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Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation ReportingFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

No, school choice won’t decimate your public schools

Ron Matus
Ron Matus

The next time school choice opponents claim the apocalypse is coming to public schools in your state – and there’s a whole new round of that in the wake of pandemic pods – point them to Florida.

Education choice in the Sunshine State isn’t some fearmonger’s abstraction, and the story line here is a rising tide, not a falling sky. Over the past quarter-century, Florida has expanded choice as much as any state in America. And over that span, Florida’s education system has morphed from punchline to pacesetter, with its public schools posting their best academic outcomes ever.

Read more over at The Hill.

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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation SpendingFeaturedJack CoonsSchool Choice

Is that the way the money goes?

John E. Coons
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.

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CustomizationEducation ChoiceFaith-based EducationFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

Influx of new families from out of state a boon to Jewish schools in Florida

Lisa Buie
Lisa Buie

Hebrew Academy Community School began the 2020-21 school at near maximum capacity thanks to an influx of 60 new families, many from out of state.

At Hebrew Academy Community School in the North Broward County city of Margate, students in early childhood classes are learning about germs by spreading glitter glue on their hands and washing it away. In the upper grades, socially distanced students wearing masks are watching out for each other’s health. Meanwhile, school staff members are welcoming new families with care packages of challah bread and wine for the Sabbath.

A recent post on the academy’s Facebook page to launch the 2020-21 year is evidence of a new excitement at the Early Childhood-Grade 8 Jewish school founded in 1987: “From Los Angeles to Crown Heights and beyond, we are thrilled to have so many fresh faces to greet each day!”

Hebrew Academy has good reason to be thrilled. Originally serving four early childhood youngsters in the living room of a young Jewish couple, the school now boasts a 32,500-square-foot main building and a 5,000-square-foot state-of-the-art gymnasium. More than 375 children are enrolled this year, each one benefiting from school leaders’ belief that all Jewish children should have access to Torah learning.

“We’re pretty much at maximum capacity,” said development director Rabbi Shloime Denburg, who enrolled 60 new students this year. “We’re seeing a lot of families from New York and New Jersey. For the first time, we’re also getting calls from California.”

This influx of interest from Jewish families outside of Florida isn’t limited to Hebrew Academy Community School. Even as enrollment plummets at other private schools across the state, Jewish schools are experiencing massive growth, according to Mimi Jankovits, executive director for Teach Florida, part of the national Teach Coalition advocacy organization for Jewish schools.

Jankovits cites a variety of reasons for the expansion: a lower cost of living, less crowding, a better climate. Not to mention the wide variety of Jewish schools available and the fact many participate in the state’s K-12 scholarship program.

“Whatever your philosophy is, there’s probably a school for you here,” Jankovits said, adding that even if some families don’t need the financial assistance state scholarships offer, it’s reassuring to families to know Florida is friendly to school choice.

“We are excited Florida can offer people moving here these opportunities to get scholarships if they need them,” she said.

Brauser Maimonides Academy in Fort Lauderdale started the school year with about 70 new students.

“That’s the most we’ve ever brought in,” said Eli Hagler, executive director of the Modern Orthodox school. In just five years, Hagler said, school enrollment has increased from 350 to 550 students.

A lot of those families have migrated to South Florida from outside the state.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people from New York and New Jersey. Companies are going virtual and staying virtual, and so people are looking to get out,” he said.

Like Jankovits, Hagler pointed to lower living costs and scholarship opportunities as magnets drawing Jewish families to Florida. He also praised new legislation that allows more families to qualify and no longer requires them to reapply each year for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, a program administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

“We don’t view private Jewish day school as a choice,” Hagler said. “It’s a necessity.”

Annual tuition at Brauser Maimonides ranges from $9,475 for 2-year-old nursery students to $18,780 for middle school students. That’s significantly lower than tuition at a Jewish day school in New York, which can cost $30,000 per year.

Student enrollment also is up at Hebrew Academy in Miami, a surprise for school leaders who had expected to see enrollment drop due to COVID-19. But more than 70 new families replaced those who decided not to re-enroll.

“All of a sudden we had these New York families,” said dean of admission Ami Eskanos. “They started referring their friends. One of our alums transplanted back down here, and she started showing homes to all of these New Yorkers coming down, and they started referring people. They just kept referring one another.”

Although most Jewish families are relocating to South Florida, other parts of the state also are experiencing an influx of new residents from the Northeast eager to find seats for their children in Jewish schools.

“We started 10 years ago with 12 kids and are almost at 110 this year,” said Rabbi Avraham Wachsman, dean at Orlando Torah Academy, a Jewish preschool and day school serving Orlando and Greater Central Florida.

Wachsman recently has received inquiries from families in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“You hear so much about shrinking schools, but we have the opposite,” he said.

Quality of life and lower tuition are among the main factors that are driving relocation, Wachsman said. Along with one additional benefit.

“I’m from Milwaukee,” he said. “I’ve done my 30 years’ time in the snow.”

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Commentary and OpinionCourse ChoiceCustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation ResearchFeaturedFundingParental ChoicePodcastSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews East Carolina University’s Kevin Currie-Knight: (Part 2)

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

In the second of a two-part discussion, Tuthill talks with a teaching assistant professor and leading thinker on “unschooling,” or self-directed learning. Tuthill and Currie-Knight discuss the public education marketplace and the dichotomy between choice opponents’ growing concern about monopolies from companies such as Google and Amazon while ignoring the lack of innovation that occurs in public education, a monopoly of its own capturing 90% of America’s students.

Currie-Knight notes that the largest disparities among groups occur in the legal and education systems. Yet for all the attention progressives pay to revolutionizing the legal system, he points out, they appear unwilling to acknowledge the need for revolution within the country’s education system.

“We’ve waited long enough for government to prove to us they can desegregate schools … if we give (families) the option of disconnecting their school from their ZIP code, there’s every reason to think we’ll get more integration in schools.”

EPISODE DETAILS:

·       The history of public-school funding and how funding has created a marketplace where the supplier controls most of the consumer spending

·       How efficient markets drive innovation and why public education is not an efficient market

·       The pernicious myth leveled by choice opponents that choice is intended as a vehicle for segregation, ignoring the rich history of choice support from the left

·       The conflict of interest of government-funded schools teaching children about the government

LINKS MENTIONED

Living by Learning Podcast

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ResearchFeaturedSchool Choice

UF Lastinger Center for Learning: Communication is key during pandemic

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A Florida-based national education innovation hub’s analysis of approaches taken by public and private education programs throughout the state during COVID-19 reveals that open communication has played a critical role in the success and well-being of students, families and educators.

Several key themes emerged from the University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning’s survey of more than 4,000 parents, teachers and school leaders in a project made possible with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Among the findings:

Most educators expressed an understanding of the significance of communication throughout the pandemic. Sixty percent of respondents said they communicated with their students and families once a day or more throughout distance learning, using multiple channels including online videos, apps, phone calls, emails and text messages. Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, helped them cultivate more family involvement and increased teachers’ understanding of unique student needs.

Educators reported that regular check-ins with each other provided their schools as well as district-level staff with valuable, real-time information to inform higher-level decision-making. More frequent communication among educators also facilitated idea exchange, collaboration, and sharing of best practices to overcome challenges and better support students and families.

Additionally, educators reported that connecting with certain student populations during distance learning, including those with exceptionalities, younger students, and English Language Learners, prompted many schools and districts to innovate. (See here and here.) A private school participating in a state scholarship program administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, hired Spanish translators to ensure it was effectively communicating with its large English Language Learner population.

And finally, the survey showed a streamlined, multi-level communication approach is effective and efficient for the entire school community to foster a successful teaching and learning environment. Use of a central hub that offers access to teachers, administrators and district staff as well as a student information system or centralized platform for all teachers proved beneficial strategies for educators as well as families, particularly those whose students had multiple teachers.

In addition to its study on communication practices, which can be seen in its entirety here, the Lastinger Center released two additional briefs related to education and COVID-19. Trauma-Informed Care: A Critical Component in Successfully Resuming School can be viewed here; and Best Practices in Preparing Educators and Families for Distance Learning can be viewed here.

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AnalysisBlog GuestCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation ResearchFeaturedParental ChoicePatrick J. WolfPrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

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

Patrick J. Wolf
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.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedSchool ChoiceTechnology and Innovation

Born free and breaking chains

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

The fact that Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license speaks volumes about the concept of permission-less innovation.

“Man is born free,” Rousseau wrote, “but everywhere he is in chains.”

Adam Thierer, a Mercatus Center scholar focused on innovation, sounds a similar note when he says industries are either “born free” or “born in captivity.” The difference, Thierer says, lies in the amount of regulation involved in the industry. There are no Departments of Artificial Intelligence or Gene Therapy in the federal government for instance, but many industries (like education) are not so lucky.

Thierer has written a book about entrepreneurs in industries “born in captivity” engaging in what he describes as “evasive entrepreneurialism” and the freedom to innovate. Think of sharing-economy efforts like Uber and Airbnb, but also do-it-yourself groups like 3D printer enthusiasts (who swap print designs) or groups with a shared interest in medical therapies.

Or Matthew McConaughey in his Academy Award-winning portrayal of Ron Woodroof, an early victim of AIDS, who was harassed by the Food and Drug Administration for attempting to survive the disease in The Dallas Buyer’s Club.

“Some evasive behavior could even be considered ‘technological civil disobedience …’” Thierer writes, “…in the sense that many innovators behave in this fashion because they find many rules to be offensive, confusing, time-consuming, expensive, or perhaps just annoying and irrelevant.”

Economist Russ Roberts recently interviewed Matt Ridley for his podcast EconTalk in which a simple but crucially important observation was made: Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license. That short sentence speaks volumes about the concept of permission-less innovation. We are quite fortunate that the Wright brothers didn’t ask for a license to fly. They just went and did it.

By the 1970s, however, the airline industry found itself so hopelessly entangled in federal micromanagement that federal officials decided both routes and rates. Fortunately, maverick Southwest Airlines managed to engage in a bit of “evasive entrepreneurialism” by flying only in the state of Texas, thereby demonstrating the benefits of price competition to consumers.

The Carter Administration wisely deregulated the airline industry and the inflation-adjusted price per mile flown steadily fell, placing air travel within reach of ordinary Americans as a result, as American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry illustrated in the chart to the right.

Multiple generations of would-be American educators have entered a captive K-12 industry. In fact, it is difficult to think of an industry more regulated than K-12 education. Educators today face a complex web of local, state and federal regulation. If regulation were the key to high quality education, we would be set.

Maybe we will finally get it right next time?

If, of course, we had waited for federal officials to regulate the airlines industry the “right way” as opposed to deregulating it, many people reading this would likely have never set foot on an airplane. Any chance that many of these rules and regulations are either “offensive, confusing, time-consuming, expensive, or perhaps just annoying and irrelevant” in education?

So, hats off to a new generation of evasive entrepreneurs operating in the K-12 space creating “pandemic pods.” Like the founders of ridesharing, Ron Woodruff, Orville Wright or Southwest Airlines, pandemic pod parents decided it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

The only way to learn is by having people try new things, and I suspect what we learn about education will be one of the silver linings in what is a truly awful pandemic. Americans were born free and should have a great aspiration to stay that way.

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Blog GuestCommentary and OpinionCommon GroundEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedJack CoonsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceUnionism

Why bully the low-income parent?

John E. Coons
John E. Coons

The rulers of our teacher unions and those of allied non-teaching school staff need at long last identify and explain the justification for their forcing un-monied parents to deliver 5-year-old Mary to P.S. 99 instead of that private, maybe religious, school they preferred but could not afford.

The cost of choice to the taxpayer would not have increased the budget; indeed, a substantial and sufficient parental subsidy can be designed to save public money if that be a civic objective. Religious schools tend to be less expensive anyway.

So, what is the problem? Do we have reason to fear that private schools are bad for inner-city kids? So far at least, test scores suggest the contrary.

And what then does our no-choice military-style draft of the poor for their own “neighborhood” government school gain for either the child or society?

The union sovereigns softly encourage a justification with a more subtle assumption about poor parents. It is one seldom addressed in public or even casual private conversation; yet, from my own experience, it is widely shared by educated middle-class minds, even if seldom uttered in direct conversation.

It is simply the observation of the poor parent as somehow diminished either intellectually, morally, or both. In either case, they are in want of a certain something that only the Hoover public school just down the street can provide.

In short, these parents are viewed as dodos or even bad actors; clearly, that Hoover place is this child’s and society’s single best hope.

Meanwhile, we middle-class folk are sufficiently bright and sophisticated that we are the best judge of just who will serve our own child’s and the state’s interest (and then there is Pierce v. Society of Sisters).

This vague assumption of an incapacity of the low-income parent (combined with unique government insight of this child’s needs) endures today in the unspoken mystique supporting our public school conscription for the children of these impaired city-dwellers. It may constitute a gross defamation of the slum parent, but it continues as one of those subtle diseases of our cultural and civic souls.

It is difficult to recognize its presence and influence in oneself because so often it remains “in the air” but unspoken – an assumption of the true citizen but seldom allowed to emerge as a conscious and express working datum. In the real world, it remains a subtle constant that makes it easier to close our civic eye to the plague we have wrought upon the parent and child of the inner city.

Finally, suppose it to be true that such limited capacity to choose were in fact an authentic characteristic of the poor. We would still have to ask our leaders: Why is it that among all accessible schools, private and public, this one local public school knows best how to maximize the potential of this particular child whom no one of the school folk has even met?

The entire concept is an absurd non-sequitur. The perpetuation of this system of educational strong-arm is strictly a political achievement empowering the teacher unions. It is a uniquely destructive contraption built upon a foundation laid in the 19th century and prospering since.

Truly, it can claim no justification whatsoever for monopolizing education service to the minds of the poor family, its child, or our civic order.

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