In his latest Time.com column, Andy Rotherham provides a fair-minded appraisal of the school voucher debate as he attempts to disspell the common myths that are tossed around like rhetorical hand grenades. Vouchers don't drain money from traditional public schools, Rotherham argues, nor do they skim the best students. On the flip side, he says, we need more evidence to support the contention from some that vouchers lead to higher academic achievement and that the resulting competition for students leads to greater results overall for public schools (although on this note, Rotherham does reference the results from a recent study of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship which found that the competitive effect boosted the academic performance of public schools faced with the threat of losing students).
Notably, Rotherham concludes his column with a statement that arguably should guide the debate over school choice, but too often does not:
Parents should worry a lot less about the legal status of a particular school than whether it's the right school for their child. A good fit depends on a host of factors including a strong academic program, successful outcomes, a clear curriculum, areas of emphasis like arts or technology, and even lifestyle factors such as limiting time spent in transit or a year-round schedule.
Before a Virginia senate committee had a chance to kill a proposed tax credit scholarship for low-income students, legislators heard from a former Florida lawmaker who had his own change of heart about supporting private learning options for families who could least afford them.
Terry L. Fields, a former Democratic state representative from Jacksonville, Fla., traveled to Virginia this week to share with lawmakers skeptical of HB 2314 how a group of families once showed him that supporting a scholarship for low-income children helped fulfill the state's commitment to equal educational opportunity.
"It's very personal with me," Fields said in an interview with redefinED this morning. "When my son was in grade school, I realized as a parent that he didn't do very well in that setting. So we made a decision to put him in a private school." A few years later, a group of about 30 parents and 30 students came to his House office and confronted Fields' opposition to Florida's own tax credit scholarship and asked for the chance to give their children what he had given his own son. (more…)
The Virginia Senate Finance Committee voted 9-6 this afternoon to kill a bill that would have provided private school tuition assistance to low-income students.
House Bill 2314 passed the Virginia House of Delegates last week by a vote of 54-45, but senate opponents said the state had no business funding tax breaks to subsidize private schools while traditional public schools suffered budget cuts, according to a story on washingtonpost.com
It didn't matter that the bill had bipartisan sponsorship and was crafted to benefit only students who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch. Even Terry Fields, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives and a strong supporter of the similarly designed Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, tried convincing the senate committee of the bill's merits -- which would have included a savings to the state -- to no avail.
Can a family have "too many school choice options?" One upstate New York school district seems to think so. The Greece Central School District, which fancies itself the largest school system in Monroe County, N.Y., is proposing to eliminate open enrollment and instead split the district into three attendance zones.
Its reason, according to a story today in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: "With no evidence that offering choice enhances academics and with school costs rising and enrollment waning, the Board of Education wanted to reexamine the status quo." The status quo, in this case, includes policies that currently allow students at all grade levels to attend schools to which they aren't zoned on a space-available basis.
A district committee met for months before determining that such open attendance was no longer feasible. So Interim Superintendent John O'Rourke wants to discontinue not only the liberal enrollment policies, but also draw tighter attendance zones around the remaining few "schools of choice."
"I'm glad we finally had something done to look at this," one board member said.
While a district fact sheet cautions that these are nothing more than proposals. The board president, Frank Oberg, bestowed his blessing on the plan during his interview with the Democrat and Chronicle:
I think [O'Rourke's] recommendations are outstanding. He's come up with a great compromise that addresses a lot of the issues that swirl about Greece -- too much busing and too many school choice options.
Today's Philadelphia Inquirer devotes considerable attention to the impact school vouchers have on public schools. At a time when opponents to publicly funded private learning options are lobbing rhetorical hand grenades in several states, particularly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Inquirer reporter Adrienne Lu offers this fair-minded assessment:
While studies are relatively scarce, the early opinion among researchers appears to be that vouchers have done little, if any, harm to student achievement in public schools and in some cases have spurred small improvements on standardized-exam scores in public schools.
As evidence, Lu cites Northwestern University researcher David Figlio, who recently found that the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship boosted the academic performance of the public schools faced with the threat of losing students to the program. Figlio and co-researcher Cassandra Hart had highlighted that, no matter what measure they used (the closer private schools are to a public school, the density of private schools within five-miles of a public school, etc.) the effect was generally the same:
Although these effects are relatively small, they consistently indicate a positive relationship between private school competition and student-performance in the public schools, even before any students leave for the private sector. That is, these results provide evidence that public schools responded to the increased threat of losing students to the private schools.
In an interview with the Inquirer, Figlio rightly cautioned against looking at vouchers as "the magical pill that's going to turn the U.S. into Finland," but he made clear that, for any state considering a voucher program, "there's very little to be afraid of."
Our friends at the Alliance for School Choice have released the newest version of their annual yearbook of choice data and trends, noting that about 190,000 students nationwide are benefitting from a publicly funded private learning option.
The yearbook includes a state-by-state analysis of 20 policies that award tax credit scholarships or school vouchers. Enrollment in these programs has doubled since the 2004-05 school year, according to the alliance, and increased nearly 5 percent this year, despite the souring economy.
Florida has the most enrollment with 54,000 students participating in either the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship or the McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities. Two states, Arizona and Ohio, have three publicly funded private options each with a combined enrollment of nearly 51,400.
Seven of the 20 policies examined are tailored to students with special needs. Enrollment in these programs total about 26,000 students.
The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, chaired by John Kline, R-MN, heard today from several educators and policy analysts on the challenges facing public education today. In announcing the hearing, a press release from the committee made no attempt to conceal its contempt for the growing federal role in education. But in her testimony, Lisa Graham Keegan, former Arizona state schools superintendent and education adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, urged caution before embracing locally controlled solutions versus top-down mandates.
"Where education is concerned, the most successful local action has had to develop outside the traditional confines of 'local control,' Keegan said. "Because, unfortunately, 'local' lost out long ago in school districts and 'control' took over ... Ironically, true local control has moved to schools of choice, and true teacher leadership and potential exists outside the teacher contracts originally intended to empower their work."
Empowerment was a major theme in Keegan's remarks, particularly as it relates to creating entrepreneurs out of teachers: "When our nation first envisioned a system of public schools, the quality of the system lay in the hands of the school teacher. He or she was hired to create the school, lead the school, and manage the school. The effectiveness of the teacher leader has always been the most important determinant of success in any school. Over time, however, as systems began to centralize and hundred page contracts took the place of leadership, the role of the teacher has not become less important, but made less effective by illogical constraints"
Her entire written testimony can be found here.
We continue to watch state legislation nationally and in Washington, D.C., that would establish tax credit scholarships, school vouchers or other publicly funded private options. New Jersey has generated the most attention with a proposed Opportunity Scholarship Act for low-income students benefitting from a 5-0 vote out of the assembly's Commerce and Economic Development Committee that included the support of three Democrats. But several other states have newly joined this policy debate. Our update is below:
Arizona -- SB 1312 (Providing additional tax credit for contribution to school tuition organizations): Primary sponsor, Sen. Murphy; on agenda today for the senate Finance Committee -- SB 1553 (Arizona Empowerment Accounts): Primary sponsor, Sen. Murphy; on agenda Monday, Feb. 14, for the senate Education Committee
New Jersey -- A 2810 (Opportunity Scholarship Act): Primary sponsors, Assemblymen Fuentes, DeCroce, Schaer and Webber; Advanced from assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee on Feb. 3, with amendments, and referred to assembly Budget Committee
New Mexico -- SB 113 (Tax Credit for Certain Scholarship Donations): Primary sponsor, Sen. Boitano; tabled in the senate Education Committee -- SB 398 (Special Needs Student Scholarship Act): Primary sponsor, Sen. Ortiz y Pino; referred to senate Education Committee -- SB 433 (Equal Opportunity Scholarship Act): Primary sponsor, Sen. Campos; referred to senate Education Committee
Oklahoma -- HB 2133 (Educational Improvement Act): Primary sponsor, Rep. Steele; referred to appropriations and budget -- SB 969 (Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship Act): Primary sponsor, Sen. Newberry
Tennessee -- HB 0388 (Equal OpportunityScholarship Act): Primary sponsor, Rep. Dunn; SB 0485 (Equal Opportunity Scholarship Act): Primary sponsor, Sen. Kelsey
Virginia -- HB 2314 (Education Investment Tax Credit): Primary sponsor, Delegate Massie; passed the House of Delegates 54-45 on Feb. 8; referred to senate Finance Committee
Washington, D.C. -- HR 471 (Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act): Primary sponsor, Rep. Boehner; referred to house Committee on Oversight and Government Reform -- S 206 (Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act of 2011): Primary sponsor, Sen. Lieberman, referred to senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs
We'll be updating information on similar bills in other states soon, including HB 1003 in Indiana, SB 1 in Pennsylvania, and S 414 and H 3407 in South Carolina
Michelle Rhee spent this afternoon at the Florida Legislature, speaking first in front of the state Senate PreK-12 committee and then in front of the House K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee. Much of her testimony was spent addressing Florida's Senate Bill 736, which is the Sunshine State's latest effort to revamp teacher contracts and evaluations, but, in keeping with her agenda for StudentsFirst, she had the following to say about school choice and parental empowerment:
[Florida's] current charter school laws and tax credit scholarship programs address the need for more choices for families, particularly for low income parents. All types of schools that are held accountable for excellent results should be allowed to grow. The competition this creates makes the entire system better as parents vote with their feet to the best schools for their children.
I have been working with some dedicated parents in Marco Island, who have been tireless in their fight to use the charter law to create a better high school option for their children. I hate to say it, but the school district has thrown up many roadblocks, including one to deny a parcel of land the district owns for the charter school’s use. The approval process to open a charter school should be rigorous, but the districts, some of which don't want competition, should not get to hold all the cards. This dynamic must change and districts have to be held accountable for their obligations around charter schools, such that they cannot be the limiting factor in starting great new schools.
That brings me to a provision that I understand will soon be raised in Florida, which currently has a form of the parent trigger law. Under this law, if 51 percent of parents and teachers demand a change to a failing school with their signatures, they can convert the public school to a charter school. But in order to truly empower parents, they need the right to demand a new school on their own, even if their administration and teachers are resistant to change. I believe Florida’s children would benefit if the House worked to change the language in the law -- from "parents and teachers" to "parents or teachers."
I agree with those who say we need more parent engagement in schools, but I do not believe we get to criticize parents when they then band together just because we don’t like the specific way they choose to engage. We cannot force parents into a prescribed list of preferences for the nature of their engagement, and if we are truly going to empower parents, we cannot force any parent to keep a child in a failing school.
Earlier today, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a proposed tax credit scholarship for low-income students by a 54-45 vote. HB 2314, which proposes Education Improvement Scholarships, would provide private tuition assistance to students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The measure gives a corporation a tax credit if it contributes to a nonprofit scholarship organization.
Over the weekend, Democratic delegate Algie T. Howell, a co-sponsor of the bill, had this to say about the plan in The Virginian-Pilot.
