Milwaukee's school-choice program is the grandfather of voucher programs in the United States. As such it is often a target of anti-choice groups (primarily teacher unions) that work very hard to prove that school choice fails. Milwaukee's program is their favorite punching bag, and it is true that the simple fact that Milwaukee's program was first does not necessarily mean it is the best.
A recent battery of empirical analyses of Milwaukee's voucher program found some interesting results, but newspapers focused on the wrong information. The unions seemingly argue plausibly that vouchers are expensive, harm public schools, decrease racial diversity and only really help the rich pay for private schools they can already afford.
Research, however, suggests the exact opposite. The School Choice Demonstration Project found the following:
1) The voucher program saves taxpayers money.
2) Vouchers increase racial integration.
3) Voucher students and students in the Milwaukee public schools both saw improvement, with no statistical difference between the two groups.
4) Milwaukee public schools that face voucher competition increase attention on their low-income and low-performing students. Thus, vouchers improve the quality of public education.
According to Greg Forester, "The students in the comparison group were selected by the researchers because they had similar demographics to those of the voucher students, similar test scores at the start of the study, and came from the same neighborhoods as the voucher students." Bear in mind, the voucher students are not likely to be wealthy, white suburbanites.
Other studies even suggest that Milwaukee's voucher program may have led to increased graduation rates.
The empirical evidence of Milwaukee's voucher program suggests that the unions' favorite scare-charges are flat-out wrong. There is no white flight because of vouchers; instead there is increased racial diversity. Low-income students are the biggest beneficiaries of the program, because vouchers let them attend private schools that they otherwise could not (rich students have the opportunity either way). Vouchers are not more expensive, and public schools do not suffer because of the competition, but instead, improve. More importantly, student achievement increases across the board for both voucher students and students who remain in the public school system.
As the evidence mounts for greater parental choice in education, the question remains: Will Nevada's legislators lead the way for education reform or continue to fight a rear-guard action against it?
March 30, 2009
March 26, 2009
AZ Supreme Court strips vouchers from special needs kids
The Arizona Supreme Court, citing the state's Blaine Amendment — the bigoted anti-Catholic constitutional amendment adopted by several states in the late 19th century — has struck down two parental choice voucher programs.
The Institute for Justice, in defending the voucher programs, noted that the voucher money was given to parents who then decided which school was best for their child. The voucher made no distinction between secular and religious schools because the choice was given to the parents. Despite this distinction, opponents of parental choice have sought to use the legacy of religious bigotry to destroy the program.
Sadly, the voucher programs were for students with disabilities and foster care children. While public schools spend thousands of dollars on sub-par programs for children with disabilities, the school systems also regularly use children with disabilities as a scapegoat for system-wide failure. Foster care children (like low-income children) are also used as scapegoats, since they often have to move from school to school and rarely have a stable home life. Both programs offered scholarships for these students to attend a school of their parents' choice, offering much needed help and stability.
The biggest irony about the court's decision is the fact that the State of Arizona permits education bureaucrats to use taxpayer dollars to send children with disabilities to private schools. Arizona's Supreme Court utterly failed to reconcile this fact with its decision. The only difference between the state's program and the voucher program is "who chooses." Thus, sadly, the court has ruled that bureaucrats, not parents, have a right to make the choice on what school a child attends.
Meet Andrea Weck, (see video above) single working mother of Lexie, a 6-year-old girl with autism, cerebral palsy and mild mental retardation. When the 2008-09 school year ends, Lexie — the judges decided — must lose her voucher and return to the public school that has already failed to provide her an education that made her and her mother happy.
Fortunately, Arizona's tax-credit programs are safe and will continue next year. This setback in Arizona need not stop Nevada from moving forward with real progressive education reform. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 held in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that an Ohio voucher program where the vast majority of the participating private schools were religious still was religiously neutral, because the low-income parents who received the state funding chose freely among participating religious schools, participating private secular schools and public schools. Here in Nevada, Sen. Barbara Cegavske has a bill to help students with disabilities attend a school selected by their parents, while Assemblyman Ed Goedhart has proposed a universal education tax-credit program.
The Institute for Justice, in defending the voucher programs, noted that the voucher money was given to parents who then decided which school was best for their child. The voucher made no distinction between secular and religious schools because the choice was given to the parents. Despite this distinction, opponents of parental choice have sought to use the legacy of religious bigotry to destroy the program.
Sadly, the voucher programs were for students with disabilities and foster care children. While public schools spend thousands of dollars on sub-par programs for children with disabilities, the school systems also regularly use children with disabilities as a scapegoat for system-wide failure. Foster care children (like low-income children) are also used as scapegoats, since they often have to move from school to school and rarely have a stable home life. Both programs offered scholarships for these students to attend a school of their parents' choice, offering much needed help and stability.
The biggest irony about the court's decision is the fact that the State of Arizona permits education bureaucrats to use taxpayer dollars to send children with disabilities to private schools. Arizona's Supreme Court utterly failed to reconcile this fact with its decision. The only difference between the state's program and the voucher program is "who chooses." Thus, sadly, the court has ruled that bureaucrats, not parents, have a right to make the choice on what school a child attends.
Meet Andrea Weck, (see video above) single working mother of Lexie, a 6-year-old girl with autism, cerebral palsy and mild mental retardation. When the 2008-09 school year ends, Lexie — the judges decided — must lose her voucher and return to the public school that has already failed to provide her an education that made her and her mother happy.
Fortunately, Arizona's tax-credit programs are safe and will continue next year. This setback in Arizona need not stop Nevada from moving forward with real progressive education reform. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 held in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that an Ohio voucher program where the vast majority of the participating private schools were religious still was religiously neutral, because the low-income parents who received the state funding chose freely among participating religious schools, participating private secular schools and public schools. Here in Nevada, Sen. Barbara Cegavske has a bill to help students with disabilities attend a school selected by their parents, while Assemblyman Ed Goedhart has proposed a universal education tax-credit program.
March 10, 2009
Sweden and School Choice
As mentioned previously, the empirical evidence supporting school-choice programs is mounting, and public opinion in the United States is swiftly growing in favor of parental-choice programs.
This leads us to a New York Times videocast on a universal voucher program in Sweden. As one Swedish official puts it, "education is too important to leave in the hands of just one provider."
But that is exactly what we have in the United States. Without vouchers and other parental-choice opportunities, the American education system is a government-run monopoly. As everyone knows from history, monopolies never serve the public interest.
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