Voucher Students Show Few Gains in First Year

[teach1st]

Source: Washington Post

Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally performed no better on reading and math tests after one year in the program than their peers in public schools, the U.S. Education Department said yesterday.

The department's report, which researchers said is an early snapshot, found only a few exceptions to the conclusion that the program has not yet had a significant impact on achievement: Students who moved from higher-performing public schools to private schools and those who scored well on tests before entering the program performed better in math than their peers who stayed in public school.

The results are likely to inflame a national debate about using public money for private education. Many Democrats, who have long opposed such programs, seized on the study as evidence that vouchers are ineffective.

"Vouchers have received a failing grade," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). "This just makes the voucher program even more irrelevant."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062101295.html?nav=rss_education

[Dinger]

1. No Surprise To Me

And then there's that thing about public money for private schools.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. The problem isn't with the schools, but in the home, imho

I taught elementary school for 18 years, and in that time I found that students that came from homes where learning was not valued, where there were no books, and no one who was willing to answer a child's questions-those students did poorly in school. I taught kids where the parents cared more about their dogs than their children-those kids did poorly in school. I taught kids who had no fixed schedule of going to bed and getting up--those kids did poorly in school.

This is why I am a firm believer in pre-school programs for children who come from homes like this. The program gives them more stability early in life, provides books and people who can instill a love of learning in children instead of stifle it. Waiting until they are failing in third grade and then sending them to a private school is not going to help.

[tanyev]

3. I taught in a private school for one year.

Not a posh private school, but one affiliated with a church near the downtown area of a large city. I was paid much less than public school teachers, we didn't have any of the resources that public schools have for dealing with special needs students, and yet we ended up with quite a few students that were on the verge of being kicked out of public school. It was a rough year. Using taxpayer money to shift kids to private schools is not the answer to this country's education problems.

[seasat]

4. The cons forget that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

That is the truest economic rule. They want to get private school education at public school prices and it doesn't work. IMHO, you'd have to pay over double public school for a private school that would show improvement. The only slight statistically significant gain I ever saw in a voucher study was for black students (If I remember it correctly) in Ohio and that very small gain was attributed to smaller class sizes. They would have got more bang for their buck by improving the public schools instead of investing money in vouchers.

The other problem with vouchers here, especially the way the Florida program was run, is no oversight. The test results from voucher schools were not reported. They did not have to meet the same standards as public schools. Heck, they could hire a teacher with an AA degree in basket weaving to teach calculus.

The only reason that Repugs support vouchers is that it represents a way to kill off public education. Public education is the great equalizer and improvements in it would threaten the wealthy.

[teach1st]

5. Vouchers strike out again

Gerald Bracey, who maintains the Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency list just mailed this out...

VOUCHERS STRIKE OUT AGAIN

New York, Dayton, Washington, D. C., Cleveland, Milwaukee, Florida, and now Washington again. Kids who use publicly or privately funded vouchers to attend private schools don’t do any better in school than matched groups of public school children. You wonder how many at bats these guys are going to get. I guess when the club owners are people like George W. Bush, John Boehner, and James Leininger the answer is “infinite” (Leininger spent millions trying to influence voting in Texas to stack a legislature that would give him the vouchers he’s been chasing for 20 years. See Chapter 2, James Leininger, Sugar Daddy of the Religious Right in The Anatomy of Power: Texas and the Religious Right in 2006. Put the title in Google).

I guess if the names are George F. Will, Paul Peterson, or Joe Bast (Heartland Institute), the answer is also infinite simply due their infinite hatred for the National Education Association. Freud would have a field day with these guys.

The latest Washington debacle has to be especially disappointing to voucher proponents simply because it’s the latest. You’d think they would have learned something from all those earlier tryouts I named earlier.

Maggie Spellings was her usual inelegant self: “The report’s findings are in step with rigorous studies of other voucher programs which have not typically found impacts on student achievement in the first year. We know that parents are pleased with the success of the program in providing effective education alternatives.” And just how might you be defining “effective” Ms. Spellings?

Paul, when-the-going-gets-tough-the-Right-gets-Peterson, Peterson echoed Spellings “Kids lose ground when they change schools. Even if they may be in a better school, they’re not going to adjust right off the bat.” Well, Paul, live and learn, I guess. This is the first time I’ve heard you or any other voucher vulture invoke adjustment as an excuse for the poor showing.

And he and Maggie are wrong. Peterson’s own data show them wrong. Peterson claimed sizeable first year gains in Cleveland. Of course, he used fall-to-spring testing and had no control group so it wasn’t exactly a randomized field trial. Later, better studies by Kim Metcalf and a team from Indiana University found the public school kids starting out behind and catching up even though white students were overrepresented in the voucher groups.

In Peterson’s studies in Dayton and DC, Peterson got a “significant” effect in math—at the .10 level, a level not used by most researchers. By the second year, math had moved up to .05. Reading never showed any gain and by the third year everything had washed out.

Amit Paley’s article in the Washington Post says the Bush administration will attempt to expend vouchers nationwide in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. No doubt. Bush had them in there to start with, lost them to Kennedy, and was unable to get them reinserted despite six old college tries by Boehner.

But, hey, in a faith-based administration (see Ron Suskind, “Without a Doubt”, New York Times Magazine October 17, 2004) what’s a little negative data among prayer-mates?

Amit Paley, “Voucher Students Show Few Gains in First Year.” Washington Post, June 22, 2007, p. B1.

[SoCalDem]

6. DUH !

If a child is from a poor family , going to a "different" school will NOT change the family circumstances..and might even make it more difficult for the kids.

Schools are NOT just about "book-learning". they are social "experiments".. Kids DO make comparisons and early on, they figure out who "has it" and who does not.

It takes a very secure child to overcome family influence.

My son drove a volkswagen beetle (72-superbeetle..bright yellow) and most of his schhol friends drove cars like Beemers...Lincoln Navigators..Mustangs.. My son was the "main-guy" though, and people would vie to ride with HIM, even though his car was a P.O.S. compared to the rich-kids. A shy kid might have had a totally different experience though.