Governor Scott Walker is a hard-right conservative who wants a market-based school system–or no system at all, just a free market where consumers go to any provider they want. Despite the failure of vouchers in Milwaukee, Walker is pushing for statewide vouchers. He is getting his way, step by step. I wonder if he knows that Wisconsin public schools–which he deplores–have the HIGHEST
graduation rate in the nation?
Archives for category: Wisconsin
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is following the ALEC script:
More charters
More vouchers
Lower standards for entry into teaching
Did he ask the voters if they want to get rid of public education? No.
The Forward Institute of Wisconsin released a new study of education policy in the state.
This is a statement made by the Institute’s Chair, Scott Wittkopf:
Wisconsin has always been a leader in K-12 public education because we have long valued the right of every child to receive a quality public education. The fundamental nature of our values is reflected in the State Constitution, which guarantees all children equal access to educational opportunity in our public schools. That constitutional right is now being systematically eroded and defunded. The research presented in this report shows that current fiscal policy and education funding are depriving our poorest students access to a sound public education. Public schools are not failing our children, Wisconsin legislators and policymakers are failing the public schools that serve our children.
Our comprehensive report documents in detail that the resources being afforded schools and students of poverty are insufficient, and facing further reduction. Moreover, the resources being diverted from schools of poverty into non-traditional alternative education programs are producing questionable results with little to no accountability for the state funding they receive.
The following seven points highlight critical findings of our study:
1. The number of students in poverty has nearly doubled since 1997, increasing from 24% of all students to 42% (Reference Poster Figure 1). At the same time, inflation-adjusted state funding of public education has fallen to its lowest level in over 17 years. On average, schools with higher poverty enrollment levels have experienced per-pupil funding cuts over 2 times the cuts in the most affluent districts.
2. Analyzing state testing data revealed a paradox within economically disadvantaged (ED) students scoring proficient or advanced. As ED enrollment increased, the percentage of ED students scoring proficient or advanced also increased. Our analysis discovered that as more children dropped into ED due to economic circumstances, they brought their typically higher test scores into the ED group. This has resulted in the false perception that poorer students’ test proficiency rates have been rising. Further, as ED enrollment approaches 50%, we are seeing a plateau and beginning of a downward trend in ED scores. A student who begins in poverty does not have previously higher scores to bring into a cohort, as we observed over the past decade. Therefore, we can expect to see a growing achievement gap between ED and non-ED test scores in the coming decade.
3. If the Walker proposal to increase voucher school funding is adopted, over $2,000 more will go to a K-8 voucher student than a public school student. A voucher high school student will receive nearly $3000 more in state aid than a public school student (Reference Poster Figure #2). When controlling for inflation, K-8 voucher schools will have seen a $400 increase, and voucher high schools a $1000 increase in per student funding from the 1999 school year. In comparison, public schools will have seen a $1000 per student decrease from the 1999 level. The economic disparities in state funding between voucher and public schools are important in the education funding debate. As we will demonstrate, there is evidence that voucher schools have no positive effect on student graduation/attainment levels or test scores. This raises the question, is there sufficient evidence to support the claim of voucher advocates that voucher schools afford a better educational opportunity to students? Based on the data, we conclude the evidence does not support this claim.
4. The new School Report Card scores released by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) have a strong correlation to the level of poverty in any given school and school district (reference poster figure #3). Nearly half of the school-to-school difference in Report Card Scores can be explained by the difference in poverty level from school to school. When compared to other factors at the school district level such as teacher experience, racial demographics, and per pupil revenue limits, poverty still accounts for 44% of the school district difference in Report Card scores. This fact makes any use of the DPI School Report Cards for significant funding or incentive decisions poor public policy.
5. The Walker budget proposes to expand voucher schools into districts where School Report Card scores “fail to meet expectations.” This proposal will assure that more schools and school districts of high poverty will lose resources. As we have shown, School Report Card scores are directly correlated to level of poverty, and districts with underperforming schools are therefore districts with schools of higher poverty. Funding to operate the voucher school expansion will come directly out of those public schools of highest poverty.
6. Milwaukee voucher program students underperform Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students on statewide tests, with a lower percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced. In the Milwaukee voucher program (based on two years’ (2010-2012) data) over 20 children graduate for every child testing proficient in 10th grade reading. The statewide ratio is about 1:1. The MPS ratio is about 2:1. In mathematics, the statewide ratio is about 1:1, MPS ratio is about 3:1, and the voucher student ratio is over 50:1.That means over 20 voucher students graduate for every voucher student proficient in 10th grade reading, and over 50 voucher students graduate for every voucher student proficient in 10th grade mathematics. This translates into a much higher cost in state aid for a voucher student to become proficient or advanced than an MPS or high poverty statewide student to become proficient or advanced (reference poster figure #4). This provides a stark illustration of the high cost to taxpayers for low student proficiency in the voucher program, and raises a significant question of educational adequacy for voucher schools, as the expectation should be for a high school graduate to be proficient in reading and math.
7. As a result of recent budget decisions resulting in education austerity, there is strong evidence that the current public education funding and delivery system in Wisconsin is unconstitutional. When compared to their more affluent peers, students of poverty are not receiving an adequate public education as defined by State Supreme Court precedent, statutes, and the State Constitution. Further, the system has created two distinct classes of students, those of poverty and non-poverty. Both groups have predictable outcomes based on level of poverty. Recent budgeting decisions are exacerbating this dichotomy.
Based on our conclusions, we present the following 5 policy recommendations:
1. Fair Funding – The Legislature should approve, and the Governor should sign, Dr. Tony Evers’ “Fair Funding” formula into law. This would be a first step toward addressing the increasing needs of rural and urban districts most affected by poverty.
2. Address Issues of Poverty and Education – The two greatest challenges to ensuring a prosperous and vibrant Wisconsin for future generations are poverty and education. The Governor should join with non-partisan, bi-partisan, broad-based constituent groups to appoint a “Blue Ribbon Commission.” This commission should be charged with a one-year mission to develop a statewide plan bringing parents and communities (rural and urban) impacted by poverty together for the purpose of implementing an intervention plan to address poverty and education issues. There are already successful models in communities that address the external poverty issues that have negative effects on education. Achievement gaps are largely attributable to factors outside of school walls. If Wisconsin is to substantially narrow these gaps, education policy must incorporate health and nutrition supports and after-school enrichment to address barriers to learning that are driven by child poverty.
3. Voucher Program Sunset – The twenty-year Milwaukee and one-year Racine private school voucher experiment should be sunsetted by the Legislature in 2024. The voucher experiment can show no positive voucher school effects on student outcomes and attainment, beyond what already can be attributed to the voucher schools’ select student demographic and parental factors. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund a second statewide school district, nor an expensive entitlement program, when the public schools are not failing. It is, in fact, the state of Wisconsin that is failing public schools and the children they serve. Dividing resources between two statewide school districts exacerbates this growing problem in the face of increasing poverty rates.
4. Charter Schools – Charter schools eligible for state aid should be allowed only under the auspices and as an instrumentality of an existing public school district to ensure public accountability in fiscal, academic, staff, and student functions.
5. School Report Cards – School Report Cards issued by DPI should be used as part of the big picture to measure overall school and student performance along with other standards and measures, balancing “input” (educational access, quality, services, resources, etc.) and “output” (student results). It should be acknowledged that the use of School Report Cards exclusively for reward, incentive, funding, penalty, or other fiscal consequence is improper, poor public policy, and would further erode access to educational opportunity.
This report demonstrates in detail that the resources being afforded schools and students of poverty are insufficient, and indeed are facing further reduction. Moreover, the resources being diverted from schools of poverty into non-traditional alternative education programs are producing questionable results with little to no accountability for the funding they receive. The failure of Wisconsin policy makers to acknowledge and address these issues is creating a generation of economically disadvantaged students that will lag far behind their more fortunate peers.
Public schools are not failing Wisconsin’s students, the state of Wisconsin is failing the public schools which serve these students.
The full report can be accessed here:
Wisconsin Budget Policy and Poverty in Education 2013
The full data will be posted within two days on our “Research” page.
Responding to a complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Department of Justice warned voucher schools in Milwaukee to stop excluding, counseling out, or otherwise discriminating against students with disabilities.
“The state cannot, by delegating the education function to private voucher schools, place students beyond the reach of the federal laws that require Wisconsin to eliminate disability discrimination in its administration of public programs,” DOJ officials wrote in the letter to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers.
Voucher programs across the nation–now operating in 20 states–will be affected, and states are now obliged to monitor voucher programs to be sure they are in compliance with federal laws protecting the rights of students with disabilities.
The ACLU contended that the voucher program excluded students with disabilities, and if they were admitted, they were systematically expelled and/or pushed out. This practice led to a very large percentage of students with disabilities in the public school district even as its funding was declining due to loss of enrollment to vouchers and charters. Consequently, the so-called “failing” district cannot possibly recover because the private schools don’t accept students with disabilities and the public school has to accept all comers. And despite their exclusion of students with disabilities, the voucher schools in Wisconsin DO NOT outperform the public schools.
A statement issued by the ACLU warned of the danger of choice programs:
“Publicly-funded voucher programs have the effect of setting up a separate escape hatch for only a few, leaving the majority of the poor students in schools that are even less likely to succeed than they were before the voucher program or tax credit began. Furthermore, the private schools that spring up to educate a child for $6,500 are producing results that are no better than the public school district – in Milwaukee, for example, three years of comparison test scores show they are performing worse than the public system. We also know that the Milwaukee parents who take advantage of these programs tend to have higher education levels and children without disabilities, leaving the public school district with a higher percentage of children with disabilities and parents with less education. There are few checks in place to ensure that all of the schools accepting vouchers are more than glorified day care providing convenient hours for parents.”
Even more ominous is the specter of segregation academies in the south:
“…some private schools in states like Georgia and Alabama, where tax credits have recently been put into place, were founded as segregation academies to thwart federal integration efforts. While the program in Milwaukee and its school district serve almost entirely students of color, as “school choice” spreads around the country, the stage is set for these programs to become even more exclusionary and segregated. We know this because Milwaukee’s voucher program already excludes students with disabilities and segregates them into the public school district while at the same time stripping the district of much needed funds to educate them. If we permit this to continue, we are condoning separate schools for a number of groups of students, including racial minorities, students with disabilities, religious minorities and LGBT students. What we have known for the fifty years since Brown v. Board of Education is that separate is not equal. School voucher programs and tax credits do not provide a choice for everyone. They create publicly funded separate schools.”
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has been friendly to school choice experiments, but now has turned cool.
Why?
In this editorial, the newspaper says the evidence DOES NOT SUPPORT SCHOOL CHOICE.
Governor Scott Walker wants to lift the income limits on the voucher program and expand it beyond Milwaukee, but the newspaper disagrees. It reviews the research and concludes:
“But here’s the bottom line: The evidence isn’t persuasive that the choice schools have had much impact on achievement. Kids in the voucher schools do about the same, overall, as their peers in the public schools.
“And that underwhelming finding surely is not enough to justify a broad expansion that seems based more on ideology than on anything else.”
Public education is at risk in several states, where extremists want to tear it up and replace it with privatization.
One of the states where the privatizers are in charge is Wiscondin, where Governor Scott Walker hopes to demolish public education.
To get a sense of what is happening in Wisconsin, read this article. Written by a teacher, it challenges syndicated columnist George Will for joining the wrecking crew and spreading false tales about the public schools, spread by unreliable sources.
This tide of hostility directed at a democratic institution is bizarre. It is not conservative to destroy one of the pillars of our free society.
Mercedes Schneider, who holds a Ph.D. In statistics, analyzes Patrick Wolf’s evaluation of the voucher program in Milwaukee. Wolf acknowledges that the voucher program may not have raised student achievement but claims that it increased graduation rates. This “success” was qualified by a high attrition rate. In the initial study, he said that the attrition rate was 75%, but subsequently revised it to 56%.
Dr. Schneider took a closer look at the study. In this post, she demystifies the technical jargon for non-specialists and clearly explains why the methods employed by Wolf and his associates do not offer much reassurance about the value of vouchers.
School choice advocates now stand on shaky ground. Their own funded evaluations show that students in voucher schools do not get higher test scores than their peers in public schools.
So they fall back to the next line of defense, which is to say that the voucher students have a higher graduation rate.
In the case of Milwaukee, the graduation rate is muddied by a very high attrition rate, either 75% or 56%, depending on which version of the evaluation you read. Both are very high attrition rates, not much of a statement of student satisfaction.
But there are other problems, as you will see if you read Dr. Mercedes Schneider’s review of Dr. Patrick’s Milwaukee study.
Patrick Wolf, the “independent” evaluator of the Milwaukee voucher program remains incensed that the National Education Policy Center did not notice that he dropped the attrition rate of students in the Milwaukee voucher program from 75% to 56%.
I, the humble historian, still wonder what is so impressive about Milwaukee, one of the lowest-performing cities on NAEP. If the voucher students get the same test scores as kids in public schools, and Milwaukee is low-performing, what does that say about the efficacy of vouchers? And, I dunno, but 56% still looks like a huge attrition rate. If all those students dropped out from the voucher schools, what does it say about vouchers? But what do I know? I am far, far below Dr. Wolf.
Kevin Welner, the director of the National Education Policy Center, responds here, including a comment by Casey Cobb, who wrote the original review of the Wolf analysis for NEPC.
Welner writes:
“In a new post on Education Next, Patrick Wolf asserts that the “dust up” emerging from his first post was “avoidable.” But he never addresses the main way it could have been avoided: if he had been honest with his readers the first time around, instead of implying ignorance or wrongdoing as a cheap way to scores some points against Diane Ravitch and (to a lesser extent) NEPC.
Wolf’s new post includes no statement to the effect that he made a mistake in leading readers to believe that Casey Cobb (and therefore NEPC and Diane Ravitch) had concocted the 75% figure out of thin air. Nor, obviously, does he apologize for misleading his readers or for his baseless attacks on Cobb, NEPC, and Ravitch.
The only mistake he acknowledges was “in the form of the initial 75% program attrition figure.” That is, my colleagues incorrectly put the 75% figure in our report, and we then corrected it to 56%. That’s of course true, but what’s odd is that he doesn’t address the core issue. When he wrote the first Education Next post, why was he not honest with his readers? Why did he attack based on an argument that is, at best, misleading?
Here’s what an apology looks like, honestly and straightforwardly admitting a mistake: “Dr. Wolf, you are correct that NEPC’s editing process failed to notice the discrepancy between the 75% figure and the 56% figure. We apologize, and we will correct our postings to accurately note that the SCDP report was changed during the writing of our review.” This morning, I also reached out to our expert reviewer, Casey Cobb, who poured through his notes and drafts, forensically piecing together whatever information he could find – and he responded to me with an honest note that he’s allowing me to post below. In my view, Casey and NEPC both made mistakes in this process, but those mistakes were small and understandable – readers can decide for themselves.
But more importantly, those small mistakes in no way change or mitigate what – without some explanation – looks like a deceitful attack. Reading Wolf’s new blog, I’m left to believe that he considered Cobb and NEPC (and Ravitch) fair game since we failed to figure out the miraculous transformation from 75% to 56%. But his initial point didn’t argue that. It didn’t say, “We originally published the report using an incorrect figure of 75% attrition, and it seems that Cobb and NEPC were confused by the switch,” or even “Those credulous fools used the 75% that we’d originally posted instead of noticing that we’d changed that figure to 56%. Haha – joke’s on them.” Instead, he hid his knowledge of the source of that 75% figure and attacked us as being incompetent or deceptive.
If Wolf were driving down the road and swerved to intentionally hit a person who had slipped off the sidewalk, I dare say he couldn’t excuse his behavior by arguing that the pedestrian had wrongly left the sidewalk. Did I mention that he was responsible for greasing down the sidewalk the previous day?
Here’s the note sent to me by Casey Cobb:
It would be helpful in future reports if the SCDP and Patrick Wolf flag such corrections and identify to readers what was “updated and corrected” when they post corrections. The apparently erroneous 75% attrition figure that mysteriously turned to 56% wasn’t explicitly identified in the “corrected” report.
Yes, in my review of the originally released report, which does not indicate “draft,” or “work in progress,” or anything of that sort, I referenced what Wolf and his colleagues wrote about the 75% attrition from their sample. Then, during the process of editing and creating many drafts of my review, this “updated and corrected” report was posted on the SCDP website.
The updated report’s face page still indicates a publication date of “February 2012,” but three pages in reads, “Updated and Corrected March 8, 2012.” The website on which the report can be found still says, “Posted by UArk Dept. of Ed. Reform – February 1, 2012 – DER Publications, MPCP – Final Reports, SCDP, SCDP Milwaukee Evaluation” (http://www.uaedreform.org/updated-student-attainment-and-the-milwaukee-parental-choice-program-final-follow-up-analysis/).
I have no recollection or record of how the 56% number was captured and added. I can only surmise that I downloaded this newer version during the latter stages of my review, perhaps while traveling and using a different computer (and so needing a new copy). I obviously didn’t notice anything different, and I continued on with my review citing the new 56% figure (which, again, contained no footnote or indication of the change from 75%–that would have been helpful to those of us who are memory-challenged). Yes, this was a mistake; I certainly missed the inconsistency in the final edits of my review.
The NEPC review needs only one correction. In the current version, the Summary of the Review and Section III make reference to the 75% sample attrition rate; in Section V, the reference is made to the “updated and corrected” 56% rate. I will take responsibility for indicating via footnote that updated figure in Wolf’s revised report is now “56%.” An explanation can be added to indicate that the review took place during a period in which the Report #30 changed and that an updated version of Report #30 was posted on March 8th which did not indicate what items were corrected. Hopefully, if changes to SCDP reports occur following their original posting in the future, authors provide information on what was actually updated.
Patrick Wolf, in what can only be perceived as a patronizing tone, asks that, “While Casey Cobb is correcting his review of our report, he should also revise his charge on page 4 that, ‘Curiously, it [meaning the report] fails to state how many program-switchers there were, when they switched and in which direction, and how many graduated.’” But then he goes on to admit my statement was, in fact, true; the report does not address it. Yet he still laments that I didn’t refer readers to a journal article identified in the report as forthcoming (that is, not yet published) that speaks to this very issue not addressed in Report #30. Now we are all free to read it.
Patrick Wolf is right that the 75% vs. 56% attrition rate is not the main issue here, although either number raises questions about construct validity (what the treatment actually was). Other more substantive issues remain unaddressed by him and his colleagues. For one, explaining why it is they rely so heavily upon a .10 level of statistical significance when the industry standard is.05. And then why this is brushed off in lieu of grand summary statements of the program’s success? Perhaps adherence to commonly accepted scientific standards gave way to a desire to promote voucher-like programs.
Finally, I want to add my voice to the call for Wolf to release the Milwaukee data that he and his colleagues used, to generate their claims, so that other researchers may analyze it dispassionately – attrition rates and all.”
When I was in Texas last week, several people–including state legislators–told me that they believe that rural Republicans will join Democrats in voting down vouchers. The rural Republicans know that vouchers would kill their local public schools, and they don’t believe that would be right.
Something similar may be happening in Wisconsin. Governor Scott Walker is eager to expand vouchers to new parts of the state, and Republican Senators are less than enthusiastic. Some say they want any voucher program to be subject to a local referendum, but Walker stoutly refuses. He must know that voters have never approved a voucher program. Other Republicans are undoubtedly concerned about how vouchers will affect their community schools. Of coure, Governor Walker wants vouchers for children with disabilities, which is an ALEC bill. The reality is that children with disabilities have better programs and more constitutional protections in public schools than in private and religious schools.
The fact that Republicans are pushing back against vouchers is good news.
Diane Ravitch's blog 