Indiana Schools Grapple With Voucher Law's Impact

This from Education Week:

As the 3,919 students who participated in the first year of Indiana’s new, wide-reaching school voucher program near the end of the first semester in their new schools, the program faces up to its next challenge: A state court hearing opens today on a lawsuit arguing the program violates Indiana’s constitution.

The Choice Scholarship program, one of a number of education reforms passed and signed into law by Indiana’s Republican-dominated state government during this year’s legislative session, has drawn national attention for a number of bold components. It is the only active state voucher program in the country that is not limited to low-income students or students who have attended a low-performing school, and the only active voucher program with no eventual cap on enrollment.

With the program moving into full gear, public schools across the state are bracing for an outflow of funds from already-tight budgets while private schools prepare for an increased demand for spaces in their classrooms. Meanwhile, debate still rages over the initiative as schools and families consider the financial, educational, and social consequences of a program that is projected to grow substantially. Advocates say the voucher program allows all families to make a choice once limited to the well-off; opponents question its constitutionality and wonder if the program is really serving who it’s intended to serve.

School vouchers study finds little difference between public, private schools

This from the St Petersburg Times:

"Students using school vouchers to attend private schools in Florida are doing no better and no worse than similar students in public schools, a study says. The study finds that school vouchers that send children to private schools have not improved their scores over students at public schools."

Supporters often say school vouchers are lifelines to low-income students trapped in subpar public schools.

But academically, students using vouchers to attend private schools in Florida are doing no better and no worse than similar students in public schools, says a study ordered by the state Legislature.

"We consider the report a validation of what we've always said," said Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the state teachers union. "There is no quick fix for struggling students."

Northwestern University economics professor David Figlio compared test scores of students in the voucher program, which served 23,259 students last year, to eligible public school students who opted not to participate.

Figlio said it's too early to draw hard-and-fast conclusions, and outlined some technical complications he expects to resolve with another year's worth of data.

But he said more data isn't likely to change the bottom line.

"I'm confident that it's highly unlikely that we're going to see huge differential positive test score gains from this program" or negative results either, he said after the report was released Monday. "My hunch is, when all is said and done … it's going to be a wash in terms of test scores." ...

Arizona Vouchers for Schools Ruled Illegal

This from the Arizona Daily Star:

High-court ruling for public education

overturns '06 programs of Legislature

PHOENIX — A state law giving tax dollars to private and parochial schools is illegal, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The justices, in a unanimous opinion, called the programs established by the Legislature in 2006 "a well-intentioned effort" to assist students with special needs.

"But we are bound by our constitution," wrote Justice Michael Ryan. He said there is no way the program can be reconciled with a specific constitutional ban against appropriating public funds in aid to private and parochial schools.

The decision is a significant defeat for legislators who created the very small program in 2006 to test the legal waters. They hoped a ruling in their favor would pave the way for a full-blown voucher program, with every parent in the state entitled to use state tax money to send their children to any school they want...

School vouchers leave too many children behind

This from Walt Gardner in the Christian Science Monitor:

Choice is good, but some parents are

busy worrying about food and shelter

Los Angeles - There's another side to the school voucher story that needs to be told if we ever expect to create educational equity in this country. It has to do with the disconnect between what we say we want for children and what we're willing to settle for.

Teachers have long known that parental involvement is one of the most powerful factors in student achievement. When parents become partners with teachers in the educational process, the effects are reflected in superior test scores and in on-time graduation rates.

Yet too many children come from households where their parents are disengaged from their schooling. This is particularly the case in inner cities because education takes a back seat to concern about food, clothing, and shelter. As a result, parents fail to respond to repeated requests from teachers for conferences and are conspicuously absent from open house teacher-parent meetings.

It's not surprising, therefore, that these same parents are precisely the ones who do not take advantage of the opportunity afforded them through the use of vouchers to get a better education for their children. There is nothing magical about vouchers that can induce them to participate, no matter how hard schools publicize choice...

Obama Questioned On Vouchers

This from the National Journal:

Many minority parents are at odds

with the Democratic nominee

on the issue of school choice

Minority voters have long favored the Democratic Party's push for increased federal funding for public schools. But over the past few years, some of these voters have embraced the conservative-backed idea of private-school vouchers for low-income students.

Pro-voucher voters among racial minorities overwhelmingly support Barack Obama, but they are baffled by the Democratic nominee's opposition to vouchers. They also say they are frustrated that Democratic leaders appear to be more concerned about keeping the peace with teachers unions -- which adamantly oppose vouchers -- than about finding alternatives that could advance desperately needed education reforms for minority students.

Obama's "change" message has attracted millions of minorities, particularly African-Americans. Yet he cannot afford to lose minorities who are demanding greater school choice for their children.

In February, Obama seemed open to the idea of private-school vouchers. In an editorial board meeting with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, he was asked about his opposition to Wisconsin's voucher program. If he saw more proof that vouchers are successful, Obama said, he would "not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn.... You do what works for the kids."

But at the American Federation of Teachers convention this year, Obama repeated his attack against spending government money to help low-income students attend private schools. He criticized John McCain's school-choice reform as "using public money for private-school vouchers," and he called instead for overhauling public schools.

The blogosphere has been buzzing over Obama's perspective on vouchers. Pro-voucher blogs praise the Democratic nominee for showing some willingness to consider vouchers as a viable alternative. Some critics, meanwhile, say that Obama flip-flopped in the Milwaukee interview, and some argue that the interview did not indicate a shift toward vouchers...

Audio Slideshow.

Hat tip to DFER:

Report Finds Little Gain From Vouchers

This from the Washington Post:

Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally did no better on reading and math tests after two years than public school peers, a U.S. Education Department report said yesterday.

The findings mirror those in previous studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship
Program, passed by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to place the District at the leading edge of the private school choice movement. It has awarded scholarships to 1,903 children from low-income families, granting up to $7,500 a year for tuition and other fees at participating schools.

The report comes at a politically perilous moment for the program. Congressional Democrats, led by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, want to phase it out, arguing that it drains money and other resources from public schools. Most scholarship
recipients have enrolled in Catholic and other faith-based private schools...

A brittle little stick

It was announced yesterday that the Cincinnati & Kentucky Post would be closing up shop at the end of the year.

In the meantime, the Post produced a thoughtful editorial on the impact - or lack thereof - of the provision of NCLB that allows parents to move their children from schools that have failed to meet their goals. For the little good it does, the provision is hardly more than a big pain in the rump for local school administrators.

Last year, 12 Fayette County schools offered transfers to 6,931 eligible students and only 131 students took advantage. But parents can't choose whatever school they want due to space limitations and transportation constraints. School administrators try to provide an excellent education in every school. But some parents see school choice under NCLB as death by fire, or death by water.

The Post hints at vouchers for "whatever educational institution would accept them" as a possible solution. For the middle class - fine. But I'm not sure how that works for poor folks; therefore, how does it work for the entire system?

Setting aside the unprecedented federal intrusion into state education under NCLB; the good intentions of the law are further impaired by underfunding. The desire to offer school choice through the present method is big-hearted, but empty-headed. Why not adequately fund the system before we look for ways to declare it dead? The goal is not "putting teeth into the transfer rule." The goal is an adequate education for all Kentucky students.

This from the Cincinnati Post:

A brittle little stick

Even though the federal government provides less than 10 percent of the money for most primary and secondary schools in Ohio, Kentucky and the other states, it has through the No Child Left Behind law gained an enormous voice in education policy.

This has been accomplished in no small part through the testing requirements imposed on the states. The notion is that the public's response to test results will force state and local officials to improve the quality of the schools.

The No Child Left Behind law also has an ostensible stick. It requires that students in schools that repeatedly fail to reach specified targets on reading and math tests be allowed to transfer to better-performing schools within the district.

This has turned out to be a brittle little stick. Most districts with one failing school, it turns out, usually have others that aren't much better. And most families who live in such districts are stuck there because of poverty - if parents had the money to move to a better school district, they would do so.

Moreover, the upheaval and logistical problems associated with transferring a youngster from one school to another - particularly at the elementary and middle school levels - makes the transfer option one that is rarely exercised. In fact, according to an Associated Press account, just 320 of the 70,526 Kentucky students eligible to transfer out of failing schools in 2005-06 did so.

Comes now even more evidence that the No Child Left Behind transfer rule is a joke.

The Kentucky Department of Education, with permission from its federal overseers, has announced that it doesn't plan to release school test scores - the ones that determine whether students are eligible to transfer - until Sept. 12. That's a full month after school has started in most districts.

How many parents are going to pull their children out of one school and send them to another a month into the new year? It would be a surprise if more than a handful took advantage of the transfer option.

State officials told the Associated Press the delay in reporting test results is due to the fact that every child in grades 3-8 was tested last year. In the past, only some students were tested. That beats the excuse that a dog ate the tests, but not by much. Put it this way: If the increased number of test takers really did overwhelm the department's capacity to compute the results on time, Frankfort has more problems than we thought.

Were the transfer policy actually working, this would be cause for outrage.

As suggested above, on preemption grounds alone we have reservations about the No Child Left Behind law, which is up for authorization this year. If Congress wants to intrude this far onto state and local prerogatives, it ought to be putting up a heck of a lot more of the money needed to run the nation's schools.

But here's a thought: If they are in fact serious about putting teeth into the transfer rule, policymakers should expand their horizons. Give vouchers to the families of students in failing schools, good at whatever educational institution would accept them. Of course, if Congress did that, the state education bureaucracies would doubtless start holding on to the test scores until Christmas.

Judge Upholds Arizona's School Voucher Programs

A judge last Wednesday upheld two new state voucher programs designed to provide money to send foster and disabled children to private schools, handing a legal win to Arizona supporters of so-called "school choice" initiatives.

Challengers contended that the programs enacted by the Legislature last year violate state constitutional prohibitions against public funding for private and religious schools. They also argued they undermined the state's public school system by diverting needed money.

However, Judge Bethany Hicks of Maricopa County Superior Court agreed with defenders of the voucher programs, ruling that the grants to parents aren't appropriations of state money for religious worship or instruction and don't support any religious organization.

...challengers included the Arizona Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, and AEA spokesman John Wright said they would appeal Hicks' ruling.

"We owe it to Arizona students and all of Arizona's schools to pursue it to its conclusion," Wright said. "It's not frivolous. It's justice."

The voucher programs do promote religion when parents use vouchers to send their children to religious schools, he said. "We've got a very compelling case that these are not (neutral on religion)."

This from Education Week.

Ed. Dept. official touts NCLB voucher plan to advocates for Catholic schools.

Morgan Brown, who heads the US Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement faced a sympathetic crowd last week as he promoted the voucher elements of President Bush’s plans for renewing the No Child Left Behind Act—ideas that will surely prove a tougher sell in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Under the Bush plan, if a public school failed to make adequate yearly progress for at least five years under the NCLB law, its students would be eligible for vouchers worth about $4,000 each to attend religious or secular private schools. Last week, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, introduced a bill largely mirroring that plan.

This from Education Week.