This isn’t actually about vouchers. It’s about a
new government report(pdf) on a school vouchers program in Washington, D.C., that reveals just how perversely narrow our view of “student achievement” has become.
The program was the first federally funded private school voucher program in the country. Since 2004, more than 3,700 students -- most of them black or Hispanic -- have been awarded scholarships, each worth up to $7,500 tuition. Since Congress refused to reauthorize the program, no new students are being accepted.
The new evaluation of the program is remarkable for how it describes student achievement. It says: “There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP affected student achievement.”
What is student achievement? In this report it is all about standardized test scores. The evaluation says:
“On average, after at least four years students who were offered (or used) scholarships had reading and math test scores that were
Urban high schools throughout the country are, on average, very bad. They are full of confused teenagers who are often not well taught and given little of the support and structure they need to learn. Several D.C. high schools are under new leadership now, as Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has installed new principals. But they are trying, as edlharris recommended, to turnaround their entire schools, grades 9 to 12, at the same time. The results so far are not impressive.
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee says that she's ready to continue the District's two-year experiment with paying middle schoolers as much as $100 a month for good grades, behavior and attendance, but only if she can find the money.
Data from the first year (2008-09) of the
Capital Gains program, a joint venture with Harvard economist Roland Fryer, showed higher reading test scores for Hispanics, boys and students with behavior problems. Rhee said in April that she wanted to see 2009-10 results before making a decision on renewing the initiative, which cost the District about $1.2 million this past year. But now she says she's ready to continue on the basis of year one results, and that even if the second-year data is "flat or not moving the ball forward" the program is worth pursuing.
"The biggest issue is money," Rhee said, adding that DCPS is looking for private grants to fill in the funding gap.
The District has some time to line up financing, she said, because the program, which involves about 3,000 middle school students at 15 schools, usually doesn't get up and running until early to mid-October.
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