in here?
Angie
Dan Gelber, a former state senator in Florida, offers a devastating overview of Jeb Bush’s education policies while he was governor of Florida.
Gelber says that Bush was indeed passionate about education, but his passion was tied to ideas that dumbed down the quality of education.
“He force-fed unprecedented testing into public schools, did all he could to neuter the teaching unions and unapologetically pushed private-school alternatives to public education. As he runs for higher office, Bush now relies on his “education revolution” to make his case….
“In 1998 when a newly elected Gov. Bush and a compliant Legislature started Florida’s “education revolution,” our graduation rate was among the lowest in the nation. After Bush’s two terms in office, Florida’s graduation rate was dead last and remains near the bottom.”
With so much emphasis on testing and test prep, the scores went up in the early grades, but the gains were short-lived. The gains might have been the result of a constitutional amendment forcing class-size reduction on the early grades, which Bush opposed.
Gelber says Florida should not be a national model. It is “an example of the perils of combining excessive testing with inadequate funding….
“As schools began teaching to the test and neglecting anything not measured, Florida’s floor of minimal competence became our ceiling. This distortion became especially acute because, while money alone isn’t a solution, money does matter. Under Bush, Florida had one of the lowest per-pupil funding levels in the nation, so principals and administrators did what any overwhelmed emergency-room doctor does. The state began to triage its curriculum and programs in order to devote scarce resources to what was tested.
“Art “carts” replaced art classrooms, physical education was deemed nonessential. Foreign languages, gifted programs, music, higher-level math and English, civics and science all were among courses that were deemphasized or sometimes even abandoned because they were not measured by the FCAT.
“My eldest daughter’s accelerated algebra class didn’t complete its course work one year because the school stopped teaching it to devote time to relearning FCAT math from years earlier. My youngest daughter’s school cut its exciting science lab program. Not taught on the FCAT!
“Talk about a mad dash to mediocrity….
Florida’s incredibly low education spending is, sadly, in sync with its dismal graduation rate, and nearly last in the nation SAT and ACT scores….
“The debate of accountability vs. funding marginalizes the importance of both. Money has to be adequate, and testing has to be thoughtful or you end up with a dumbed-down and narrow curriculum that fails too many kids.”
Update! A few minutes ago, I posted that the budget lifted the charter cap by 100. There are differing reports; this one says there will be 180 new charters.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders reached a deal on the budget that included major education issues.
The budget does not include the “education tax credit” for private and religious schools (vouchers), but does include $250 million for religious schools. That should satisfy Mr. Cuomo’s friends in the religious communities whom he courted.
The deal includes 180 new charter schools, 50 in Néw York City and 130 outside the city. That should please the hedge fund manager who gave millions to the Governor’s re-election campaign, while providng Eva Moskowitz plenty of room to grow her chain.
The deal extends mayoral control in NYC for only one year, despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s request to make it permanent. That should remind the Mayor who is in charge.
The deal retains the tax cap on school districts. Regardless of their needs, they won’t be able to raise property taxes by more than 2%, unless they are able to win 60% approval by voters. It may be undemocratic, but it is popular, especially among GOP legislators.
It is amazing how much education policy is now being made during budget negotiations, with no educators in the room.
Just when I think the charter scandals in Ohio can’t possibly get worse, they do. The State Auditor, a Republican named Dave Yost, reported that a charter owner had inflated enrollment and overcharged the state by $1,3 million.
“General Chappie James Leadership Academy in Dayton reported enrollment of 459 students, however an investigation by state Auditor Dave Yost found nearly half of those students had never attended or long since left the school.
“To illustrate the extent of the deception, Yost said one parent told investigators “her kid could not have been in school because the child was incarcerated for two years. Another family had moved to Georgia.”
The state may never recover the money because the school closed a year ago. “Results of the investigation have been passed along to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office for review and possible criminal charges.”
When will Ohio taxpayers wake up?
Valerie Strauss sums up the embarrassing situationS of the Ohio charter industry: It has become a national joke.
Strauss quotes a story in the Plain Dealer in Ohio saying:
Ohio, the charter school world is making fun of you.
Ohio’s $1 billion charter school system was the butt of jokes at a conference for reporters on school choice in Denver late last week, as well as the target of sharp criticism of charter school failures across the state.
The shots came from expected critics like teachers unions, but also from pro-charter voices, as the state considers ways to improve how it handles charters …
Even charter supporters were laughing at Ohio’s troubled charter sector, which is low-performing and riddled with ethically challenged charter operators who care more about profits than education.
Strauss quotes:
An example of a joke from the conference: “Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst,” charter researcher Margaret “Macke” Raymond said of Ohio. Raymond, from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, conducts research on charter schools and issued a report late last year that said Ohio charter school students learn 36 days less math and 14 days less reading than traditional public school students — conclusions she drew from crunching data obtained from student standardized test scores.
Lest we forget: Nevada recently passed an all-state voucher program so that almost any student can attend a charter school, a religious school, a virtual school, or be home schooled. This is the state that Macke Raymond holds up as the worst in the nation for the poor quality of its choice schools. And Nevada wants more, to cement its reputation as the worst of the worst!
Arthur Camins, Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) at the Stevens Institute of Technology, has a terrific letter to the editor in today’s Néw York Times.
He points out the paradox of choice.
“A look at the ways in which the idea of individual choice is applied by politicians to different issues is revealing. Some politicians want the public to pay for their private choices when it comes to vouchers for religious education, but are against choice when it comes to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have a baby.
“In both cases they are prepared to violate the basic constitutional principle of separation of church and state. In one case they want the public to pay for their religious choices. In the other they want to impose their religious views on everyone else.”
