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| 2009/5/1-6 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:52932 Activity:kinda low |
5/1 http://tinyurl.com/c83tl4 (link fixed, sorry. forbes) Obama administration screws DC school kids. (in his defense, it is not clear that he really knows what the Sec. of Edu is doing, that he had anything to do with holding up study till after the vote, etc. Still, it seems that my hope that Obama may pull an "Only Nixon can go to China" on our broken EDU system, is way in vain. \_ Link is wrong. \_ Forbes + voucher op eds = untrustworthy data \_ the study they are referencing was done by the Dept. of Edu. Think they have a pro-voucher bias? -top \_ A less biased article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040302987.html Students from the lowest-performing schools didn't improve reading skills with vouchers. There was no difference in math skills. The expected behavior with vouchers is that kids with supportive parents who have some money will use the vouchers--of course you're going to get cherry-picking effects. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. -tom \_ The Swedes have vouchers but no cherry picking: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm \_ "However she does point to reports from the Swedish National Agency for Education which warn that it is mostly better-educated, middle-class parents who take advantage of the right to choose schools. " (From the same article). Plus, Sweden does not allow private schools to charge more than the voucher cost. It's not an analagous system. -tom \_ I don't see how that fact that better-educated middle class parents excercise a choice outside the state system more than others is a condemnation of the program. If it works it works, and people have the option to use it. It might be relevant to ask why other parents aren't using the system. I see no reason in the Swedish system that everyone couldn't use it. \_ I'm not saying it's inherently a bad idea, I'm just pointing out that there are cherry-picking effects, so you can't just compare the test scores. If the US voucher system were implemented like Sweden's, it might make sense. But when private schools charge 2-3 times what it costs to educate a kid in public school (what happened to the great efficiency of private industry, anyway?), vouchers don't provide real choice to the students who need it; they just pull money away from the schools which need it most and give it to wealthy private institutions. -tom |
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| tinyurl.com/c83tl4 -> www.forbes.com/2009/04/16/school-voucher-washington-dc-teacher-union-opinions-contributors-obama.html Perhaps hard-bitten cynics aren't surprised by the quiet ruthlessness with which this administration has deep-sixed a popular DC school voucher program. But for everyone else--or, rather, everyone else not in bed with teachers' unions--its conduct has to come as a total shock. DC public schools are violent, chaotic places that have among the highest dropout--and the lowest graduation--rates in the country. In 2007, DC's fourth- and eighth-grade students scored lower than children from all 50 states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's most reliable standardized test. Less than half of its children are "proficient"--meaning they perform at grade-level--in reading and math. image rss Against this grim reality, one would have thought an administration that ran on the theme of hope would do anything to nurture a program that offers a way out of DC's hope-killing factories and into other schools. Instead, the Obama administration has done everything in its power to strangle it. Obama cheerfully signed a spending bill that gratuitously included a provision phasing out the program next year unless Congress expressly reauthorizes it. Of course, making water flow uphill will be easier than winning approval from a Democrat-controlled Congress with strong ties to the teachers' unions who contributed $50 million to Obama's campaign. As if that wasn't a big enough obstacle, no sooner had the ink dried on the law than Education Secretary Arne Duncan rescinded the scholarship offer to children admitted for next year, making the program's shuttering a fait accompli. And now it turns out that, while the program's fate was being sealed in Congress, the administration deliberately sat on a study its own Department of Education completed weeks earlier. Because the study found not that the program was failing, but that it was succeeding. In fact, the program, with per-pupil costs that are a third of what DC public schools spend, is producing solid gains for the 1,700 predominantly poor and minority children it serves. Indeed, the first batch of children who received vouchers from the program for private schools is now 19 months ahead of its public school peers in reading--which is why there are four applicants for every available slot. But transparency is not the only principle the administration has sacrificed in this matter. In fact, the layers of hypocrisy underlying its conduct would make even Machiavelli blush. First: This administration has proudly boasted that it would make a decisive break with its predecessor's habit of ignoring science when it clashed with policy objectives. And concerning the DC program in particular, President Obama had assured that he would let evidence settle its fate. "And if it does, whatever my preconceptions, you do what's best for the kids." Yet far from being led by the scientific evidence, he concealed it. Second: The administration has been airdropping money across the country in an alleged attempt to stimulate the economy. Indeed, it increased education spending 10-fold for two years in its $750 billion stimulus package that includes, among other things, money to weather-proof school buildings. It has also been pouring trillions of dollars into failed banks and auto companies. Yet it didn't think it fit to spend an infinitesimal $14 million on a thriving program that makes a palpable difference in the lives of children desperately in need of help. Third: President Obama has promised to lead the most ethical administration, one immune from the corruption of special-interest politics. Yet he offered not even a pretense of resistance to the biggest Democratic interest group: teachers unions--even though it is evident that what's driving their opposition to this program is not principle but naked self-interest. To be sure, unions have long pretended to oppose vouchers not because they are afraid of competition but because vouchers drain resources from public school children. In fact, precisely to address this objection, the program was structured to keep DC public schools financially stable, meaning they lose no funding when their students transfer elsewhere. If anything, they have more money to spend on the remaining children. Obama would have done all DC children a service by pointing out this inconvenient truth--but he chose to remain silent. Four: The most blatant hypocrisy involves Obama's personal parental decisions. He chose to send his own daughters to Sidwell Friends, a private school among DC's most exclusive institutions whose annual tuition runs around $30,000. If he felt so strongly that offering children an exit route would stymie the reform of public schools, then why not put his own daughters in one? This would not only please unions--prompting them to open up their war chest even more in the next elections--but also signal his resolve about reform. If he didn't, that's presumably because his daughters' futures are too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of politics. Incidentally, among the children who will have to return to public school once this program is scrapped are two of his daughter's schoolmates, who were using their vouchers to attend Sidwell. It's sad that Obama's message of hope and change doesn't include children like them. Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation. |
| www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040302987.html CLOSE Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Maria Glod Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 4, 2009; Page B01 A US Education Department study released yesterday found that District students who were given vouchers to attend private schools outperformed public school peers on reading tests, findings likely to reignite debate over the fate of the controversial program. Washington Post Investigation: The Charter Experiment The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, was created by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to help students from low-income families. Congress has cut off federal funding after the 2009-10 school year unless lawmakers vote to reauthorize it. Overall, the study found that students who used the vouchers received reading scores that placed them nearly four months ahead of peers who remained in public school. However, as a group, students who had been in the lowest-performing public schools did not show those gains. There was no difference in math performance between the groups. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement that the Obama administration does not want to pull participating students out of the program but does not support its continuation. "Big picture, I don't see vouchers as being the answer," Duncan said in a recent meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters. "You can pull two kids out, you can pull three kids out, and you're leaving 97, 98 percent behind. The way you help them is by challenging the status quo where it's not working and coming back with dramatically better schools and doing it systemically." Since it began, the voucher program has awarded scholarships to more than 3,000 students from low-income families, granting up to $7,500 a year for tuition and other fees at participating schools. This school year, about 1,715 students are participating. The Bush administration, and many Republicans, have championed the program as a "lifeline" for students in struggling schools. Supporters hailed the congressionally mandated study as proof the program works. "With concrete evidence in hand that this program is a success, we look forward to reauthorizing it as quickly as possible," Rep. The study, conducted by the Education Department's research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences, compared the performance and attitudes of students with scholarships with those of peers who were eligible but weren't chosen in a lottery. Parents of students in the program were more satisfied with their children's new schools and considered the schools safer, the report found. Students showed no difference in their level of satisfaction. In a letter Thursday to Duncan, several GOP leaders urged him to continue awarding grants. "Under no circumstances should the funds be withheld by the US Department of Education when so many children in the District need and deserve access to a quality school today," House Minority Leader John A Boehner (R-Ohio) and other lawmakers wrote. |
| news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm Printable version Swedish parents enjoy school choice By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent Paula and her mother Inger Paula was unhappy at her local state school The Conservatives have promised to give parents greater choice of schools. Their "pupil passport" idea is similar to a scheme in Sweden, as BBC education correspondent Mike Baker reports. Inger Svendsen is delighted with Sweden's school choice system. Her 14-year-old daughter, Paula, was unhappy at her local state school in Stockholm. A bright and independent-minded girl, Paula felt stifled by its formal teaching style. Fortunately for Inger, under Sweden's school choice arrangements she was able to choose any other state school or a private school at no cost to herself. Paula now goes to the Kista Kunskappskolan, an independent school run by a commercial company. pupils Pupils in these private schools are encouraged to organise their own learning According to Inger, it is very important for parents to make choices. Now she has changed schools, Inger says Paula is "much happier and studies better". It is based on a virtual "voucher" which is equivalent in value to the average cost of educating a child in the local state school. Parents can use this "voucher" to "buy" a place at the school of their choice. The idea is that funding follows the pupil and, in this way, the state supports the schools that are most popular with parents. Like the Conservatives' proposals in England, the Swedish voucher cannot be "topped up". In other words, any private school participating in the scheme cannot charge any additional fees. lesson Teaching styles are informal Nor can the private schools select pupils on any basis other than first-come-first-served. Before vouchers there were virtually no private schools in Sweden. The school chosen by Inger is a product of the voucher scheme. It is run by the Kunskapsskolan company which was set up by a venture capitalist and entrepreneur to take advantage of this new source of state funding for private schools. In its fifth year, Kunskapsskolan runs 22 schools and is now making a profit. Individualised model The Kista Kunskapsskolan, in a suburb of Stockholm, has 332 students aged from 12 to 15. It is deliberately different from the state school model. Kunskapsskolan's ethos is perhaps surprising to British visitors who expect independent schools to be more traditional than their state equivalent. The Kunskapsskolan at Kista is the opposite: no uniform, very informal discipline and teaching, an open-plan layout, and an emphasis on individualised learning rather than formal classes. Anders Hultin Anders Hultin: "There are winners and losers" The students negotiate their own timetable each week and can do as few, or as many, formal classes as they wish. There is heavy emphasis on internet-based learning and there are remarkably few books. According to Anders Hultin, chief executive of Kunskapsskolan, the whole idea is to be different from state schools so parents have a choice. Moreover, he says the company is motivated to satisfy parental wishes because that is how it makes its profits. "It is hard to see any conflict between the company and our parents as our profit comes from good results and satisfying parents and students. If we don't perform well, then we don't make any profit at all", he says. Mr Hultin is unapologetic about any problems the school choice system may have caused to state schools. In some urban neighbourhoods, 10-20% of students now use the voucher scheme to attend private schools - leaving empty spaces at state schools. "Of course there are losers", says Mr Hultin, "because schools which do not attract parents lose out and they should be losers." Union co-operation Any scheme like this in Britain would attract fierce opposition from the teacher unions. The Swedish Teachers Union, Lrarfrbundet, supports the school choice policy. According to its president, Eva-lis Preisz, members were "a little suspicious at first" but are now satisfied by the restrictions which prevent private schools from charging top-up fees or selecting students. However she does point to reports from the Swedish National Agency for Education which warn that it is mostly better-educated, middle-class parents who take advantage of the right to choose schools. This can mean children from middle-class backgrounds congregating in the same few, highly popular, schools. For now, though, the union is happy to co-operate with the scheme subject to continuing safeguards. "Now there are guarantees that private schools must use trained teachers, be open to all, and not charge fees, we are content, but we must keep an eye open for the dangers of segregation," Eve-lis Preisz says. Sweden does appear to have found a typically Scandinavian "third way" approach to school choice. It is a system which is unafraid to use the private sector to deliver state services but with strong guarantees of equality of access. Moreover, although the school choice policy was introduced by a right-wing government, it is now part of the political consensus and it is unimaginable that any new government would reverse it. The Conservatives believe it would both attract new suppliers of school places and would be popular with parents. But there is one big difference between the Swedish and the English school systems. Whereas Sweden had virtually no pre-existing private sector, independent schools are long-established in England. Would leading English independent schools be willing to provide places at the same cost as state schools when their own fees are currently two to three times this level? And, just as tricky, would they be ready to give up their right to select pupils by entrance test or interview? |