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Truth, freedom, choice

John E. Coons October 16, 2020

John E. Coons

See! A disenchanted nation

Spring like day from desolation;

To Truth its state is dedicate,

And Freedom leads it forth, her mate;

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound”

Shelley got it right; truth and freedom are inseparable. And, when it comes to schooling, the two join in the long-established freedom of parents to decide the specific medium of truth for their own child.

And yet, it is the national reality that we have imposed the unchosen medium – the specific “public” school – upon the lower-income family; such parents have no voice in the matter. Billy’s school will be assigned to him by a completely impersonal system, one that lacks any plausible, or even intelligible, justification beside the welfare and power of the union chiefs who profit from it.

Will the empowerment of non-rich parents ever become a reality? Will these mothers and fathers one day be offered the dignity of making that fateful decision for their own child – that power and freedom that the rest of us so cherish?

Given his very specific and humbled submission to the teachers union by our most plausible next president, the federal government seems an unlikely champion of the poor for the near future. Yet, today, in a number of states, we watch politicians adjusting to signs of an awakening civic conscience; of course, it helps that the polls show a mounting preference for choice among all parents, the comfortable as well as the poor. The subsidized mother and father have become a spreading vision among our people.

When and if choice comes to be in a sustainable way, it will most likely do so in a variety of legal and economic forms from state to state. Vouchers that would subsidize and empower lower-income parents to exercise their legal right by paying tuition are merely the most simple and obvious remedy.

And, of course, we have already created the harbinger of parental empowerment in our well-functioning and very popular charters. Aside from their superior test scores, we can be confident that they work simply by watching the frantic (and too often successful) effort of union chiefs to minimize their numbers and/or to shrink the operating liberty of these precious quasi-public latecomers in our history.

Tuition vouchers for ordinary and poor families will be the simplest form for the subsidizing of choice. Imagine the real freedom for families that need financial help to decide for themselves if both vouchers and charters were to become available to them.

That will depend entirely upon the prudence and resilience of their current union overseers to transform themselves and, for the first time, rise to meet the competition in a free market.

In short, they would have to become worth choosing. Is that too much to ask?

October 16, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Politics Featured Jack Coons Parental Choice School Choice

Comes the moment to decide

John E. Coons October 9, 2020

John E. Coons

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side

— J.R. Lowell

The president’s nominee for the open seat on the Supreme Court appears to be a highly qualified judge and scholar. She has set her moral convictions in the open, and, if not decisive, they are plainly relevant to the mission of this publication about parents and school.

Our constitution recognizes the legal sovereignty of the parent over the decision about who shall school their child. However, a century and a half of our country’s discrimination has denied choice to those parents who cannot afford either private school tuition or its equivalent in a freely chosen suburban institution where taxes play tuition’s role.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett clearly would prefer that society protect that same parental authority for the not-so-rich parents (and for the larger family) over who shall mentor this child.

The sudden opening of a place on the high court comes at a uniquely awkward moment. There is time, if properly managed, for the Senate to decide Judge Barrett’s future, and with it, (maybe) the basic legality of our conscription of the poor family for “public” school. The Court’s recent decisions on religious discrimination do suggest the possibility, and the appointment of Judge Barrett might advance the odds of such an historic stroke for human dignity.

Hence, the intense alarm of the teachers union leadership as it sees its monopoly over the poor at risk. No surprise; but what of the reaction of the Democratic Party (my own!)?

These self-declared defenders of the common folk are caught in a political seizure, even at one point declaring 50 days an unsuitably short time to decide who shall sit at the high bench – and, in any case, the fate of Judge Barrett, who could threaten the monopoly of the teachers union so valued by the Bidens.

May we ask ourselves: Observing this reality of Democratic dismay at the prospect of this nominee deciding cases, who is it here who is the voice for the poor? Are we who are registered Democrats supposed to be proud of our party, so unstrung at the prospect of a justice who just might support the actual exercise of the low-income parents’ right to choose? Who is it that is actually pulling for the poor here?

Obviously, there is time to decide, and this Democrat is pulling for Judge Barrett.

October 9, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Featured Jack Coons Parental Choice School Choice

The silence of my clan

John E. Coons October 2, 2020

John E. Coons

redefinED commentator John Coons spent 30 years as a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley; he now serves as professor emeritus.

“When awful darkness and silence reign”

— Edw. Lear, “The Dong with the Luminous Nose”

In my 40-plus years of teaching law (11 at Northwestern University, 30 at UC Berkeley), I had the privilege of rubbing elbows with scores of faculty, all of great integrity and most of common wisdom. Not all were law professors, nor from Northwestern or Cal, though the majority were my close-up colleagues at both schools, and just down the hall.

Two-plus decades after taking “emeritus” status, still with an office (undeserved), I confess that I know too few of the younger faculty very well; however, I experience enough to confirm what I will say here about attitudes of academics toward the subsidizing of choice among elementary and secondary schools for lower-income parents.

Many or most faculty today see themselves as agents of reform to aid the poor. Yet they are surprisingly uncomfortable and inarticulate about “vouchers” and – for such analytic minds – have difficulty saying just why they resist change toward parental choice. The only prominent exceptions among my own cohort is a colleague who would have us force all children of every family into public school; Oregon’s Compulsory Education Act is with us yet.

Most of the other faculty that I know remain uneasy about empowering the poor but struggle to find a justifying rationale that is not plainly elitist. They don’t relish the discrimination that all can see, but the best they seem able to express as justification is an imagined improvement that can and must be wrought by more money for the learning experience in P.S. 99; it is not that of liberating its families so that they can remain there by choice or skip out and seek a school that works better for young Freddie.

Many or even most of these same academics do seem comfortable with the provision of charter schools, but only to a point; we shouldn’t let them become the norm. Few seem outraged by California’s very strict limits on the number and freedom of charters – this in spite of their superior test scores and evident popularity. More than 100,000 families seeking escape are left losers after the necessary lotteries for admission; for them it’s back as internees to Freedom Public School down the street.

I’m not confident that our individualist academics with their proclaimed focus on human liberty and equality have allowed themselves a conscious and open-minded grasp of reality.

How can this cast of the intellectual mind be explained? Why are these freedom-folk numbing themselves to the scene of these powerless parents living with all the poisonous consequences? What exactly is the “liberal” social good that they all achieved by this conscriptive device?

These good minds are (like me) virtually all registered Democrats; but they fear some yet unidentified monster waiting to reduce the state of the poor even more than today is realized by our very deliberate segregation and social gelding according to family income.

Could it be the fear of religion or some particular religion? Are we witnessing the permanence of the 19^th century dread felt by our elites at the sight of those crude immigrants with their dedication to peculiar and un-American views of reality? At many a campus this seems credible, but at “Boalt Hall,” the law school at Berkeley? History seems against it.

Boalt faculty had, I learned, supported the private school plaintiffs in Pierce v. Society of Sisters; and, when I arrived a half-century later, the place was alive with good-natured but serious discourse among the sects represented. Religious diversity was natural, precious and fun.

Let me, yet once again, cite the message approved (at my first faculty meeting) in our (successful) effort to lure the great David Daube from Oxford. (“Kuttner,” in this epic rhyme, was the equally distinguished [but Catholic] Jew drawn to head our huge and unique collection of canon and religious law.)

Catholics are fine, but so are Jews

Kuttner’s coming, how about youse?

I knew that I was in the right place.

The faculty (and student) discourse of those times seems to have lost much of its nonchalance, hence much of its liberating function. It has, of course, become carefully WOKE about sex – fine, but about religion too?

I fear that this sort of social-intellectual prudence starts early in the schooling of most of us; the questions that matter most never get answered or even considered and become de trop in polite society. Minds with experience and sophistication go silent – and, in this case, by personal choice.

Let’s open up. That’s why society gave us this fancy platform – to help make public issues clearer and, maybe, do a little good.

October 2, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Savings Accounts Featured Lindsey Burke Parent Empowerment Parental Choice School Choice

Following the lead of education savings accounts to cover student assessment costs would put more information, choice in parents’ hands

Lindsey Burke September 29, 2020

Lindsey Burke

If you wanted to determine, tomorrow, if your child was on track in reading or math, where would you turn? What if you wanted to know how your child was doing in a particular math concept, like the Pythagorean theorem?

There are some companies that exist for such purposes, like DreamBox Learning, which provides math curriculum, lessons, and formative and summative assessment. But as a regular practice – parents getting outside audits of their child’s understanding of certain subjects and topics, and getting external assessments untethered from the district school system – it is far from the norm.

As I wrote recently in a paper for the American Enterprise Institute, parents should have the resources to obtain regular audits of their child’s learning, and such audits should become commonplace. In the era of COVID-19 learning, this will become more critical than ever.

The National Center for Education Statistics pegs total average per-pupil spending at $14,439 per child in public schools across the country. To get a child from kindergarten to high school graduation costs taxpayers more than $187,000 on average over those 13 years. This is an incredibly costly expense with a high potential for information asymmetry, which can occur when one party has better information about a product or service than another party.

In nearly every other aspect of our lives, such costly investments typically have an associated appraisal market to assure the buyer of the quality of their investment. Yet, no similar market exists for K-12 education. From home appraisals to horse appraisals, external audits of the value of a product provide important information to the end user. We should apply that concept to K-12 education by separating learning assessment from learning delivery.

In normal (non-COVID times), parents largely are recipients of data on public school performance on state assessments, received at the end of the year, providing little information on their child for any necessary education course corrections. They also have access to state- or district-level school report cards, which provide information on the school, not the student.

There also are data from measures such as the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) that provide state-to-state and some district-level assessments. But while those are useful to education researchers, they are less informative for parents.

For many parents, the most useful information on their child’s progress comes from parent-teacher conferences. Yet these tend to be held infrequently throughout the year. Grades on student homework provide additional information but can be subjective or even inflated.

Teachers may provide information on student progress through portfolios or performance assessments, and schools provide formative and interim assessments. For example, in many schools, parents receive quarterly reports and then report cards at the end of the semester. Some schools also use private assessments, including tests like the PSAT and external assessments for gifted students or English as a Second Language (ESL) exams for non-native English speakers.

And more and more schools are using tools like Schoolology that allow for real-time reporting on student grades. But these evaluations aren’t universal and may not always focus on student understanding of discreet concepts.

So, while parents are not entirely in the dark when it comes to how much their children know, they largely do not have day-to-day, actionable information about student progress. Creating an appraisal market for K-12 education could provide immediate, granular information on student performance for parents that is actionable and timely. To do so, states should provide funding for diagnostic and evaluative testing to parents separately from the per-pupil dollars spent on their child in district and charter schools.

When Arizona designed and implemented its groundbreaking education savings account (ESA) program in 2011, they were on to something. Allowing ESA funds to be used for assessments and diagnostic tests, along with the accounts’ other uses (e.g., private school tuition, online learning, special education services and therapies, etc.), was a helpful solution.

As micro-credentials grow in popularity, freeing-up funding in the form of ESAs will enable more students to get specific certifications of learning and knowledge acquisition. ESA-style accounts also enable parents to pay directly for diagnostic tests at testing sites unrelated to the school in which their child is learning.

Making ESAs a reality for every child would enable families to easily acquire real-time, external audits of their child’s learning. And it would likely foster a growth in the supply of such diagnostic tools in the market.

To date, five states – Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North Carolina – have education savings account options in operation, enabling parents to pay for external audits of their child’s learning if they choose. Other states should follow suit. Short of that, states should at least allow parents to leverage a small portion of their child’s state per-pupil funding to pay for assessments and other diagnostic tools.

Information on their child’s progress is a powerful tool. When combined with education choice options, it can be the key to finding options that are the right fit for them, setting them up for success long term.

September 29, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education Choice Featured Jack Coons Parental Choice School Choice

A win-win for Darwin

John E. Coons September 25, 2020

John E. Coons

What happens to the mind of the school child who each day dwells in the land of Charles Darwin, focused solely upon what becomes of matter and the ever-evolving elements of natural life, never asking how this stuff came to be in the first place?

Darwin’s own mind simply withdrew from that question, settling at last into an airy atheism. For him, the stuff of this universe was the only reality, thus the mind’s departure into metaphysics or religion but a wasteful diversion into nothing at all.

Hence, there is no point in telling the student about anything but matter and the course of its ever-evolving reality. There is simply no story to be told about the world’s coming to be. It just is, and that’s all that matters.

Tenth-grader Joe finds the details of evolution fascinating, as do most of us. It is quite easy to engage the mind, young or old, in the gorgeous reality of physical stuff. It’s fun. But, viewed as Darwin saw things, that fun is not endless. Like the butterfly, and even the redwood, we die.

That’s the only story young Joe is allowed to hear at P.S. 99. What, then, becomes of Joe’s capacity even to ask himself that nagging question that Darwin ducked: Did a non-existent physical world simply make itself out of nothing? Even to ask the question seems juvenile; from nothing comes what … ?

But, back to school. What is the effect upon young Joe of this classic shunning of the greatest of all questions?

My own observation of its probably lasing influence on the learner is drawn from daily discourse with mostly adult human beings. They are generally lovable, but seem too frequently out of touch with, and incoherent on, the question of all questions. Most are obviously uncomfortable at its emergence in the occasional but unavoidable exchange that implicates the “meaning of life” – and whether there is one.

In my own experience, this verbal inefficacy becomes most evident in expressions of shared grief at the death of a loved one. The genuinely caring friend can find himself “so sorry,” but from there on, has difficulty in finding words of hope beyond the assurance that “she will be remembered” or “she was so kind and good.” Many warm-hearted and generous mourners seem uneducated in the language of hope – of faith, and of love.

This near incoherence on the occasion of death is replicated in many another context that hints at the transcendental. Politics is a rich example. Religious belief or the lack (or feigning) of it is always a matter of public interest, but the discourse on that issue is too often juvenile. The typical American mind and the media that serve it seem to find simple discourse about God/no God an effort.

Where does this stammering of ours about the transcendental have its genesis? What is it about the divine that strikes so may of us dumb? Its sources are complex, and its subsequent history even more so.

Paradoxically, it began in the 19^th century as an intended protection of American culture from false religion and the imposition of a monopoly for true belief in the classrooms of the new public system, compulsory for un-monied immigrant families. This religious behemoth was, of course, fated to fall prey to its very opposite as the new “realists” of the secular elite gained control.

The Supreme Court, in due course, made the exclusion of God from the curriculum a matter of civic faith. For good or ill, the narrowing of young Joe’s vision and ventilation was a simple sequitur.

September 25, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education and Public Policy Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Jonathan Butcher Parental Choice School Choice

With lawmakers not in session, bureaucrats should not regulate pods

Jonathan Butcher September 22, 2020

Jonathan Butcher

Policymakers have a knack for finding private endeavors they presume still need fixing. The latest example? Learning pods.

With many schools closed to in-person instruction this fall, many parents have quickly adapted, developing the pods to continue their children’s education. Now policymakers are catching up with rules and regulations.

Learning pods are loosely defined as small groups of children who gather in a parent’s home for K-12 instruction. If this sounds like homeschooling, that’s because homeschool co-op arrangements like this have existed for decades, allowing parents to hire teachers or share their own subject matter expertise with groups of children who are not attending a public or private school full time.

In the pandemic, these pods are attracting families that had not considered educating their child at home before but are doing so now because of dissatisfaction with district online learning platforms. Parents have reason to be skeptical of district offerings this fall: District e-learning systems crashed or otherwise malfunctioned at the beginning of the new school year in Hartford, Houston, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, across North Carolina, and during a practice session for families in Seattle.

At a Detroit school, a teacher expecting 14 students to attend online only had one student login, and his headphones were not working.

Carrie Limpert-Bostrom, a Minnesota parent, said in an interview, “You are able to fit it [a pod] to your specific needs. In our case, we wanted somebody who could speak French and speak to our children.”

She says she does not blame her school district because information regarding the pandemic is changing all the time. But, she says, “I knew I wanted something as stable as possible for my child,” adding, “I’m taking control of my daughter’s education during this time.”

Yet in some states, the question of who, in reality, is in control is one for the bureaucrats.

In Pennsylvania, state officials issued regulations stating that families involved in pods with six or more children must “notify” a state agency. While the groups do not need to be licensed, pod families must have evacuation plans in case of an emergency, as first reported by Reason, as well as create their own “health and safety plans.”

South Carolina officials are requiring that pod families serving more than six children apply for a family childcare home license. According to Charleston media, “local zoning regulations could limit that number further.” These reports also say at-home visits will be required. By the end of August, Connecticut companies helping parents form pods area ware of the potential for regulations (with the state department of education having released guidance for at-home learning) and have already scheduled “inspections” for homes hosting pods in West Hartford and Ellington (located north of Hartford).

In Oregon, where lawmakers blocked virtual charter school enrollment at the beginning of the pandemic, officials said they may regulate pod families in the same way as childcare providers. Such restrictions would include requiring background checks, CPR training and safe sleep training.

Governors in Colorado and Massachusetts have announced waivers for traditional childcare regulations to allow the formation of pods, but these executive orders still limit the size of each pod. The Massachusetts waiver will help organizations offering after-school programs, but parents are prohibited from paying each other for either their time or the use of a home.

Many state legislators will not return to session until the beginning of next year. This fall, state agencies should not be allowed to apply restrictions on learning pods — including in-home visits. Governors should look for ways to waive regulations and licensure requirements that would limit parent attempts to provide an education for their children. Public and private school educators can determine ways of measuring student progress if students choose to return to schools, but policymakers should not regulate pods like daycare centers in the meantime.

Next year, state lawmakers can align state policies on homeschooling, private schools, and other private learning options such as education savings accounts or K-12 private school scholarships with pods and micro-schools so that parents can make informed choices about the best learning option for their child.

Until then, parents should be encouraged to customize their child’s learning experience while district plans remain in flux.

September 22, 2020 0 comment

Blog Guest Commentary and Opinion Education and Public Policy Education Spending Featured Jack Coons School Choice

Is that the way the money goes?

John E. Coons September 18, 2020

John E. Coons

Official reports of public school budgets and spending seldom have been easy for the common taxpayer, like myself, to understand whether such disclosures come from state, district or individual school – and, whether the numbers that actually are reported for expenditures are those for non-teaching personnel, sub-categories of pupils, or for equipment, repairs and security, they rarely are easy for the common reader to understand.

The official reporting accountant often lacks incentive to parade the employer’s relative wealth, federal and/or private charity. Thus, when we hear that the District of Superport spends $15,000 per child, while a bordering district spends half again that amount, this doesn’t tell us a lot until we learn more about what these respective districts included in their calculation.

When co-authors and I were writing “Private Wealth and Public Education” in the 1960s, we found that states, districts, individual schools and, in turn, the media, often were not telling it all, whether by design or innocence. Some were silent about debt or the interest paid on it, and often the costs of discharging or sidelining unperforming teachers; the same often was true with respect to income such as federal aid, gifts from private donors, rents received and the like.

Very often, no clear legal standard of reporting bound ether state or district authorities. As our research proceeded, it became plain that folks responsible for composing the “public” message sometimes were serving purposes of their own.

Fifty years later, spies tell me that things have changed but a little; more than one reliable expert friend who has some window on the California system has been unable with confidence to estimate the actual overall per-pupil cost to the taxpayer. The public system, to a considerable degree, operates as if it were part of that private market in which competing schools often prefer to remain inscrutable on the subject of resources and budget.

What is clear about the numbers of the public sector is the steady half-century swell in our expenditure per child and the overall enhancement of spending for non-teacher personnel. The latter now represents something over half the budget in most corners of our society. That this shocks me is, I suppose, the effect of its radical difference from my own childhood experience.

I hereby concede that today’s reality is not necessarily bad; those assistant principals, librarians, nurses, bus drivers, coaches, janitors and security may be necessary, and even a blessing.

In any case, this shift in economic focus is a reality of which taxpayers should be aware. The traditional public school has become increasingly expensive even as it has consistently failed to graduate better educated kids. That happier outcome has been left to parentally chosen charter schools which have shown themselves able to teach more at a smaller cost per-pupil to the taxpayer. Some do so even while turning a profit.

Again, I am not suggesting any unlawful behavior nor pushing away a formula for setting the best level of spending for any specific purpose or for total investment per pupil. I pray only that one day the media will be given – then report in an intelligible manner – a clearer picture of just where the dollars went. While grossly overstating the problem, English humorist, novelist, playwright and law reform activist Sir Alan Herbert showed the effect on many a frustrated taxpayer:

Fancy giving money to the Government

Nobody will see the stuff again!

— Herbert, Too Much!

Whether too much, too little, or just the right sum, there are many among us who would like the chance to see that the “stuff” got to its assigned place and is performing its assigned task.

September 18, 2020 0 comment

Analysis Blog Guest Customization Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Research Featured Parental Choice Patrick J. Wolf Private School Scholarships School Choice

Choosing the right path: evidence that Milwaukee’s school choice program excels beyond academics

Patrick J. Wolf September 15, 2020

Patrick J. Wolf

One of the largest and oldest Lutheran high schools in the nation, Milwaukee Lutheran High School participates in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, allowing families who meet the household income requirements to attend at no charge or for significantly reduced tuition.

America’s oldest urban private school choice program has the vital effects of steering young adults away from both crime and out-of-wedlock births, thus laying a strong foundation for them to live more successful lives.

What predicts future life success for young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds? Two vital factors are avoiding a criminal record (see here and here) and an out-of-wedlock birth.

That reality might be one reason why private schools often describe their mission as educating the “whole child,” mind, body and soul. Education should shape the character of students in positive ways. Strong character traits, such as conscientiousness and self-restraint, are especially important for youth growing up in challenged family circumstances. They rarely get second chances.

Given that avoiding a criminal record and refraining from causing a non-marital birth are keys to life success, and private schools may have advantages over public schools in promoting the character traits of their charges, it is shocking that almost no research has been conducted on the effects of private school choice programs on rates of crime and out-of-wedlock births.

Corey A. DeAngelis, director of school choice at the Reason Foundation, and I have set out to fill that gaping hole in our understanding of the potential long-term, life-changing effects of school choice.

Our first foray examined the medium-term effects of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) on the likelihood of a person being charged with a crime by age 22-25. The MPCP is restricted to low-income families in Milwaukee. We matched more than 1,000 eighth- and ninth-grade students in the MPCP in 2006 with Milwaukee public schools (MPS) students in the same grade, with the same race, gender, English Language Learner status, and similar initial achievement test scores.

Importantly, we also matched the MPCP students with peers from their own neighborhood. Family values and behavioral expectations tend to be similar in urban neighborhoods, so matching students based on where they lived likely helped us control for vital unmeasured factors.

We then searched the public database of all criminal records for the state of Wisconsin as of fall 2015. The searchers were not aware if a given student was in the MPCP group or the MPS group when they looked to see if that study participant had committed a crime in the state. We found that MPCP students who remained in their private school of choice throughout their high school years were significantly less likely to have committed a crime during young adulthood, compared to their matched peers in MPS.

When MPCP students who switched from their private high school to a public school were included in the analysis, however, the effect of the MPCP on reducing crime became less clear. We concluded that students may need a steady “dose” of the character education treatment of private schooling for it to change their life trajectory.

Our initial study was published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Social Science Quarterly.

This year, we returned to the question with more and better data. We also employed more conservative analytic methods, to be even more confident that the selectivity of MPCP students was not biasing our results. In a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Private Enterprise, we revisited the same set of MPCP and matched MPS students three years later, when they were 25-28 years old. The additional three years gave the MPCP students more time to distinguish themselves from their MPS peers regarding avoiding criminal behavior.

We also found data on paternity suits in Wisconsin and added that key outcome variable to our study. Finally, we did not separate out students who stayed in the MPCP for their entire high school career from those who switched back to MPS. Thus, we conservatively tested to see if experiencing the private school choice program for any length of time from eighth to twelfth grade affected crime outcomes or non-marital birth rates. In these three ways, our recent study improved upon our original one.

We found that participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program reduced the likelihood of a young adult having a drug conviction by 53%. The MPCP also decreased the chances of a person having a conviction for a property damage crime by an astounding 86%. MPCP alums were 38% less likely than their matched MPS peers to have been named in a paternity suit by age 25-28.

The positive effects of the private school choice program on reducing criminality were larger for males, who commit most crimes, and for participants with lower initial achievement test scores. The benefit of the MPCP in reducing the likelihood of causing a non-marital birth was similar for both males and females, since it takes two to tango.

Our research was not designed to reveal what the private schools in the MPCP did to generate these reductions in crime and out-of-wedlock births. Religion, re-enforcing parental values, and the influence of better-behaved peers all may have played a role. Future research should continue to study those questions.

For now, we can say that America’s oldest urban private school choice program had the vital effects of steering young adults away from both crime and out-of-wedlock births, thus laying a strong foundation for them to live more successful lives.

That’s a big deal.

September 15, 2020 0 comment