Vouchers for disabled youngsters

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / April 8, 2004

It's apparent by now that Congress is not going to follow most of the excellent recommendations of the Bush administration's commission on the reform of IDEA, least of all its suggestion that federal funds be able to be used by states for special-ed vouchers a la Florida's "McKay Scholarships." (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=51#755 for coverage of the Commission's report and see https://www.opportunityschools.org/Info/McKay/default.asp?&noCache=20044593231 for information about the Florida program.) Indeed, it's far from certain at this writing that the 108th Congress will even complete work on the extremely modest reforms that House and Senate are contemplating for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Some grumpy parents are protesting the slightest changes and this is ground that most politicians find shaky during an election year. So maybe nothing will happen in Washington except a continuation of the present law.

Too bad. But more disappointing is the wimpiness that may be descending upon states that have been considering their own versions of Florida's pioneering program. That excellent idea is under discussion in Texas and Colorado. But the Utah precedent is disheartening. That state's legislature passed a version of this program only to have it vetoed by Governor Olene Walker, a Republican who offered a limp constitutional explanation for wielding her veto pen.

It wasn't a huge program, just $1.4 million. But the proposed "Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship" program, named for a five-year-old autistic Utah child, would have enabled kids with

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Vouchers for disabled youngsters

Drunken sailors in our schools

Frederick M. Hess / April 8, 2004

The Bush administration has recently come under fire for insufficient education spending. Senator Ted Kennedy has been savage on the subject and Democratic candidates have attacked the No Child Left Behind Act as an "unfunded mandate." Presidential hopeful John Kerry declares in his book, A Call to Service, that the Bush administration has "undermin[ed] education funding as part of a larger strategy of directing every available school dollar toward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."

In a surprising turn of events, the Bush team has responded not by calling for more responsible and efficacious education spending but by bragging about its generosity and berating states for leaving $6 billion in federal education aid unspent.

The administration is factually correct, for what it's worth. Since 2001, the Department of Education's discretionary budget authority has increased by 39 percent. Title I, the main program providing federal dollars to schools serving poor children, has grown 52 percent. In the Bush administration's first two years, Title I spending increased more than during the previous seven years under President Clinton.

In fact, this entire NCLB spending debate is serving to obscure the fact that American schools are actually well-funded, by any reasonable standard. After-inflation education spending in the U.S. more than tripled between 1960 and 2000.

In fact, it may surprise some to learn that we rank at the top of the international charts when

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Drunken sailors in our schools

One bad apple doesn't spoil the barrel

April 8, 2004

This week, headlines lit up with the news that "one school [in Milwaukee, Wisconsin] that received millions of dollars through the nation's oldest and largest voucher program, was founded by a convicted rapist" and that "another school reportedly entertained kids with Monopoly while cashing $330,000 in tuition checks for hundreds of no-show students." Voucher critics were quick to charge that "schools are required to report virtually nothing about their methods to the state, or to track their students' performance" and therefore that they are "a prime target for abuse." While there is no doubt that this kind of scandal (similar to ones that have rocked public schools and their teacher unions around the land) should not go uninvestigated and, if true, unpunished, we agree with Howard Fuller, former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools and longtime voucher proponent. He notes that "it would be unfair to cast a shadow over all voucher schools because of one failure." A related item: this week's Democratic mayoral primary was won by former Congressman Tom Barrett, who has opposed raising the cap imposed on the percentage of Milwaukee students who can participate in the voucher program-a real issue now that demand for this program is bumping up against that cap.

"Milwaukee voucher program hit by scandal," by Juliette Williams, Associated Press, April 5, 2004

"School choice offers faint contrast in race," by Sarah Carr, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, March 24, 2004

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One bad apple doesn't spoil the barrel

And nothing but the truth

April 8, 2004

The latest issue of American Educator has a fantastic series of stories urging high school teachers and counselors to level with students about a basic truth: if you don't do well in high school, you won't do well in college or in the labor market. The lead article, by Northwestern professor James Rosenbaum, lays out the bracing facts: 86 percent of students with a C or worse average in high school do not earn a college degree. Students who do little homework in high school are less apt to finish college and will earn significantly less over a lifetime than those who do 15 or more hours of homework a week. Students who take advanced high-school classes, such as pre-calc or calculus, are significantly more likely to earn a B.A. To Rosenbaum, it's time to be frank with students on the amount of work you need to do in high school to get into-and graduate from-college, rather than wrapping all students in the fantasy that they will go to college no matter what their transcript looks like. The issue even includes a pull-out poster to distribute to students. We hope it's reproduced widely. One odd note, though. This hard-hitting series on the truth about high school preparation is followed by a gauzy feature called "Education in wonderland: Outdoor classrooms and rich murals make learning a delightful adventure." Apparently, not everyone who writes for the American Educator is on board with

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And nothing but the truth

Military schools deliver

April 8, 2004

More high praise for the Defense Department's school system, where last year black and Hispanic 8th graders outperformed their peers in every single state. To be sure, the DoD system has built-in advantages, such as a unified command structure and ability to enforce parental involvement that other schools can't match. (It is not unheard of for principals in DoD schools to call the commanding officers of parents who miss back-to-school night.) Note, though that these schools also deliver excellent results despite enormous turnover (some kids changing schools twice in a year), relatively low levels of parental education, and below-par household incomes. As we've said before (pace Immanuel Kant): the fact that it can happen somewhere means it can happen anywhere.

"Military schools producing army of solid performance," by Fredreka Schouten, USA Today, March 30, 2004

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Military schools deliver

Keeping her eye on the prize

April 8, 2004

Lately, it seems that just about everyone has a bone to pick with No Child Left Behind. Critics on right and left complain that the law's provisions are causing too many headaches, and schools, districts, and legislators are vowing to reject federal funding so as to avoid some of its tricky accountability provisions. It's easy to forget that, back in January 2002 when President Bush signed NCLB into law, the statute had broad bipartisan support. Fortunately, there are still some education leaders like the Education Trust's Kati Haycock to haul out the painful realities of present school performance, remind us that the goals of NCLB are noble and worth attaining, and insist that "this challenge we have set for ourselves as a country is a doable challenge."

"'No Child' advocate scores points with facts," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post, April 6, 2004

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Keeping her eye on the prize

A school run amuck

April 8, 2004

Juvenal said, "Two things only the people anxiously desire, bread and circuses." Even that famously cynical Roman poet might have been taken aback by some quarters of American K-12 education. In Baltimore this week, a high-school presentation on anger management erupted into "chaos," in the words of administrators, after a parent accosted a group of students who, she said, were picking on her daughter. Within minutes, a cafeteria-wide melee had erupted, with students standing on chairs to get a better view of the action and the anger management "facilitators" screaming wildly for people to sit down. Unrelated fights broke out, and eventually two people - including the parent - were arrested and 11 students suspended. In the same school, 10 people were arrested last year for disorderly conduct and assaulting a police officer at an evening fashion show. Honestly, administrators at Woodlawn may want to reconsider the extracurriculars.

"At Woodlawn High, fight erupts amid anger management lesson," by Julie Bykowicz, Baltimore Sun, April 2, 2004

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A school run amuck

Sixth Annual Report on School Performance, 2002-2003

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / April 8, 2004

Edison Schools, Inc.2004

The long-awaited independent RAND evaluation of the performance of Edison-run schools won't be done until later this year, but Edison's own annual report (the sixth such, covering the 2002-3 school year) contains encouraging data on academic gains being made in many of the public "partnership" schools that Edison is operating. This report is based primarily on spring '02 to spring '03 grade-level averages on state tests. The company-wide averages are encouraging - including progress in schools deemed "in need of improvement under NCLB" - as are learning-gap reductions in predominantly minority schools, at least when compared with district and state averages in those communities. Also evident is that some schools are doing a lot better than others. (In Dayton, for example, one of the Edison-run charter schools surpassed the district average while the other lagged behind it.) Parent satisfaction levels remain very high just about everywhere. One should be a bit wary of self-studies, and all efforts at calculating achievement gains give rise to sundry methodological quandaries. Still, this report conveys positive news for Edison and - much more important - for the kids attending its schools. You can find a summary at http://www.edisonschools.com/design/d23.html and the complete (PDF) report at http://www.edisonschools.com/sixthannualreport.pdf.

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Sixth Annual Report on School Performance, 2002-2003

Grading Vouchers: Ranking America's School Choice Programs

Kathleen Porter-Magee / April 8, 2004

Robert C. Enlow, Milton & Rose Friedman FoundationMarch 2004

You may not be surprised to learn that, according to this review of various school choice programs, none entirely lives up to Milton Friedman's vision of what a pure, market-based voucher system should be.  But two come close: Florida's McKay Scholarship program, which gives vouchers to disabled students to use at any school in Florida and Arizona's Tax Credits for Student Tuitioning Organizations, which gives a credit to taxpayers who donate money to private organizations providing vouchers. These and other school choice programs were evaluated by Robert C. Enlow for the Milton & Rose Friedman Foundation and graded on whether they overly restrict student eligibility by imposing academic or income restrictions or program-scope restrictions (i.e., by limiting which students are eligible for vouchers). The ideal program, of course, would impose none of these restrictions, give all students vouchers for the full amount that is expended per-pupil in the public schools, and let students use them at any school, regardless of religion, tuition, or exclusivity. The McKay Scholarship program, which received the best overall grade, was marked down only because it's limited to disabled students. The Arizona program was marked down because the state limits the amount of money coming into the system, thus restricting the program's size and scope. The top five also include two little-known programs that have existed for over a century in Vermont and Maine that provide

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Grading Vouchers: Ranking America's School Choice Programs

Comparison of Traditional Public Schools and Charter Schools on Retention, School Switching, and Achievement Growth

April 8, 2004

Lewis C. Solmon, Human Resources Policy Corporation, and Pete Goldschmidt, Center for the Study of Evaluation, UCLAMarch 2004

Although this Goldwater Institute study does what its title implies - compare traditional public and charter schools on retention, school switching, and achievement growth - it does something more: dispels the myth that performance differences between students in charters and traditional public schools are due to "better" students attending the former type of school (at least in the Grand Canyon state). Analysts calculated the overall effects of attending Arizona charter schools vs. district-operated schools on achievement and achievement growth, using SAT-9 reading test scores. The findings indicate that charter students started with lower scores in the elementary grades but have annual achievement gains larger than their traditional public school counterparts. The achievement growth for students who switch to charter schools later is less impressive. District high school achievement gains surpass those of charter high schools. The authors attribute this to the different nature of charters at this level; elementary charters focus on developing academic skills while high school charters are more apt to serve students who might "slip through the cracks" or to specialize in vocational ed, former drop-outs or children with disabilities. To see for yourself, go to http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article.php/431.html.

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Comparison of Traditional Public Schools and Charter Schools on Retention, School Switching, and Achievement Growth