The Waltons, with their vast fortune, dominate the political life in their home state of Arkansas.
They use that vast wealth to promote market-based schooling and to undermine public education across the nation and even beyond.
But here is proof positive that they don’t own everyone in Arkansas.
Bravo to freedom of thought and expression!
Bravo to brave dissidents!
Keep thought alive in America, even in Arkansas.
Now that 17 states have authorized vouchers to “save kids from failing schools,” it is time to review the evidence from Milwaukee, which has had vouchers for 22 years.
The “independent evaluator” of the Milwaukee and D.C. voucher programs is Patrick J. Wolf of the University of Arkansas. As we learned during school choice week earlier this year, Wolf is a strong supporter of school choice and he even wrote an editorial saying that his home state of Minnesota needs more school choice because it was in danger of falling behind Arkansas in doing so. How much more independent can an evaluator be? It is perhaps also noteworthy that the University of Arkansas is generously funded by Arkansas’s biggest philanthropy, the Walton Foundation, which pours millions every year into charters and vouchers and anything that has the possibility of undermining public schools.
Not even Wolf’s evaluations have shown any test score advantage for students who get vouchers, whether in DC or Milwaukee. This is the DC final-year evaluation. The main finding of the final-year evaluation: “There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] affected student achievement.” Remember that boosters for vouchers seldom use the V word; they prefer the euphemism “opportunity scholarship.” The family gets an “opportunity” to take their child from a public school, where he or she has low test scores, to a private or religious school, where he or she will also have low test scores.
The Wolf evaluations claim an advantage for voucher students in graduation rates. But consider this. In Milwaukee, according to this analysis (see the summary here) of Wolf’s evaluation, 75% of the students who started in a voucher school left before graduation. So of the 25% who persisted, the graduation rate was higher than the Milwaukee public schools. But what about the 75% who dropped out and/or returned to MPS? No one knows.
The Milwaukee voucher schools have never outperformed the public schools on state tests: See here and here. The only dispute about test scores is whether voucher students are doing the same or worse than their peers in public schools.
Accountability? Read here about some very low-performing schools in Milwaukee that have never been held accountable. One of them opened in 2001. Over the past 11 years, it has collected $46.8 million but its students perform worse than those in the public schools. Some choice.
And anyone who looks at the NAEP reports on urban districts will see that after 22 years of vouchers, charters, and competition, Milwaukee is a poster child for the failure of vouchers, charters, and competition. The students in those schools all perform about the same level. No sector is better. The Milwaukee schools are ranked among the lowest performing of the urban districts tested by NAEP, ranking just above sad Detroit.
If choice was the answer, Milwaukee should be at the top of the nation’s urban districts. But it is near the bottom. Why? Because choice is not the answer. Addressing the causes of low test scores is the answer, and choice does not address the causes of low test scores: poverty and segregation.
A story today in the New York Times gives an overview of the rapid advance of voucher programs, now found in various forms in 17 states.
What is missing from the article is context. The defenders of unlicensed education quoted are the heads of the unions and spokesmen for LLC school boards. The advocates for vouchers are referred to as “nonpartisan,” like the far-right American Federation for Children. AFS was created by the wealthy DeVos family in Michigan and has been pushing the demolition of public education for many years.
Also unmentioned is the power behind the scenes: ALEC, the far-right organization that has drafted model legislation for the voucher and tax-credit laws, using their 2,000 state legislators to promote them.
Nor does the article raise the obvious questions: where is President Obama? Where is Arne Duncan? Did Race to the Top, with its promotion of choice to “escape failing public schools” (and go to privately managed charters) aid and abet the voucher movement?
Who will be held accountable for these assaults on a basic institution of our democracy?
Somebody put up at least $18,000 to run ads supporting the so-called Alabama Accountability Act.
A newly formed group called the Foundation for Accountability in Education spent the money but won’t disclose the donors, nor are they legally required to.
The act was rushed through by GOP legislators who had been negotiating with Democrats on a different bill. The at publicans pulled a bait and switch and passed a bill without bothering to show it to the members of the minority party.
The law establishes tax credits for private and parochial schools, effectively creating vouchers.
For the backers of corporate reform in New York and California, $18,000 is chump change. It usually costs them more.
This is a thoughtful analysis of the dreadful voucher decision in Indiana yesterday.
It says, “The plaintiffs in the voucher case alleged the program violates three sections of the Indiana Constitution: Article 8, Section 1, which requires a “general and uniform system of Common Schools”; Article 1, Section 4, which says citizens can’t be forced to support a place of worship or ministry; and Article 1, Section 6, which forbids spending state money to support a “religious or theological institution.”
In a 5-0 decision, the state court rejected their case.
The schools getting the vouchers may require students to participate in religious exercise, and they typically do.
The schools getting vouchers may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, “But they are free to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, test scores, IQ, family income, parental politics or just about any other criteria you can imagine.”
It is hard to square this decision with the language of the state constitution.
The radical choice ideologues in Indiana don’t like public education. Left in power, they will destroy it.
Professor Henry M. Levin is a distinguished economist and director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
He recently participated in a conference in Sweden convened by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to review the evidence about the effects of vouchers, which were initiated in 1992. He learned that Swedish performance on international tests has declined since 1995, private school enrollments have grown, social stratification has increased, and the for-profit sector is thriving.
He wrote this post specifically for the blog. It provides important information about the effects of vouchers. We can learn from the Swedish experience, if we are willing to learn.
Professor Levin writes:
In 1992 Sweden adopted a voucher-type plan in which municipalities would provide the same funding per pupil to either public schools or independent (private) schools. There were few restrictions for independent schools, and religious or for-profit schools were eligible to participate. In 1994, choice was also extended to that of public schools where parents could choose either a public or private school. In the early years, only about 2 percent of students chose independent schools. However, since the opening of this century, independent school enrollments have expanded considerably. By 2011-12 almost a quarter of elementary and secondary students were in independent schools. Half of all students in the upper secondary schools in Stockholm were attending private schools at public expense.
On December 3, 2012, Forbes Magazine recommended for the U.S. that: “…we can learn something about when choice works by looking at Sweden’s move to vouchers.” On March 11 and 12, 2013, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences did just that by convening a two day conference to learn what vouchers had accomplished in the last two decades. Interest in the subject had been piqued by several developments including the dramatic growth in private school enrollments and a fairly precipitous decline in Swedish performance on international tests. Results in reading, science, and mathematics had fallen at all grade levels from 1995 to the present in the international studies.
In addition there was evidence of increased stratification and segregation of students by socio-economic status and ethnicity over the same period. Finally, there were concerns about the reportedly substantial profits being amassed by the independent schools from public funds.
The conference comprised a Swedish audience with both Swedish presenters supplemented by a few international experts (Austria, Finland, UK, and U.S.). I was assigned to provide an overview on “Evaluating Consequences of Educational Evaluation. In the remainder of this note I describe the overall framework that I used and my conclusions.
As in all of the analyses on school choice and vouchers of our National Center for the Study of Privatization, I presented the four criteria that we use for evaluation of particular schemes: freedom of choice, productive efficiency, equity, and social cohesion. I also discussed how design of the plans draws upon three policy instruments: finance, regulation, and support services. The details of design are crucial for shaping the outcomes of choice and voucher plans.
In using these criteria for evaluation, I employed the research evidence that had emerged on the Swedish voucher system. This compendium of research comprised a number of highly sophisticated studies on the impact of the system on student achievement and student stratification. The following was my verdict:
In evaluating these results, we must also keep in mind that the overall performance of the system on externally administered and evaluated tests used for international comparisons showed substantial declines over the last fifteen years for Sweden. For those who are interested in the patterns of achievement decline across subjects and grades, I have provided the enclosed powerpoint presentation.
We also heard from Swedish researchers that the independent schools were putting considerable resources into marketing, including using teachers to serve the marketing function. My conclusion was that there is little evidence of improved productive efficiency from the initiation of the Swedish voucher system.
This evaluation was well-received, in part, because it was presented matter-of-factly and with clear reference to the evidence. There was no disagreement over the existing evidence by the assemblage. Among the industrialized countries, only three have a universal voucher or choice system Chile, Holland, and Sweden. Some would also argue that Belgium qualifies in this category. The former three countries have very different designs with the Dutch system being the most highly regulated and devoting the most attention to equity. Even so, the tracking that takes place at age 12 in the Netherlands between vocational and academic secondary schools has important equity consequences in terms of socio-economic stratification. Although based upon choice, the available choices available to a student are heavily dependent on her achievement test results. The Chilean system has witnessed an increasingly notable stratification of the population, both within and between public and private sectors. Students from more educated and wealthier families are found in the private schools which receive public funding, but can choose which students to accept from among applicants. The Chilean system allows schools to charge additional fees beyond the voucher, also favoring more advantage families.
I have enclosed the powerpoint slides from my presentation. These provide further details on the overall evaluation framework and the basis for my conclusions for Sweden. Those who wish to peruse our collection of more than 200 papers on choice and privatization should check the website of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education (www.ncspe.org) or contact me at HL361@columbia.edu.
Click below to download the powerpoint
I was invited to debate a state leader in Baton Rouge on March 14. The leader who accepted was Chas Roemer, president of theBoard of Elementary and Secondary Education. Chas is a strong supporter of Governor Bobby Jindal’s “reforms” of massive privatization through vouchers nd charters and outsourcing students and taxpayer to for-profit corporations.
Chas was educated at Harvard. His father was governor. His sister runs the state charter school association.
Each of us was allotted 15 minutes, followed by Q&A.
I thought it was fun.
A reader in Tennessee comments on the steady advance of privatization in that state, starting with Memphis, then moving to other urban areas. And when the Legislature passes a voucher bill, the stage will be set to decimate public education and leave it as a remnant of what was once known as the portal to opportunity in America. Thanks to Governor Haslam, his compatriots in the Legislature, and Kevin Huffman, one of TFA’s finest products. Doing it “for the kids,” no doubt. Shameful. Shameful.
The reader writes:
“Memphis and actually the entire state of Tennessee is “all in” as it pertains to turning over our schools to private interests for profit. Memphis schools are being systematically dismantled. They are now run by a lawyer. Everyone with any sense in central administration has already abandoned ship. Non-profits and charter groups are basically being asked “which schools do you want”. Our bargained contract is being trampled in the process. Gates Foundation partner organizations are asking principals “who do you want to get rid of? We will help you.” Principals are being given the green light to surplus (lay off) anyone they want, regardless of their performance.
“Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga are next. They started with Memphis because that was the district with the highest poverty. They bet on the fact that the state and citizens of Memphis would basically give the schools to whoever was willing to take them. In steps the Gates Foundation and with that single agreement the demise of public education in our community was sealed. That bet will pay off to the tune of 1.4 billion education dollars per year in our county alone.
“Within 5 years TEA and all the locals will be relegated to cursory “remember whens” as the major population centers of the state no longer are in the business of educating their own children. Charters, vouchers and non-profits will have no union affiliates. This will bankrupt the state level organization and open the floodgates for private equity and hedge funds to capitalize off of public tax dollars. All the while those making these decisions have their children in elite private schools that would never take on the ridiculous data-obsessed practices brought to us from Bill and Melinda Gates. No, Mr. Gates, data does not hold the answers to the world’s problems.
“I was termed an “Irreplaceable” teacher based on my personal teaching performance last year. What a joke! We are all replaceable. An iPad or virtual classroom should do the trick. I hoped to spend my life’s work teaching children. Instead, halfway through a career, I am marketing myself to other industries and embarking on a total career change. There is no room for career educators in this process. Especially ones who can not compromise their professional ethics to jump through the hoops of fire required. I hope the career path I choose for the future pays well. I am going to need the extra money to pay for private schools. I would not wish this chaos on anyone’s children. I will not accept it for mine.”
It is a sad day.
I previously named Zack Kopplin to the honor roll for his outspoken opposition to schools teaching creationism. A native of Louisiana, Zack criticized Governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan for using public funds to send students to schools that teach creationism.
Zack, a student at Rice University, recently appeared on the Bill Moyers show to talk about vouchers and creationism.
The show featured an interactive map that pinpoints every school teaching creationism with public funding. Most are concentrated in Florida and Louisiana.
If Governor Haslam in Tennessee gets his way (abetted by State Commissioner Kevin Huffman [ex-TFA]), there will be many more creationist schools funded by taxpayers. Even more taxpayer dollars will flow to such schools in Alabama and Georgia, and don’t discount their spread into Indiana, Ohio, and other states.
Is this the STEM education that will propel our nation into the 21st century?
On March 22, Governor Paul LePage will host an event for Jeb Bush and his merry team of market-model crusaders in Augusta, Maine.
Bush will present the full range of ALEC-inspired “reforms” guaranteed to bring privatization and for-profit entrepreneurs to Maine, while demoralizing Maine’s teachers and principals.
How clever to present the rightwing agenda as “reform,” and at the same time advertising Jeb’s Presidential run in 2016.
