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Author

Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick Gibbons is public affairs manager at Step Up for Students and a research fellow for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. A former teacher, he lived in Las Vegas, Nev., for five years, where he worked as an education writer and researcher. He can be reached at (813) 498.1991 or emailed at pgibbons@stepupforstudents.org. Follow Patrick on Twitter: at @PatrickRGibbons and @redefinEDonline.

Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsPrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceTax Credit Scholarships

Wisconsin advocacy group sues on behalf of family seeking school choice scholarship

Patrick R. Gibbons May 22, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

Katrina Olguin, pictured with her husband and sons, is fighting the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to secure private school scholarships.

When Katrina Olguin applied for private school scholarships for her sons, she probably never imagined she would be disqualified for being over the income threshold – by less than $50.

Unfortunately for Olguin, of West Allis, Wisconsin, her state’s Department of Public Instruction rules prohibit parents from reapplying in the same year, even if they amend their application.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty believes that rule is illegal and has filed suit on behalf of Olguin and her sons.

According to the institute, Olquin reapplied for the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program after making legal contributions to her IRA so her family was again income eligible. The state denied the application, citing the rule prohibiting same-year reapplication.

Wisconsin’s scholarship program provides scholarships to low-income and working-class students. Household income must be at or below 220 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $66,000 for a family of five.

“We were just $47 over and I did everything to adjust it legally,” Olguin wrote in a blog post that was published on Medium. “And then they were just like, no, sorry.”

According to the article, Olguin wants three of her sons to attend Heritage Christian Schools, a high-performing school her two older sons attend and where she is a teacher. The school attempted to appeal on Olguin’s behalf, but the Department of Public Instruction still would not consider the application.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty claims the rule is illegal because the Department of Public Instruction was “required to proceed through a rulemaking process outlined in state law,” including allowing public review and comment, but failed to do so.

“DPI’s job is to facilitate education in Wisconsin,” wrote Lucas Vebber, a lawyer for the institute. “But too often DPI finds ways to work against families and schools in the parental choice program.”

May 22, 2020 1 comment
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CourtsEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation PoliticsEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Tennessee scholarship program declared unconstitutional

Patrick R. Gibbons May 6, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

A Tennessee judge ruled the state’s first education savings account program unconstitutional Monday, stating that by targeting two counties, the scholarship program violates the “home rule” amendment in the state constitution.

Davidson County chancellor Anne C. Martin heard oral argument in late April on the Tennessee Education Savings Account Pilot Program, approved last year by a narrow 50-48 vote. The program, scheduled to begin in the 2020-21 school year, would provide low-income students with education scholarships accounts worth $7,300 and would be limited to 5,000 students from low-income and working-class homes who are eligible to attend Shelby and Davidson County public schools.

Opponents of the scholarship program, which included a cardiac surgeon and a neuroscientist whose child was not eligible for the program, filed suit in February of this year. These parents and others were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center and the teacher union backed Education Law Center.

Officials from both Nashville and Memphis also had filed lawsuits against the state.

“Nashville, like other cities and counties, must have the authority to determine how investments are made in the best interest of our residents,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said in a statement following the ruling.

The state plans to appeal the decision.

“The parents defending the ESA Pilot Program will immediately appeal the court’s ruling,” said Arif Panju, managing attorney at the Institute for Justice in a press release.

The institute represents two low-income parents who are eligible for the scholarship and argues that the judges expanded the home rule amendment beyond what the framers intended in order to strike down the scholarship program.

But Martin pointed to several cases, including Weaver v. Ayers (1988) and  Board of Education of Shelby County, Tenn. v. Memphis City Bd. of Education (2012), both of which note that county governments and school districts are in a “partnership” and a “collaboration” with each other to provide education. Martin reasoned the “partnership” between county and school district means they are inseparable and that a state law impacting a public school district also impacts the county or city in violation of the home rule amendment.

“The court had to significantly expand the Tennessee Constitution’s Home Rule provision and apply it to a law that, on its face, required a county to do nothing — not exercise its power nor fund anything. That ignores the text of the Constitution,” declared Panju.

Indeed, Tennessee’s own home rule amendment is limited specifically to municipalities and counties.

A state Supreme Court case from 1957, Fountain City Sanitary District v. Knox County Election Commission, noted that even though a sanitation district was fully within the boundary of the city or county, it was wasn’t covered under the home rule amendment precisely because it was not a city or a county.

The 1957 court clarified its argument further by pointing to similar rulings from California and Idaho, which similarly found other quasi-governmental organizations, like sanitation, utilities, and even school districts, were not cities or counties and thus not covered by “home rule” provisions.

In a concurring opinion, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Swepston specifically noted that drainage districts, water districts, sanitary districts, and even school districts were “simply not included within the intention of the framers of the Home Rule Amendment.”

The scholarship program has been put on hold for the more than 500 students who expected scholarships this fall.

May 6, 2020 0 comment
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AnalysisEducation ChoiceFamily Empowerment ScholarshipFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipMcKay ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

The proof is in the numbers: participation in education choice is soaring

Patrick R. Gibbons April 3, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

While Covid-19 likely will be responsible for the single largest increase in virtual education in Florida’s history, enrollment growth over time in another program that offers education choice, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, is nevertheless impressive. From academic year 2015-16 to 2016-17, the program grew by 20,000 students.

Meanwhile, the Family Empowerment Scholarship, in its first year, ramped up to 18,000 students in a matter of months. The previous first-year enrollment record holder, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program, launched in 2002 with 15,585 students.

By comparison, the McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities began in 2000 with 970 students. The Opportunity Scholarship program, created in 1999 and offered to students attending low-performing public schools, served just 57 students in its first year. (The Florida Supreme Court in 2006 declared that program unconstitutional after an epic legal battle.)

Enrollment in the Gardiner Scholarship program, created in 2014 for students with unique abilities, has shown steady, if less rapid growth, although that’s likely to change. The Florida Legislature appropriated an additional $23 million in funding for the program in 2019, pushing Gardiner funding to $147.9 million and allowing it to serve at least 2,000 more students. This year, the Legislature approved an additional $42 million increase for the program, which will make it available to still more families.

(Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, administers the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, Family Empowerment Scholarship and Gardiner Scholarship programs.)

Data indicate that while the percentage of students diagnosed with autism participating in the program has grown, the number of students with other diagnoses has declined as a percentage of the total population amid an expansion in the list of eligibilities.

The percentage of minority students participating in the Florida Tax Credit program has remained remarkably stable. In 2010, non-white students made up 75 percent of the program and today comprise 73 percent. While the percentage of black students dropped from 36 percent to 30 percent, the number of Hispanic students increased from 27 percent to 38 percent. The percentage of white students participating increased from 25 percent to 27 percent.

The Florida Tax Credit program’s income eligibility requirements also have changed over time. Today, students can remain in the program if their household income does not exceed 260 percent of poverty. That threshold has increased from 185 percent, the eligibility requirement for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program.

The average student lives in a household earning $27,298 a year, just 13 percent above the poverty level.

April 3, 2020 0 comment
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Coronavirus / COVID-19FeaturedNewsSchool Choice

Florida DOE eases the way for public, private schools

Patrick R. Gibbons March 25, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued emergency orders Tuesday waiving certain requirements for education impacting both public and private schools. The order “waives strict adherence of Florida’s education code” for public schools, universities and colleges and private schools in Florida.

Specifically: 

  • Public schools are advised to remain closed through April 15 but must provide education through non-classroom based means until then.
  • Districts are required to provide equivalent services for students with 504 plans or Individual Education Plans, including continuing to provide virtual services for those attending private schools.
  • Career, professional, technical and adult education instruction shall be provided through non-classroom means. The same applies for vocational rehabilitation and blind services.
  • Colleges are advised to provide education services virtually.
  • K-12 assessments are waived for the remainder of the year for public and private school students. Seniors attending public schools will not be required to pass end-of-year exams to earn a diploma.
  • School grades have been cancelled for the remainder of the academic year.
  • Assessments for Voluntary Prekindergarten students, including school readiness assessments, are waived.
  • Private schools accepting scholarship students are not required to maintain “direct daily contact” and may provide non-classroom-based instruction to fulfill attendance requirements.
  • Districts are allowed to use certain unspent funds, including Title II funds, to help low-income students purchase electronic devices to facilitate remote learning.
  • Districts are allowed to use unspent funds from the Safe Schools fund and Mental Health allocation to provide virtual or telephonic mental health counseling for students.
  • Teacher certifications set to expire during this time will not expire.

Though not specifically mentioned in the order, Step Up for Students, the nonprofit scholarship funding organization that hosts this blog, confirmed that private schools that have access to Title II funds may coordinate with their local public school district to use the unspent funds to help students purchase electronic devices to provide educational services virtually.

Step Up administers several private school scholarship programs in Florida including the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship which funds more than 100,000 scholarships for low-income students.

March 25, 2020 0 comment
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Coronavirus / COVID-19Education and Public PolicyFeaturedNewsVirtual Education

Latest Covid-19 guidance from Florida DOE for public, private schools

Patrick R. Gibbons March 20, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

Florida Department of Education guidelines issued in a memo Thursday encouraging public and private schools to utilize remote learning also are expected to prevent financial disaster for hundreds of private schools accepting scholarships.

While the Department has recommended private schools close their campuses through April 15, as it has mandated public schools, it does not have the power to close them. Still, many private schools have closed voluntarily.

The new guidelines make remote learning a viable option for all traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Under them, public and private schools may continue to educate students under certain conditions. Students can be educated through non-classroom means, including online learning, educational packets provided to parents with teacher assistance, or a combination of both methods. Schools will be required to document how they conduct daily attendance.

State law regulating the scholarship program requires private schools to verify student attendance at the school’s physical location each quarter. Schools had been concerned that closures during the pandemic may jeopardize their scholarship funds.

The Department of Education’s memo ensures that scholarship payments for the Florida Empowerment Scholarship, McKay Scholarship, Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, Gardiner Scholarship and Hope Scholarship will continue uninterrupted. However, parents still will be required to endorse the checks as required by law.

The Department also is considering suspending national norm-referenced testing for scholarship students this year. No decision has been made regarding testing at this time.

Click here for more information from the DOE on coronavirus-related issues.

March 20, 2020 0 comment
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AnalysisCourtsEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedParent EmpowermentParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Fight over education choice pits family against family in Tennessee

Patrick R. Gibbons March 12, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

Institute of Justice client Builguissa Diallo plans to use education savings account funds to send her kindergartener to Pleasant View School in Memphis, saying her zoned public school doesn’t meet her daughter’s needs.

Editor’s note: Some of the parties mentioned in this post, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, have expressed interest in suing to stop the Family Empowerment Scholarship, a program administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

The legal battle over Tennessee’s new education savings account (ESA) program is causing families and educators alike to choose sides.

On one side are nine parents, a legal guardian and a retired public school principal represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center and Education Law Center, who argue the new program is unconstitutional on a plethora of grounds. On the other side, two parents represented by the Institute for Justice are arguing the program is constitutional and beneficial to their children.

The cities of Memphis and Nashville filed similar suits earlier in February.

The program in question, the Tennessee Education Savings Accounts Pilot Program, offers scholarships to low-income and working-class students to attend private schools. Qualified students must live in households not earning more than two times the threshold for the free or reduced-priced lunch program ($66,950 for a family of four) and be assigned to low-performing public schools in districts with at least 10 such struggling schools. Scholarships are worth up to $7,300 and can be spent on tuition, fees, textbooks, tutoring and more.

“Public schools are open to all children, while private schools receiving voucher funds are not held to the same standards,” Nashville mother Terry Jo Bichell said in a press release. Bichell, whose son is non-verbal and has special needs but is ineligible for the scholarship, is suing the state to stop the program.

Natu Bah, who has two sons who are eligible for the program, said in the Institute of Justice’s press release: “I’m defending the ESA program because it will help me provide a better education for my sons.” Bah plans to use the scholarship to send the boys to Christian Brothers High School in Memphis.

The case is another in a long line of voucher lawsuits that focus on state constitution matters to avoid entanglement with the U.S. Constitution in situations where voucher opponents have been thwarted. Though the “Blaine Amendment” issue currently is being debated before the U.S. Supreme Court, Tennessee does not have a prohibition on funding private religious schools. Opponents must argue other state-specific reasons in their efforts to show the scholarship is unconstitutional.

State centric strategies attacking various school choice programs have reaped mixed success. Florida’s first such program was overturned in a controversial and widely panned decision that found the program unconstitutional due to a state amendment intended to increase public school spending. Nevada’s Supreme Court found the ESA program constitutional, but then declared the funding mechanism to be unconstitutional. Washington’s Supreme Court ruled charter schools unconstitutional after digging up a century-old case on “common schools,” an archaic term referring to elementary schools in the 19th century.

In each case, school choice opponents tossed the proverbial kitchen sink at the program hoping at least one argument would stick with court justices. Tennessee’s case appears no different, with opponents highlighting five different reasons the ESA might be unconstitutional.

The ACLU argues the ESA program:

·       Violates the state’s “home rule” provision in the state constitution by targeting Shelby and Davidson counties without local approval

·       Violates the “appropriation of public money” provision since the Legislature did not appropriate money to the program when it passed in 2019 (the program won’t enroll students until the 2020-21 school year)

·       Violates “equal protection clauses” of the state constitution by diverting funds from public to private schools

·       Violates the Basic Education Program (BEP) statute by diverting dollars intended only for public school districts

·       Diverts money to private schools that are not required to adhere to the same standards as public schools

But the kitchen sink approach may not stick in Tennessee.

A 1957 case, Fountain City Sanitary District v. Knox County Election Commission, spells out that the state’s “home rule” provision protects “cities and counties,” and that the rule excludes public school districts. BEP is Tennessee’s funding formula for K-12 education, but nothing within the law appears to restrict expenditures to solely public-school districts. In fact, charter schools are funded through this same formula.

Tennessee’s former Attorney General (and Democrat) Robert Cooper even argued that voucher programs pass constitutional muster in part because of the “Supreme Court’s recognition of the General Assembly’s constitutional flexibility in the field of education.”

There is no telling how long Tennessee’s school choice civil war will last in court, but the first hearing is scheduled for later this month.

March 12, 2020 0 comment
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Education EquityEducator spotlightFeaturedKnow Your HistorySpotlights

A dream remembered of a man who disappeared

Patrick R. Gibbons February 25, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

Fessenden Academy faculty, 1914. Joseph L. Wiley is pictured second from the left in the back row.

On a hot, humid July evening in 1915, Joseph L. Wiley, longtime principal of a private school on the outskirts of Ocala, drove to the Temple Theatre to see a movie. His car was found along West Broadway the next day, but Wiley was not. He had vanished.

Some speculated that the light-skinned, straight-haired black man ran away to pass as a white man. But his affairs at home were in order, and no money had been withdrawn from his bank account. Many of Marion County’s black residents believed he had been murdered.

Wiley, circa 1900.

In addition to being an educator, Wiley worked as farm supervisor, lawyer and banker. As principal of Fessenden Academy, a sprawling 150-acre campus managed by the American Missionary Association (AMA), he was dictatorial with his staff but a maverick when it came to taking orders from his white supervisors headquartered in New York. He dared to teach his black students to dream of an America where “every man and every woman would be accorded every right” in a state that had more lynchings per capita than any in the South.

Little is known about Wiley’s life or career at Fessenden Academy; a fire destroyed most of the school’s records in 1919. What is retold here comes from accounts of locals and historical records from the AMA pieced together by Joe M. Richardson, a former historian at Florida State University, as well as from the 1900-01 school handbook.

Born in Woodbury, Tenn., and described by AMA officials as “Caucasian” in appearance, Wiley enrolled in Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville whose alumni already included W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells and Wiley’s future wife, Josephine Hobbs.

In his senior year in 1895, Wiley served as editor-in-chief of the school paper, the Fisk Herald, where he editorialized praise for Booker T. Washington’s call for more colleges and college training for black students as well as vocational training.

Wiley graduated Fisk with a degree in Classics and announced in the Herald that he would spend a year “teaching and rusticating in the rock-ribbed hills and lovely valleys of Cannon County.” He kept busy as a teacher but used his leisure time to study law, passing the Tennessee bar exam in 1896. He spent two years practicing law before deciding his life would be better spent as a “Christian teacher.”

When he arrived on the Fessenden Academy campus in the fall of 1898, the school was known as Union Academy. Union Academy had launched in 1868 in a “tumbledown cabin” barely 16-feet-by-16-feet — only a little larger than the recommended size for a modern-day horse stall — that by 1890 was crammed with 75 students. That year, a wealthy Bostonian, Ferdinand S. Fessenden, took pity on the poor school and provided funds to construct a new 2,500-square-foot, two-story schoolhouse that opened in 1891. While Fessenden’s financial support turned the school around, Wiley’s arrival in 1898 ushered in a golden age for the school, which was renamed in 1900 to honor its benefactor.

According to historian Richardson, the AMA’s financial struggles had forced the organization to shutter schools for black students across the country. Known for keeping principals on a tight leash, the AMA required school leaders to follow the direct orders of their supervisors in New York and to ask permission for all expenditures. But with its focus trained on larger, urban schools, it left the tiny rural school in far-off Florida to its own devices. As long as Wiley stayed within his meager budget, he had free reign to manage the school as he wished.

Within two years Wiley, with the help of his wife, who was known as a brisk, competent and very good teacher, had increased the staff to four teachers who were instructing 238 students.

In 1902, Fessenden began operating an industrial department in agriculture, carpentry and sewing with a $600 gift from the John F. Slater Fund. Its students helped construct additional campus buildings and grew most of the food served in the dining hall.

Meanwhile, the school added ninth and 10th grades, making Fessenden the only secondary school for black students in the region. Five black women were the first to complete 10th grade, passed the Florida teacher’s exam and in 1903 joined the ranks of the county’s teaching corps.

William N. Sheats, known as the father of Florida’s public-school system, the state’s first elected public school superintendent and author of Florida’s constitutional ban on racial integration in education, heaped enough praise on Fessenden to pave the way for state appropriations from 1904 to 1908.

As the student census grew, Wiley added men’s and women’s dormitories and expanded the campus with the addition of 37 acres, all without financial assistance from the AMA. He used a $6,500 grant from Andrew Carnegie and $1,500 in additional gifts to build a library, dining hall and classrooms for domestic science courses. When he was unable to find donor support, he financed improvements himself regardless of whether the AMA could reimburse him.

By 1910, the school had 300 students, 50 of whom lived on campus.

Academics at Fessenden Academy became highly respected under Wiley’s watch. Marion County School Board members visited in 1908, finding the school in “most excellent condition and doing splendid work,” praising it as “the best colored school” in the state. When industrial students displayed their work at the county fair in 1914, the Ocala Star Banner described it as “finished work that carpenters, blacksmiths, seamstresses and cooks recognize as the standard of perfection.”

But Wiley didn’t let Fessenden rest on its industrial school’s laurels; he pushed students to excel in reading, Latin, mathematics and chemistry, too.

He refused when Superintendent Sheats asked him to substitute industrial classes for Latin, because in Sheats’ words, “the knowledge of how to do something would be worth more to the colored race just now than a smattering” of Latin. Wiley believed, as did the AMA, that the aim of education was “to make a carpenter a man, not simply make a man a carpenter.”

Wiley also insisted that his students, despite the challenges rural poverty imposed, learn tidiness, politeness and thoughtfulness. He believed, according to Richardson, that, teaching geometry, chemistry, or languages was futile if students were untrained in “Christian character,” good manners and morals.

Wiley also taught students patriotism and encouraged them to consider they were worth more as citizens than as slaves. In his view, the United States offered a “glorious opportunity to teach the world a lesson in brotherhood.” He told his students to “live and achieve,” in order to make the country a better place and to prove it could one day become a haven for the oppressed.

Wiley did have his faults. His was a dictatorial leader. He cut Christmas vacation for his staff to three days. Teachers who failed to meet his exact standards were fired on the spot.

By 1908, he began crossing swords with his new supervisor, Paul Douglass. Though Douglass considered Wiley an excellent principal, he determined he was “incorrigible” and requested his resignation in 1913. True to form, Wiley refused, and continued to manage the school until he disappeared in the summer of 1915.

The loss of Wiley was a devastating blow to Fessenden and its students. The white leaders who managed the local school board and the state county board withdrew their support and the school floundered for a time.

Joseph L. Wiley led Fessenden Academy through 17 years of explosive growth and high academic achievement at a time when whites expected black students to become nothing but laborers. During that time, more than 1,000 students graduated knowing their self-worth as citizens and realizing they were educated men and women worthy of dignity and respect.

Wiley’s dream lives on at Fessenden, which remains open as an integrated public elementary school.

Sources:

Richardson, Joe M. “Joseph L. Wiley: A Black Florida Educator.” The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 4, April 1993.

Richardson, Joe M., and Maxine D. Jones, “Education for Liberation: The American Missionary Association and African Americans, 1890 to the Civil Rights Movement.” The University of Alabama Press, 2009.

February 25, 2020 1 comment
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Achievement GapAnalysisDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipSchool ChoiceVouchers

Study shows positive impact of Florida Tax Credit Scholarship on public schools

Patrick R. Gibbons February 19, 2020
Patrick R. Gibbons

As the nation’s largest tax credit scholarship program has expanded, students attending public schools most likely to be affected by the competition of private schools are experiencing higher test scores, reduced absenteeism and lower suspension rates, according to a new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The findings of David Figlio, Cassandra M.D. Hart and Kryzstof Karbownik are contrary to what scholarship opponents like the Florida Education Association, which sued to stop the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program in 2014, have claimed.

The report, “Effects of Scaling Up Private School Choice Programs on Public School Students,” is the latest in a series of studies demonstrating positive impacts of the tax credit scholarship program. And in this case, those positive impacts go beyond the students who benefit directly from the scholarships.

The Urban Institute found last year that students participating in the scholarship program were more likely to attend and graduate from college than eligible peers remaining in public schools, while annual evaluations from the Florida Learning Systems Institute repeatedly have revealed that Florida’s most disadvantaged students have the same annual learning gains as all students of all income levels nationally.

Figlio and company found the positive impacts of the program, which is providing more than $600 million in scholarships this year to help more than 109,000 economically disadvantaged students, were largest for schools facing the most competitive pressure from scholarship-eligible private schools and for lower-income students as well as black and Latino students.

Statistics for children who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch

The researchers previously had studied the scholarship’s impact on public school students and found positive results, but the program has grown significantly since then, encompassing 4 percent of Florida’s K-12 student population. Their new study was focused on determining the effects of the expansion.

Measuring the impact against six categories of competition – density, distance, diversity, slots, churches and a combined measure they call the “competitive pressure index” – they found positive impacts across all of them for reading scores, combined math and reading scores, absenteeism and suspension rates. (See charts below.)

Using standard deviation to measure the impact, they were able to determine that suspensions and absences would be reduced by 0.6 to 0.9 percent of a standard deviation for every 10 percent increase in program size. To put this in perspective, the researchers pointed out that the black and white achievement gap itself is 62 percent of a standard deviation.

The upshot: The researchers’ results were consistent with their past findings, which showed modest benefits at the time the voucher program was introduced and indicated further growth of those positive effects as the program has scaled up.

Averaged math and reading scores

 

February 19, 2020 2 comments
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