As President Obama's kids are settling in at Sidwell Friends, one of the best private schools in the nation, their father has signed a budget which takes away the opportunity for poor kids in Washington DC to attend schools like Sidwell Friends with the help of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which makes it possible for 1700 kids a year — mostly African-American — to escape from the worst public school system in the country and attend a charter school or a private school which will give them a chance at a better future.
The Opportunity Scholarship Program is only four years old and has barely had a chance to prove itself, but it stands little chance of continuing when the federal funds backing it are eliminated from the budget by Democratic legislators eager to keep campaign contributions from the teachers unions flowing. Teachers unions don't like any kind of program which gives kids a chance to escape from government-run schools, and even this relatively modest voucher program is too much of a threat to be allowed to survive now that they have some clout. The funding was in the budget coming out of the last session, but has now been removed and is unlikely to be added back in with Democrats in control.
The program provides $7500 vouchers to about 1700 DC public school students chosen by lottery which they can then use to change schools, attend a charter school or attend an area private school. Every student who uses a voucher releases more money for other students who stay behind in public school because their voucher is underwritten by the federal government and is considerably less than the $14,400 per student spent by the DC public school system, which has the sad distinction of being the one of the most expensive and lowest performing school systems in the nation. DC ranks last in the nation in math and reading, 4th lowest in SAT scores and 6th worst in graduation rate,
Perhaps most important and almost always overlooked by those doing studies on voucher programs is how many graduates go to college and the quality of the colleges they end up attending. In the DC public school system only 59% of high school students even graduate. Of those only 36% have completed the coursework necessary to qualify them to go to a 4-year college degree program. Only 52.8% of those who take the SAT in DC go to college. Of those 86.2% attend in-state colleges which in the overwhelming majority of cases means that they attend the University of the District of Columbia which offers 4-year degrees but is basically comparable to a decent community college. That means that of entering freshmen only about a fifth will end up going to college and most of those will go to a second-rate institution.
In comparison, at the top private schools in DC like St. Albans, National Cathedral and Sidwell Friends virtually all of the students graduate and about 99% of those graduates go on to college and more than 25% of those graduates go to one of the top 10 colleges in the country -- like Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford. So that means they send more graduates to the very best colleges in the world than even manage to get to college at all after graduating a public high-school in DC.
Now admittedly, the $7500 which this program provides to students isn't enough by itself to pay for a private school which costs $15,000 to $30,000 a year. But all of these private schools also have endowments for scholarships, some of them quite substantial and targeting kids from the poorer parts of DC. On average for every 3 students who come with a $7500 voucher that's another student who can attend one of these schools for free, so between vouchers and private endowments a lot more poor students can attend some of the best private schools in the nation than could have otherwise.
In addition, these vouchers can also be used at charter schools in DC, which have performance much closer to private schools than public schools. DC charter schools graduate 91% of their students, almost double the rate at DC public schools. 83% of those students attend college, close to three times the number of DC public school students going to college. As a group in 2007 DC charter school graduates received $11 million in college scholarship awards, a vital advantage when so many of them come from an underprivileged background.
High school graduation and the chance to go to college can make all the difference in the world for a poor kid from the inner city. It massively reduces the chance that they will be involved in crime, reduces their chance of using drugs, more than doubles their long-term earning potential and even raises up others in the community around them. It even substantially reduces their chance of a violent death. DC has a rate of violent crime which is three times the national average and its poor neighborhoods are among the poorest in the nation. Unemployment is high, drug use is widespread in the poor communities and for many there is no way out. Kids born into this environment are born doomed.
Access to better educational opportunities is the key to saving children from poverty and social disadvantage. A public school system which sends only a small fraction of its graduates to college and is rated third worst in the nation is not providing that opportunity, but for almost 2000 students a year the Opportunity Scholarship Program did offer hope of a much better education and a very good chance at a degree from a good four-year college. By taking this program away Democrats in congress are reminding us that they don't really care about helping the most needy in our society. They just want to keep getting their votes, while pandering to the special interests for whom keeping the people poor and undereducated is politically advantageous.
"[A study from Harvard economists Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie] found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.
"Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students."
Fryer was so impressed that he said, "The results changed his my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes," and argued it was the "equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. Why was there so much success? These schools focused on the human elements of a school: (1) strengthening and empowering students, and (2) strengthening accountability for teachers.
"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.
"They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life."
"We'll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools."
The Harlem Children's Zone is a model for other areas to follow because it puts into practice some of the principles that I've talked about before: (1) More money does not equal better results.(2) The goal should be to move every child forwardinstead of "leaving no child behind."(3) Schools are more able focus on kids' strengths, not weaknesses, when local control is restored.(4) It should be easy to recruit the best teachers, and it should be easy to fire bad teachers.
We all know the why vouchers are good, and we all know the arguments for school choice. Yet, "voucher" seems to be one of the only words coming out of the Right when it comes to education policy. President Obama has already made clear what his policy goals are for energy and health care: cap-and-trade and universal government-mandated coverage, respectively. But he hasn't outlined his plans on education. Now would be a good time for Republicans to get out in front of the President and present him, and voters, with common sense principles and policies on education reform.
Yes, we should fight to save the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. But as great as vouchers are, if all we present to the public is "pro-vouchers," we will once again be struck down by the other side of the aisle as just peddling "old, tired ideas tied to the past eight years."
So what can we do? We should present the public with some simple principles, and ask the President to abide by those principles:
More money does not equal better results. Of course, this principle is true of many things government does, but it is especially true in education. Part of the reason the voucher program was created in DC was the fact that DC public schools were receiving one of the highest amounts of funding per pupil, yet had some of the worst results. President Obama might agree with this principle, but I find it hard to believe that he'll be practicing it. We should hold him accountable, and demand specific results: a return on the taxpayers' investment. Speaking of results ...
The goal should be to move every child forward instead of "leaving no child behind." The premise of No Child Left Behind was a good one: accountability. Yet the means by which the federal government demanded accountability were bad: federal government control of the metric of success and relying on standardized testing as the baseline. The idea of trying to get every student to meet a certain baseline of knowledge measured by test results flies in the face of the fact not every child learns the same way. What should be measured is whether or not an individual student improved from where he or she was previously, whatever level of knowledge he or she started out with. This should be presented as a principle that is a drastic change from President Bush, therefore one that President Obama should embrace.
Schools are more able focus on kids' strengths, not weaknesses, when local control is restored. Usually when the federal government gets too involved in domestic policy, it snuffs out creativity and entrepreneurship in that area. Local control of schools, on the other hand, means more local understanding of the cultural and socioeconomic issues the schools are surrounded by. This usually means more creativity in teaching different types of students and more options for parents, whether it's building special programs for Alaska Native students in the Anchorage School District or allowing folks like Ron Clark to build academies to help disadvantaged students in Harlem and North Carolina. We'll see how much control President Obama is willing to give up.
It should be easy to recruit the best teachers, and it should be easy to fire bad teachers. It's a classic battle: common sense vs. teacher union leadership. I'm all for increasing teacher salaries, but school districts around the nation need to have the courage to rethink teacher tenure. Will President Obama agree with treating teachers like professionals?
Not every child can, or should, go to college.As Charles Murray said in an NYT op-ed in December, "It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it." The overemphasis by public school teachers, counselors and administrators on getting into college leads to a dangerous elitism that can instill a permanent sense of underachievement in many students. I understand that putting this principle into practice will take more cultural change than political action, but it doesn't mean that lawmakers can't make the effort to start the paradigm shift. At the state and local level, more options should be provided to students at the secondary education level so that they can start on a path of learning that suits their learning needs and potential career goals, including charter schools (which President Obama mentioned in his address to Congress.) At the federal level, more can be done to encourage vocational post-secondary education (another policy that Obama should agree with.)
Republican lawmakers on the Hill should offer these principles and corresponding policies to the White House and, for once, get out in front and make the President react to something we present instead of reacting to him. Just as important: like-minded conservatives need to be on the lookout for opportunities and ideas for reform in local school districts, and pay attention to local school board races.
This is not something you see everyday. CNN contributor and black radio talk show host Roland Martin, a staunch Obama supporter, says that McCain is right and his guy is wrong on school vouchers:
But part of the reason why vouchers have been denounced and dismissed is because Democrats have been far too obstinate on the issue, and have not listened to their constituents, especially African-Americans, who overwhelmingly support vouchers.
There is no doubt that on this issue, McCain has it right and Obama has it wrong.
The fundamental problem with the voucher debate is that it is always seen as an either/or proposition. For Republicans, it is the panacea to all the educational woes, and that is nonsensical. For Democrats, it is something that will destroy public education, and that too is a bunch of crap. ...
It is unconscionable to ask a parent to watch as his child is stuck in a failing school or district, and ask him to bank on a politician coming up with more funds to improve the situation. Fine, call vouchers a short-term solution to a long-term problem, but I'd rather have a child getting the best education -- now -- rather than having to hope and pray down the line.
This is a blast from the past. Vouchers is not an issue we have heard much of since President Bush surrendered them to get an education bill out of Ted Kennedy in 2001.
In many ways, this symbolizes how the GOP has become intellectually threadbare since the '90s. Back then, journals like Policy Review used to advance forward thinking arguments for school and housing vouchers and personal Social Security accounts. They articulated conservative solutions for those at the very bottom of our society, without descending into "compassionate conservative" mush. There was a vibrant political and intellectual scene around these types of solutions led by Jack Kemp, Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler (R), Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist (D), and Penn professor John DiIulio. To some extent, this scene got scrambled by the emphasis on the war. Kemp was an Islamophile and so was marginalized post-9/11, while Schundler tried to get himself elected Governor of New Jersey as a social conservative, and DiIulio took over the faith based office at the White House only to become disillusioned when this didn't turn out to be new Administration's #1 priority.
Is it time for a revival of a GOP urban agenda starting with vouchers? Where we went wrong the first time is pinning so much on the utilitarian benefits (reciting statistics about Catholic school performance) which left us open to the teachers' unions nitpicking us to death. We should have been making an argument from the standpoint of freedom and dignity. Parents have a right to choose regardless of whether it improves their kids' education a lot, a little, or not at all. It's their choice.
