In the wake of Zelman, where are the private schools?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / July 3, 2002

The Supreme Court's voucher decision last Thursday produced cheers from many quarters, some of them expected (Institute for Justice, Senator Voinovich), others less so (President Bush, New Republic legal specialist Jeffrey Rosen). And of course it produced a predictable hail of negative reactions from teacher union heads, the New York Times editorial page, and sundry politicians.

In the chorus of commentary, however, one set of singers was notably muted: those who lead and speak for U.S. private schools. Tepid was the word that came to mind as I read their reactions. Sure, everyone in this crowd lauded the Court for making the right decision and everyone said nice things about freedom, the value of choice and the educational contributions of private schools. But there was practically no suggestion that U.S. private educators are ready to press for more vouchers so that their schools can serve more disadvantaged children.

The Catholic bishop of Columbus, Ohio, James A. Griffin, said that the high court's ruling was right but that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of the Cleveland program and he isn't counting on any more vouchers. He doesn't even seem to want them. Indeed, he told the Columbus Dispatch that he does not plan to ask the legislature to widen the program to include his community. (I had earlier heard through other channels that Ohio's Catholic leaders have no intention of becoming voucher advocates, never mind that most of the

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In the wake of Zelman, where are the private schools?

School choice crossroads

Kelly Scott / July 3, 2002

In a forceful editorial the day after the Zelman decision, The Washington Post hailed the ruling, restated the need for experimentation, and urged choice opponents not to become fixated on blurring of church-state lines. "We don't belittle the dangers. But the dangers of vouchers are hypothetical ones at this stage. The crisis in education is real."

That's the same pragmatic mindset that journalist Matt Miller embraces in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, in which he revisits the "voucher proposal for liberals" he first broached a few years ago in The Atlantic. Miller suggests that Uncle Sam fund an experiment in 3-4 big cities in which every poor child is offered a hefty voucher that could be redeemed at public or private schools, a voucher large enough to increase per-pupil spending by 20% or 30%. (This way, liberals can't object that the voucher drains cash from schools for poor kids.) When Miller first proposed this idea to conservatives, they liked it, but leaders of the teacher unions refused to even consider it. Miller warns that, if the unions are not open to this kind of experiment, they may soon be in for worse. At some point, he predicts, a Democratic presidential aspirant will be willing to stand up to the unions (and their "Sit tight-we've got a ten year reform plan" message to poor families) on the voucher issue.

While Miller believes that we may be near a tipping point

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School choice crossroads

Court says New York is meeting its obligation to prepare citizens for basic duties

July 3, 2002

A New York state appeals court last week reversed a lower court ruling that the state was not meeting its obligation to provide students in New York City with a sound, basic education. The appeals court ruled that schools are obligated by the state constitution "to do nothing more than prepare students for low-level jobs, for serving on a jury and for reading campaign literature-the equivalent, the court suggested, of an eight- or ninth- grade education," according to New York Times reporters Robert Worth and Anemona Hartocolis. The appellate judges suggested that the lower court had overreached in defining what the state constitution requires, and that it was not the job of a court to set an ideal standard, but only to determine what a constitutional human right to education entails; barring catastrophe, it is up to politicians to make further decisions about education and to be voted out of office if citizens grow unhappy. While courts in other states have taken more expansive views of the state's obligation to provide an education, experts say that the differences among court decisions have more to do with how willing judges are to become involved in making policy than with the language of different state constitutions about education. For more, see "Johnny Can Read, but Well Enough to Vote?" by Robert Worth and Anemona Hartocolis, The New York Times, June 30, 2002.

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Court says New York is meeting its obligation to prepare citizens for basic duties

Initiative to help states, schools ensure that No Child is Left Behind

July 3, 2002

While the newspapers have abounded with reports of state and school-district concerns about the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the Department of Education last week announced the launch of a demonstration project aimed at helping states put the principles of NCLB into action. A $3.5 million grant has been awarded to the Education Leaders Council (ELC) to work with a select number of states and schools to develop integrated accountability and information systems that will boost student achievement and serve as models for other states. The project will provide principals, teachers, and parents with tools to help them use student assessment data to improve instruction and will provide technical assistance to policymakers to help them develop robust accountability plans in compliance with NCLB. The project, for which the ELC has engaged several partner organizations, will be evaluated by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a sister organization to the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Interested state leaders are invited to apply by July 19. For details see "Secretary Paige Announces $3.5 Million Grant to Support No Child Left Behind Demonstration Project," U.S. Department of Education, June 28, 2002. More details are available at www.followingtheleaders.org.

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Initiative to help states, schools ensure that No Child is Left Behind

More training isn't the key to better teachers

July 3, 2002

When the Department of Education recently reported to Congress on the state of teacher quality and teacher training in America, Secretary Paige concluded that teacher licensure today depends too heavily on training in pedagogy, and recommended that pathways into teaching be created for individuals who lack coursework in education (http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=54#802). In Saturday's New York Times, Arthur Levine, the president of Teachers College, argues that eliminating "burdensome education requirements" will "all but guarantee that our poor and minority youngsters living in the inner cities will continue to be left behind." Levine contrasts schools in affluent suburbs, where teachers arrive with much training under their belts, prepared to succeed in the classroom, with schools in inner cities, where, he says, teaching is viewed as a trade to be learned on the job. What Levine doesn't explain is that study after study has failed to find any evidence that teacher training provided by a school of education leads to more effective teaching. Of course, the extent of professional training is not the only dimension along which teachers differ between inner city and suburban schools; the former are less likely to have passed a test of basic skills, to have majored in the subject they teach, or to have attended a selective college. Given research that suggests that the academic skills and subject knowledge of prospective teachers better predict teaching success than the extent of ed school training, the Department of Education

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More training isn't the key to better teachers

Beating the Odds II: A City-by-City Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments (Spring 2001 Results)

Terry Ryan / July 3, 2002

Council of the Great City Schools
June 2002

This is a valuable compilation of data for anyone trying to understand and improve urban education in the United States. Building on its 2001 report Beating the Odds-the first report to examine the status and progress of America's urban schools on state reading and math tests-the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) seeks to answer two fundamental questions: "Are urban schools improving academically?" and "Are urban schools closing achievement gaps?" The answer to both questions is "yes but not fast enough." Analyzing data from 57 big-city school systems in reading and math, the authors found encouraging evidence of gains in math and reading and a narrowing of achievement gaps, but despite a trend line that's pointing in the right direction, students in urban schools still score well below national averages in math and reading. More obviously needs to be done to improve urban education, but the report has some interesting things to say about the reasons for the improvement that we've seen thus far in big city schools. Until about six years ago, CGCS suggests, scores were stagnant in urban schools. This began to change when urban educators began to buy into the standards movement, which clarified why they were in the field of education in the first place, and what they were being held responsible for delivering. A fascinating subplot is the story of how reform efforts initiated by the federal government

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Beating the Odds II: A City-by-City Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments (Spring 2001 Results)

Class Size Reduction, Teacher Quality, and Academic Achievement in California Public Elementary Schools

Rob Lucas / July 3, 2002

Christopher Jepsen and Steven Rivkin, Public Policy Institute of California
2002

A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California draws attention to a major unintended consequence of California's Class Size Reduction initiative (CSR), begun in 1996 and targeted at kindergarten and grades 1-3. The initiative created many new teaching positions in a state that was already struggling to fill its openings. Veteran teachers from schools in high-poverty areas left to take positions in suburban schools, and some teachers in grades 4 and up moved to grades K-3. Math and reading scores did improve for students who had the benefit of both a small class and a veteran teacher. Those gains were offset, however, by declines resulting from the influx of inexperienced teachers to cover otherwise teacherless classrooms-an effect felt most strongly in poor and minority schools and also in the middle grades. Thus, the initiative had no appreciable effect on overall statewide average test scores even as it widened the gap between test scores for the rich and poor. The authors speculate that many of the newly hired teachers were not only less experienced but also less able than veteran teachers. If true, this could mean that the negative side effects of Class Size Reduction will persist even after the new teachers gain experience. The 100-page report-which includes copious tables and figures-concludes with policy recommendations. Most significantly, the authors caution against rapid, large-scale reductions in class size and suggest that

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Class Size Reduction, Teacher Quality, and Academic Achievement in California Public Elementary Schools

Evaluating World History Texts in Wisconsin Public High Schools

July 3, 2002

Paul Kengor, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Report
June 2002

Writing for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Grove City College's Paul Kengor reviews seventeen texts used in the state's public schools, where textbooks are selected by local school boards. Although most of them featured good coverage of touchy topics such as the slave trade, the use of the atom bomb, Japanese militarism, the Cold War, and the role of women in history and culture-all the while avoiding ethnocentrism and first world bias-the books ignore or treat lightly many fundamental topics like the importance of democracy and its development in the United States. Other "overlooked" matters include the treatment of women under Islam, terrorism, tribal warfare and dictatorship in Africa, the horrors of communism (including millions of deaths under Stalin), political and religious repression in China, and the dictatorship of Castro (who is depicted in some books as a hero). Kengor has included a chart of issues, events and people one would expect to find in a world history book and the number of times that each appears in the worst text he reviews, Global Insight. The Declaration of Independence, Woodrow Wilson, Otto von Bismarck and Canada do not appear there at all, though India appears 100+ times and Gorbachev receives sixteen mentions. This report, which should inspire all parents of high school students to take a close look at their child's world history book, is available at http://wpri.org/Reports/Volume15/Vol15no4.pdf or by contacting the

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Evaluating World History Texts in Wisconsin Public High Schools

Private School Racial Enrollments and Segregation

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / July 3, 2002

Sean Reardon and John Yun, The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University
June 2002

This report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, written by Sean Reardon of Penn State and John Yun of the Harvard Ed School, starts badly by labeling project co-director Gary Orfield's foreword a "forward," an unmistakable sign of weak editing if not weak thinking. And in 55 pages it doesn't get a lot better. Its central contention is that private schools are more "segregated" than public schools-a claim that is, of course, extra-timely in light of the Supreme Court's voucher decision. That, in any case, is the headline attached to this analysis of federal private-school data (from 1997-98). The actual data, however, don't quite bear out the claim that private schools are worse than public schools for minority pupils. The authors acknowledge that, when it comes to Hispanics, private schools are better integrated than public, i.e. there is a higher proportion of white students to be found in private schools attended by Hispanic youngsters than those youngsters typically encounter in public schools. As for the black-white picture, the authors claim that it's worse in private than public schools, but their numbers undermine that allegation: "[T]he average black private school student was enrolled in a school that was only 34% white [while] the average black public school student attended a school that was 33% white." Not a heckuva difference, and not even in the right direction! None of this shows

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Private School Racial Enrollments and Segregation

The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / July 3, 2002

William G. Howell and Paul Peterson
2002

As the voucher argument moves out of the judiciary and into the hands of policymakers, politicians and educators, there's never been greater need for clear data about how vouchers work and what effects they have. Just about everyone acknowledges that the perfect experiment or pilot program remains to be conducted. But today's best data come from a set of studies conducted by Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson and his colleagues. This important new Brookings book, co-authored by Peterson and William Howell, reports on five such studies. Three of them were "randomized field trials" in New York, Washington and Dayton. The fourth is the largish privately financed voucher program in San Antonio's Edgewood school district; and the fifth is an evaluation of the national Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF) program. All involve privately financed "scholarships" or vouchers, not the publicly funded kind at issue in the Cleveland case. Nor did they include the high and sustained student funding levels that are needed as part of a full-fledged voucher experiment (to determine, for example, whether there's a "supply response"). Nor did these programs (as yet) last more than 2-3 years before being appraised. But partly because they were privately financed, it was possible to structure them (other than Edgewood) with proper "control groups" of similar youngsters who did not receive and use vouchers. Hence the data are clearer here than in any other voucher research. The bottom line,

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The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools