Voucher Advocates Pivot Following Negative Research - The Atlantic

Voucher Advocates Pivot Following Negative Research - The Atlantic:

How School Choice Affects Test Scores

Recent studies show vouchers fail to improve some student outcomes, but that hasn’t deterred advocates of the approach.

At last week’s gathering of school-choice supporters, there was an awkward fact in their midst: A wave of new studies had shown that students receiving a voucher did worse, sometimes much worse, on standardized tests.

That was the inconvenient verdict of studies examining programs in Louisiana, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and in Indianapolis, where the advocates had convened for the annual conference of the American Federation for Children. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the group’s former leader, gave the keynote address.

But many of the school-choice proponents, who had long made the case that their favored reform works, had an explanation at the ready.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, only alluded to the recent studies. “In spite of a few research projects of a narrowly identified group of students, the simple fact is when you create a marketplace of choices and informed parents … the children do better,” he told the audience.

Other leading supporters emphasized the impact the programs have beyond test scores, as well as the shortcomings of recent studies.

“Some of the data that is really interesting [looks at] not just achievement, but attainment,” Robert Enlow, the head of EdChoice, a group that backs vouchers and tax credit programs, told Chalkbeat. “A kid may not be doing as well on a test score as we would like, but they’re graduating at higher rates [and] they’re going into college at higher rates.”

Indeed, older studies show that students in Milwaukee’s voucher program were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college. Students in D.C.’s initiative also completed high school at a higher rate.

Enlow also pointed to evidence that private school choice can spur improvements in public schools through competition and increase parent satisfaction rates. Sounding a bit like some of his opponents who lead teachers unions, Enlow argued that test scores are a poor measure of educational quality.

“We want a vibrant society of people who know what they’re doing who are productive members of society,” he said. “A single test doesn’t prove jack about that.”

In fact, EdChoice opposes requiring students in voucher programs to take state Voucher Advocates Pivot Following Negative Research - The Atlantic:

Jeff Bryant Welcome to the Opportunity Network Update!

6/1/2017 – Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership:

Jeff Bryant Welcome to the Opportunity Network Update!

 

THIS WEEK: Americans Want Integration … Pre-K Inequity … College Debt Fiasco … Beware ‘Pay For Success’ … DeVos Chooses Discrimination

TOP STORY

Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership

By Jeff Bryant

“State lawmakers’ inability to do basic arithmetic is having painful impacts on schools, teachers, and children … Research consistently shows there is a direct correlation between what we spend on schools to how well our students perform on achievement tests and other measures … Surveys show Americans are generally willing to pay higher taxes to for education, especially if the money is used to pay teachers more and improve facilities and technology. Yet, political leaders continue to slash taxes instead and redirect more funds to unfounded experiments like charter schools and voucher programs.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Most Americans Want To See More School Integration As Trump Destroys Existing Efforts

The Huffington Post

“Schools are still divided along fault lines of race and class. And a majority of Americans today want this to change … 70% of Americans support the economic integration of schools, even as the Trump administration just ended one of the federal government’s few programs promoting such efforts … About 100 districts across the country are making concerted efforts to diversify schools economically, a number that is up from 40 districts in 2007 … Nearly half of the country’s low-income students – 40% – attend schools characterized by high rates of concentrated poverty.”
Read more …

A Record Number Of Kids Now Attend Public Preschool, So Why Has Inequality Grown?

PBS Newshour

“While a record number of states are providing public preschool … inequality has grown over the last decade, as access to pre-K and the quality of the programs themselves vary significantly from state to state … 24 states, mostly Texas and California, have increased spending on public preschool. This 8% or $7.4 billion increase in state-funding demonstrates that a growing number of states have come to place a value on early learning … Several studies over the years have shown that in order for kids to see longer-term benefits into elementary school and beyond, pre-K programs must be of a high-quality.”
Read more …

Americans Are Paying $38 To Collect $1 Of Student Debt

Bloomberg

“The federal government has, in recent years, paid debt collectors close to $1 billion annually to help distressed borrowers climb out of default … Much of that money may have been wasted … Debt collectors receive up to $1,710 in payment from the U.S. Department of Education each time a borrower makes good on soured debt … They keep those funds even if borrowers subsequently default again … More than 40% of these borrowers defaulted again within three years … Even when borrowers don’t default, debt collection efforts often yield little … The Education Department is paying its debt collectors up to $1,710 per borrower to collect around $45.”
Read more …

Why “Pay For Success” Financing Could Cost Taxpayers More Than They Bargained For

In These Times

“Philanthropists, financiers, and policy leaders have helped elevate the Pay for Success model quickly over the past few years … Pay for Success can leave taxpayers paying substantially more than if their governments had just funded programs directly, cement narratives of fiscal austerity and incentivize misguided social outcome … The Obama administration laid the groundwork for Pay for Success, paving the way for its potential expansion under Trump … Two Pay for Success preschool programs have launched, neither of which could yet credibly be called successful.”
Read more …

Betsy DeVos Wants To Take Money From Poor Kids And Give It To Schools That Could Discriminate Against Them

The Progressive

Jeff Bryant writes, “In Washington, DC, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was called to defend to Congress the Trump administration’s education budget which cuts education options for poor kids and increases options for parents to leave public schools … Both Republicans and Democrats expressed concerns with cuts in federal support … But the sharpest exchanges with the Secretary focused on the budget’s significant funding increases for alternatives to public schools … Democratic Representatives were especially concerned, not only with the repurposing of Title I money to create school choice options, including vouchers, but also about the kind of schools the money would be permitted to go to.”
Read more …

• Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership

• What Betsy DeVos Calls Education Transformation Is Actually Public Theft

• Trump’s Education Budget Feeds School Privatization At The Expense of Students

• What Is The Purpose Of School Choice?

• The Democrats’ Dilemma On Charter Schools

6/1/2017 – Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership:

School Vouchers' Dismal Record of Failure Comes Into Focus

School Vouchers' Dismal Record of Failure Comes Into Focus:

School Vouchers’ Dismal Record of Failure Comes Into Focus

Any lingering questions over how aggressively the Trump administration was going to pursue school privatization were answered on March 16 with the release of its FY2018-19 budget proposal. If approved by Congress, federal education programs will be slashed across the board, all to pay for an initial down payment of $1.4 billion this fiscal year on a national expansion of private school voucher programs. The eventual price tag for the program will be $20 billion annually.

It doesn’t matter how their proponents try to disguise them – education savings accounts, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships – vouchers are destructive and misguided schemes that use taxpayer dollars to “experiment with our children’s education without any evidence of real, lasting positive results,” says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García.

That was also the consensus of a panel of experts who convened recently at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank based in Washington D.C, to explore the implications of the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda. The discussion focused on three ways school vouchers pose a danger to the nation’s most vulnerable students, which were identified by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) in a memo to her Senate colleagues and summarized in her keynote remarks.

Vouchers Help Private Schools Skirt Accountability and Transparency

Strong accountability measures help prevent students from falling through the cracks.  “We fly blind without the information we need to make sure our students are succeeding,” said Murray. “We strive to make accountability as effective as possible. Unfortunately that system breaks down completely when it comes to public money going to private schools.”

Unlike public schools, private schools have almost complete autonomy with regard to how they operate: who they teach, what they teach, how they teach, how — if at School Vouchers' Dismal Record of Failure Comes Into Focus:

John Thompson: Pick your battles: A letter to 7 new OKCPS principals - NonDoc

Pick your battles: A letter to 7 new OKCPS principals - NonDoc:

Pick your battles: A letter to 7 new OKCPS principals

On Monday, The Oklahoman’s Tim Willert reported on the replacement of seven Oklahoma City Public Schools principals. The decisions will be controversial.

In light of this expected controversy, I offer the following letter to the new principals and assistant principals. (Conservative reformer Rick Hess recently wrote similar letters to young school reformers):

Congratulations! And thank you for your sacrifices. Principals give up the best jobs in the world, classroom teaching and counseling, to make greater contributions to larger numbers of kids.

I suspect you still receive the same advice that my first principal gave me: “Pick your battles.”

Probably, you are told: Principal leadership, improved classroom instruction, data, accountability and high expectations(!) can turn around even the toughest schools.

When I entered the classroom in 1992, principals and others were also required to repeat that mantra. In my experience, about 10 to 15 percent really believed that leaders who supported teachers, who accept “No Excuses!,” can overcome the legacies of poverty, trauma and segregation that the OKCPS faces.

The big problems occurred when administrators didn’t pick their battles and didn’t just go through the motions of issuing such proclamations. It was school reformers who actually believed what they were saying who did the real damage.

Teamwork creates improvement

My principals worked from 60 to 80 hours, or more, per week. That allowed for coffee-infused, reflective conversations with at least one principal or assistant principal per day. While I often disagreed with my bosses, these discussions allowed me to walk a little in Pick your battles: A letter to 7 new OKCPS principals - NonDoc:

City Democrats betray their base. | Fred Klonsky

City Democrats betray their base. | Fred Klonsky:

City Democrats betray their base

When I applauded the plan to merge the Chicago Teachers Union with ChiACT, the union organizing charter teachers, former Arne Duncan press agent Peter Cunningham, who I assume is a Democrat, suggested it was just a way for the unions to recruit more members.

I had to explain to Peter that a union recruiting members was the point.

It is called “organizing the unorganized.”

But attacking the electoral base of the Democratic Party is what the Democrats seem to be doing these days.

It was a factor in the national Democrats loss, giving the White House to Covfefe.

Cities simply do not produce the turnout in key states that the Democrats need to win.

Democrat Pat Quinn lost to Republican Bruce Rauner in a blue state by attacking AFSCME and cutting state public employee pensions. Rauner didn’t win by much. He didn’t have to.

While Illinois went blue, Chicago Democratic Party leaders and the Mayor continue to City Democrats betray their base. | Fred Klonsky:

Increasing Salaries So Teachers Don't Have To Become Principals : NPR Ed : NPR

Increasing Salaries So Teachers Don't Have To Become Principals : NPR Ed : NPR:

Increasing Salaries So Teachers Don't Have To Become Principals

Spencer Campbell spends much of his days walking the halls of Elk Ridge Middle School, checking breezeways for kids playing hooky, redirecting foot traffic in between classes and checking in on substitute teachers.

Campbell is one of two assistant principals at Elk Ridge, a school just south of Salt Lake City, Utah. It's his first year in the role and he looks the part. He's in his late 30s, sharply dressed, walks briskly and carries a walkie-talkie on his belt.

Before coming to education, Campbell owned a small business. He says he felt drawn to schools, though, so he got a master's degree and spent five years in the classroom as a teacher.

Where, after all that, he says he just couldn't make ends meet. "As a teacher I was making $43,000 a year and I had a part-time job where I would work another 20," he says. "That wasn't for the extras. That was just for the basics." Extras like braces for his kids, piano lessons and the occasional vacation.

So, he looked ahead to the next step: administration.

"There's not a step in the ladder between teacher and administrator," Campbell says. "It's just teacher. And administrator."

That's not saying Campbell is upset about his job, he says he likes it and now he makes nearly double what he made in the classroom. Though, the change is bittersweet.

"The effect that a classroom teacher has on a student is second only to a parent," Campbell says. "And as an administrator, I don't know if I'll ever be able to have that same effect and that's kind of heartbreaking."

"The problem is that there is a big disparity between what teachers make and a living wage in lots of places," says Janice Voorhies, the president of the Jordan District Increasing Salaries So Teachers Don't Have To Become Principals : NPR Ed : NPR:

The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions | Education News | US News

The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions | Education News | US News:

The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions
Since 1986, 47 school districts have splintered off to create their own whiter and wealthier districts.

When a judge ruled last week that the predominantly white Alabama city of Gardendale can secede from the majority black Jefferson County to form its own school district, the decision paved the way for the eighth such secession of wealthier and whiter municipalities in the state since 2000.

The judge’s ruling, which acknowledged that "race was a motivating factor" behind the effort despite its backers insistence they simply wanted more local control, garnered national attention because of a standing desegregation order the county has been under since 1965.

But dozens of school districts have similarly broken away from bigger ones – at least 36 since 2000, according to EdBuild, a nonprofit that focuses on education funding and inequality – moves that went largely undetected. In almost all cases, the communities involved were less diverse and had higher property values than those they left behind, compounding socioeconomic inequalities that plague public schools.

[READ: After Brown v. Board of Education, School Segregation Still Exists]

“All this stuff is happening really quietly,” says Rebecca Sibilia, founder of EdBuild. “You’re talking about students who are left behind and who are further disadvantaged by the fact that their neighbors are able to move the goal posts on them.”

In total, 30 states have a process in place allowing districts to secede, according to a legislative analysis by researchers at EdBuild, who are preparing to publish a report on secessions next month. Of those 30 states, only 17 require consideration be given to the secession’s impact on students, and only six require consideration be given to the impact on socioeconomic factors and diversity. Moreover, only nine states require a study of the potential fiscal impact to the district.

“Said another way, in 21 states school districts can secede in order to create massive differences in school funding without there needing to be any remediation,” Sibilia says. “As you start to look at the detail related to secession policies, you start to realize that this is actually something that’s very permissible in several states.”

In the case of Jefferson County, Gardendale is just the latest municipality to splinter off from the larger school district, leaving behind a school system that’s increasingly comprised of poor students and students of color.

Supporters of Gardendale's secession have been pushing for it for years, arguing that The Quiet Wave of School District Secessions | Education News | US News:

Most Americans Want To See More School Integration As Trump Destroys Existing Efforts | HuffPost

Most Americans Want To See More School Integration As Trump Destroys Existing Efforts | HuffPost:

Most Americans Want To See More School Integration As Trump Destroys Existing Efforts
American schools are divided by the haves and the have-nots. Many Americans want this to change.

Over 63 years after Brown v. Board of Education made state-sanctioned school segregation illegal and set off a wave of controversial efforts to diversify districts, many schools have settled back into old patterns. Although the law no longer endorses it, schools are still divided along fault lines of race and class.

And a majority of Americans today want this to change, at least in theory.

A new study from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress analyzes the extent to which poor students are isolated in high-poverty schools, and whether parents think anything should be done about it. As it turns out, 70 percent of Americans support the economic integration of schools, even as the Trump administration just ended one of the federal government’s few programs promoting such efforts.

The group conducted a nationally representative poll of Americans on the topic of school integration, specifically focusing on socioeconomic integration instead of race. After a 2007 Supreme Court case questioned the constitutionality of using race as the single factor to integrate schools, a growing ― albeit still tiny ― number of districts have been working to integrate along economic lines. About 100 districts across the country are making concerted efforts to diversify schools economically, a number that is up from 40 districts in 2007.

This poll, according to CAP researchers, is one of the first to look at how Americans feel about these efforts.

At a moment in history when the current president of the United States was elected after running an acrimonious campaign built around marginalizing certain minority groups, the stakes for creating a more harmoniously integrated society are high, according to CAP researchers. But the stakes are also high on a more granular level. Decades of research show that the American public school system in many ways reflects a two-tiered system, where poor and wealthy students occupy separate and vastly unequal spheres.

Nearly half of the country’s low-income students ― 40 percent ― attend schools characterized by high rates of concentrated poverty. These schools typically employ less experienced teachers and receive less funding. Students who attend poor schools graduate from high school at a rate of 68 percent, compared to students who attend Most Americans Want To See More School Integration As Trump Destroys Existing Efforts | HuffPost:

 

Elizabeth Warren Launches 'DeVos Watch' in Bid to Make Education 'Corruption-Free' | Common Dreams

Elizabeth Warren Launches 'DeVos Watch' in Bid to Make Education 'Corruption-Free' | Common Dreams:

Elizabeth Warren Launches 'DeVos Watch' in Bid to Make Education 'Corruption-Free'

Resistance to Devos's agenda has "spread like wildfire," Warren notes.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced on Wednesday the launch of 'DeVos Watch,' a new initiative tasked with holding Education Secretary Betsy DeVos accountable and ensuring that the Department of Education serves students, "not the industries that make money off them."

In an op-ed for CNN, Warren explained the motivation behind the "oversight effort."

Two of Secretary DeVos' first hires at the Department were Robert Eitel and Taylor Hansen, both with deep connections to institutions that make big money by abusing the student aid program and preying on students. Eitel was a top lawyer from a for-profit college that recently paid a more than $30 million fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly "deceiving students into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised;" that for-profit college is currently under both state and federal investigation for breaking laws meant to protect students. Meanwhile, Hansen had been a top lobbyist for the entire for-profit college industry, which has paid out hundreds of millions in fines for defrauding students.

"The revolving door that shuttles people between government jobs and the corporations they police is corrosive," Warren added, "but it is rarely this brazen."

In addition to the op-ed, Warren released the following video:

Warren's initiative comes at a time of intensifying opposition to Devos's agenda. Earlier this month, in response to her remark that historically black colleges and universities were "real pioneers when it comes to school choice," graduates of Bethune-Cookman University turned their backs on and booed DeVos as she delivered a commencement address.

DeVos, a billionaire, has long been a militant supporter of charter schools, and she has used her wealth to shape public policy—particularly in her home state of Michigan, where evidence of her influence is abundant.

"The revolving door that shuttles people between government jobs and the corporations they police is corrosive—but it is rarely this brazen." 
—Elizabeth Warren"In Detroit, parents of school-age children have plenty of choices, thanks to the nation's largest urban network of charter schools. What remains in short supply is quality," reported the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss last year. "In Brightmoor, the only high school left is Detroit Community Schools, a charter boasting more than a decade of abysmal test scores and, until recently, a superintendent who earned $130,000 a year despite a dearth of educational experience or credentials."

Similar stories abound in states throughout the nation, where charter schools have failed to deliver on their promises and are often not subjected to the same accountability standards as public schools.

With 'DeVos Watch,' Warren intends to closely scrutinize charters, as well as for-profit colleges that have for decades preyed on students for profit. She also promises to continue holding the Department of Education accountable, no matter which party occupies the White House.

Warren notes that in the past she has "challenged the Democrat-led Department of Elizabeth Warren Launches 'DeVos Watch' in Bid to Make Education 'Corruption-Free' | Common Dreams:

Jeff Bryant: Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership

Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership:

Our School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership

This week’s disturbing news that Oklahoma schools are so poorly funded some of them may move from five days a week to four got a lot of people’s attention, including my colleague Richard Eskow, who called this an example of “the Republican party’s sickness of the soul.” Unfortunately, the illness is highly contagious.

The contagion stems from revenue shortfalls in states that counted on money that never materialized – at least 29 states, according to Education Week. Although unemployment rates have generally declined in these states, and economies have improved since the Great Recession, lawmakers in many of these states also decided to enact tax cuts and to do nothing about stagnating wages, so income tax and sales tax revenues flattened or even dipped.

Governors in these states say education finance is a priority – at least according to an annual survey of them. The poll, conducted by the Education Commission of the States, asked 42 governors about their education-related priorities. School finance was at the top, with 32 wanting to improve K-12 education through funding. But obviously, these state leaders forgot the revenue side of the equation. Oops!

State lawmakers’ inability to do basic arithmetic is having painful impacts on schools, teachers, and children.

Oklahoma is indeed the poster child for the negative consequences. “Funding for classrooms has been shrinking for years,” reports the Washington Post, “slicing away hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.” The shift to four-day weeks is not the only consequence of the financial crisis. Art and music programs have been cut, teachers are getting laid off, and those teachers who are left are the worst paid in the nation.

But Oklahoma is just an extreme point on a long continuum of bad.

Somewhere else on that continuum lies North Carolina, where lawmakersOur School Funding Crisis Has A Cause: Bad Leadership: 

Trump’s Budget Proposal Neglects Children and Defines Human Decency Down | janresseger

Trump’s Budget Proposal Neglects Children and Defines Human Decency Down | janresseger:

Trump’s Budget Proposal Neglects Children and Defines Human Decency Down

From the perspective of the welfare of America’s children, the assumptions underneath President Donald Trump’s 2018 federal budget proposal are deeply troubling. The budget reinforces the theory that everybody ought to be earning a living, but except for Ivanka Trump’s idea for six weeks of newborn parental leave, there really isn’t any recognition that child rearing is a kind of work. The budget reflects that as a society we have just come to expect that children are raised, but we neither pay much attention to how that’s supposed to happen nor respect those who do the rearing. According to that logic, we fail to honor not only the work of mothers and fathers but also the work of child care providers. The minimum wage is so low that these workers qualify for Medicaid and SNAP (today’s name for food stamps). The President’s new budget slashes federal funding for Medicaid and for SNAP and fully eliminates a well respected and federally funded after-school program designed to enrich children’s lives in the hours before their parents finish work.

And there are big questions about whether Ivanka’s parental leave program would work for low-income parents. Here is the Center for Law and Social Policy: “In the midst of this grim context for working families, the budget attempts to throw them a small bone with a plan to offer six weeks of paid parental leave to care for a new child. In reality, though, this proposed program would do very little for low-income families. If states set wage replacement comparable to the unemployment insurance rates, that would leave many low-income workers unable to make ends meet while on  leave and therefore unlikely to use the program.”

The NY Times editorial board is blunt in its condemnation of the priorities in Trump’s budget proposal: “Food stamps work. Each month they help feed 43 million poor and low-income Americans, most in families with children and working parents. Food stamps, officially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, keep millions of people from falling into poverty each year and prevent millions of poor people, many disabled or elderly, from falling deeper into poverty. They also improve the future prospects of poor children by fostering better Trump’s Budget Proposal Neglects Children and Defines Human Decency Down | janresseger:

Is Love Enough to Fight Today’s White, Male Terrorists? | gadflyonthewallblog

Is Love Enough to Fight Today’s White, Male Terrorists? | gadflyonthewallblog:

Is Love Enough to Fight Today’s White, Male Terrorists?

When I was growing up, I was told that love is all you need.

But now in the face of such hatred toward people of color, I’m not so sure.

Three brave people put their lives on the line to stop a knife-wielding white supremacist on a bus in Portland, Oregon, yesterday. Two of them – Ricky Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche – lost their lives defending two young women being menaced with anti-Muslim slurs. The other – Micah Fletcher – was viciously wounded but survived.

As Meche was bleeding out on the floor of the bus, a witness recorded his last words: “Tell everyone on this bus that I love them.”

It’s heartbreaking.

What are we to do with such knowledge? Three people filled with love and one maniac filled with hate.

Was love enough?

It saved the would-be targets this time. The attacker is behind bars. But two precious lives have been snuffed out.

Why? So one scared little man can vent his xenophobia and intolerance?

The America I grew up in seemed to have learned the lessons of the Civil Rights movement. I was born after the murders of Dr. King, Malcolm X and the Kennedys. I was born after the church bombings, bus boycotts, freedom rides and marches.

I grew up in a time when we could look back on all that and wonder what we would have done had we been faced with the same challenges. And now…

Marx said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” What better term Is Love Enough to Fight Today’s White, Male Terrorists? | gadflyonthewallblog: