Academic Evidence that School Choice Works

[BrentWil]

This is a repost of something I posted in GD. I am posting here in hopes of more in-depth conversation about it. I really mean that. Despite all the name calling, I learn alot by doing that.

I have been having an interesting discussion in a thread concerning education reform. To me, the best choice would be a plan that allows the poor to have control over federal resources in order to attain education wherever they see fit. In other words, I want to empowerment of people who do not have much power, at least in this very important area. One thing I can't get over, is that academic research tends to show a positive effect for kids, if there is competition and choice for the parent. It is something that is quantifiable and seems to work in different cultures. Certainly there are a few studies that show no effect, but this does not represent the majority of the body of work. However, this seems to be a sensitive area for certain members of DU.

My main problem with conservative education reform is that the resources will go to those who already have a choice. A 2K voucher will simply be a tax cut for someone already sending their kid to a private school The resources have to be focused and the program has to make sense, but I have yet to hear why providing choice for the truly needy is a bad thing. Anyway, as a means to continue and widen the debate (and at the risk of being called rightwing), here are a few academic articles that present evidence that certain types of policies do in fact work. There are far more I could provide, but I thought this was a good start.


Title: Private school vouchers and student achievement: An evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

Author(s): Rouse CE
Source: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS Volume: 113 Issue: 2 Pages: 553-602 Published: MAY 1998

The results using the quasi-experimental applicant control group and the random sample of students from the Milwaukee public schools as a comparison group (when I include individual fixed-effects) are remarkably similar. On the one hand, I find that, on average, students selected for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and those enrolled in the participating private schools likely scored 1.5–2.3 percentile points per year in math more than students in the comparison groups.

School vouchers in practice: competition will not hurt you
Author(s): Sandstrom FM, Bergstrom F
Source: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS Volume: 89 Issue: 2-3 Pages: 351-380 Published: FEB 2005

Because the decision on which school to attend is a choice variable, sample selection models are used. To account for the potential endogeneity of the share of students attending independent schools, we use instrumental variable estimation. We also estimate panel data models on 288 Swedish municipalities. Our findings support the hypothesis that school results in public schools improve due to competition.

Education vouchers, growth, and income inequality
Author(s): Cardak BA
Source: MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Pages: 98-121 Published: FEB 2005

Increased economic growth has been largely ignored as a potential benefit of education vouchers. In a setting where households can opt out of public education in preference for private education, private-education vouchers have been shown to offer increased economic growth. Taxes were held constant and it was shown that a given public education budget can be redistributed through the use of private- education vouchers in a way that will increase per capita human wealth and in some cases increase the human wealth of all households.

Private-education vouchers generated increased economic growth through a fiscal spillover. The tax base grew through a redistribution of the wealthier public-education students into the private education system where they accumulated greater amounts of human capital. This drove increases in public education expenditure, generating growth for the students remaining in public education. Similar growth enhancement might be generated by ability-tracking or selective-entry schools; however, such systems require some decision rule on how to select students.

School finance - Raising questions for urban schools
Author(s): Reyes AH, Rodriguez GM
Source: EDUCATION AND URBAN SOCIETY Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Pages: 3-21 Published: NOV 2004

Decentralized budgeting, or campus-based budgeting, allows instruction to drive the school bud- get rather than a central office business manager with district-wide budget allocations; however, there is little evidence of successful budget decentral- ization models. Also, there is evidence that suggests that when charter schools compete with local public schools, there are improvements in academic performance for students who remain in the public schools; however, only in comparison with underperforming public schools are vouchers and charters effective

Access, school choice, and independent black institutions - A historical perspective
Author(s): Bush L
Source: JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES Volume: 34 Issue: 3 Pages: 386-401 Published: JAN 2004

The miseducation and undereducation of African Americans certainly creates a critical need for alternative forms of schooling. Though IBIs have been willing for some time now to serve in this needed capacity, their growth has been challenged by financial concerns. In the short run, funds from voucher and charter pro- grams appear to allow IBIs to expand their physical schooling operations to some degree. The degree to which the ideological paradigms of IBIs have been able to expand in the short run seems to vary. Certainly, this area needs some future research.

Title: Differences in Scholastic Achievement of Public, Private Government-Dependent, and Private Independent Schools A Cross-National Analysis
Author(s): Dronkers J, Robert P
Source: EDUCATIONAL POLICY Volume: 22 Issue: 4 Pages: 541-577 Published: JUL 2008

The main differences in the gross scholastic achievements of private and public schools in these 22 countries can be explained by differences in their student intake and by the related differences in school composition. But our analysis also shows that private government-dependent schools have a higher net scholastic achievement in reading than do comparable public schools with the same students, parents, and social composition. This higher scholastic achievement is also substantial because the reading score difference between attending a public or a private government-dependent school is equal to the negative effect of having two more siblings. The explanation is the existence of a better school climate in the former versus the latter. The different admin- istrative, learning, and teaching conditions in private government-dependent and public schools do not explain differences in this net scholastic achievement. This does not mean that private government-dependent schools do not have a more favorable student intake and social composition or that it explains the largest part of the higher gross educational outcomes of their students. Rather, it only means that next to student characteristics and social composition, the more favorable school climate does provide the explanation of the net higher educational outcomes of students from private government-dependent schools, in comparison to both public and private independent schools with the same students, same composition, and same conditions.

[madfloridian]

1. "plan that allows the poor to have control over federal resources "

:wow:

"in order to attain education wherever they see fit."

They have that in FL and many states already. They are called vouchers. That means that those of who couldn't afford to send our own kids to private school will now send the kids of others with our taxes.

[BrentWil]

2. I would not support that.

I would not afect the current local funding system. What I would do is give the poor and lower middle class federal money. THey could take the money where ever they want, including the local public school If nothing else, it would provide more funding for public schools that cater to loser income people.

[Tansy_Gold]

31. You just DID support it.

Seriously, I don't think you really think through your comments. They didn't make sense on the other thread you started on this topic and they aren't making sense in this one. Maybe even LESS sense than before.

If you give SOME people federal money to send their kid to a private school of their choice, but not EVERYONE gets that money, then SOME people will be paying taxes so OTHER people have MORE choices.

That's not a good way for them to learn to value education.

Give it up, Brent. NO ONE is agreeing with you.


Old Jewish saying --

If one man calls you a jackass, you can ignore him.
If two men call you a jackass, you can ignore them.
If three men call you a jackass, you might want to reconsider your position
If four men call you a jackass, you'd better get fitted for a saddle.



Tansy Gold

[BrentWil]

38. No I didn't..

The funding stream for education is at the State and Local level. I do not want to take anything from that. I want the federal government to overlay the current system with a system that gives choice to the poor. I don't want to touch any federal resources.

[bluestateguy]

3. We already have school choice and I am all for it

This is how it works: parents can send their kids to a private school if they wish, and if the school will accept them. The parents are free to be resourceful enough to find a way to pay for it themselves, NOT through taxpayer vouchers, though.

[BrentWil]

4. So the rich have the power over their kids education.... and the poor can suck it NT

[MichiganVote]

5. Actually, rich or poor they can do a lot better than looking for the school to solve their problems.

Problem 1- Rich or poor, parents expect school staff to do it all for their kids. Here's the best tool they can both use---work with your kids to read, to study, to be responsible.

Problem 2- The other school is better, richer, has excellence. Maybe, maybe not. Many of the rich or poor kids lack appropriate social skills and WILL NOT do well anywhere. Best case? All public schools require a mix of kids on the basis of race and economics.

Problem 3- I will not, taxpayers will not support vouchers. We don't want them, we don't like them and we don't trust them. A Public school is a Chevy. Too many people think they are "owed" a Cadillac.

Problem 4- In case you haven't heard, the middle class is holding up the economic worlds of both the rich and the poor and we're damn sick and tired of it. So nobody gets to ask for anything more. Nobody gets to guilt us, beg us, beat us or bribe us. We're done.

So I am opposed to your ideal in place of reality.

[bluestateguy]

7. No, they can look to themselves, not the government, to find ways to pay for a private school

Take a second job; take a second mortgage on the house; get your kids' grandparents to help out; look for scholarships from private foundations.

I'll be damned if my tax dollars are going to fund some private school that teaches that the Earth is 6000 years old, that teaches that Jews, gays and Muslims are going to hell and conveniently finds ways to keep their student body 100% white. If that's the kind of schooling you want for your kid, fine, but I won't pay for it.

[BrentWil]

9. I agree...as a conditions on getting federal money, schools would have to accept some control over..

what they teach. Real science, for one.

[Oregone]

8. "choice" is a code word for letting BP & Halliburton run education

These people just want the government to cut checks to corporations that will control education for profit.

What could go wrong?

[BrentWil]

11. It allows the poor to control education if they are the ones that get the resources. Let them take.

It where they want. It should be their choice. They can take it to a public school or wherever.

[Oregone]

12. Why not just give them money outright and let them buy crack with it?

Is it because private school lobbyists have earned that money fair & square?

:rofl:

[BrentWil]

15. I am glad you think all the poor use crack and it is funny. NT

[Oregone]

16. It should be their choice

Neato strawman there

[BrentWil]

17. Actually, I agree that less crime would be created with drug legalization and treating health

problems instead of sending people to jail. Doing away with the black market would reduce the crime rate.

However, that issue is not relevant to this issue. We have a societal reason to want better education for people. That is not the case with crack use.

[Oregone]

19. And we have an economic reason to want to allow private corporations to do it

What is the point in helping people if private industry cannot profit in the process? That is what this is all about. Instead of fixing public education, its about allowing a private middle man to come in and scoop off the top

[BrentWil]

22. No it isn't. It is about targeting educational resources to those who need it and allow them to use

It where they see fit. If they want to use it at a public or private school, it is their choice. This is a means to get federal funds to those schools and give those parents choice. if someone makes some profit, somewhere, so be it. But that is a by product and not the purpose.

I would also suggest that there would be little profit. Most of the money would go to public schools and a good portion of the other money would go to non-profits.

[Oregone]

23. Those resources have to come from somewhere

Given that any thought, have you? Public schools will have their budgets stretched further, exacerbating the problems.


"I would also suggest that there would be little profit"

:rofl:

BP will do it just to "give back"

[BrentWil]

25. I am saying it should be a new federal program..

DO not touch the current funding stream for schools. Overlay this and give poor kids a choice and power in this society.

[Oregone]

26. How about reforming public education and allocating more funding on top of current levels?

[BrentWil]

27. Funding doesn't always provide all the answers. Sometimes the public school systems just sucks

NY State provides 16K per student. There are still huge problems. Providing targeted federal resources is as a means to make society value the education of the poor will not be accomplished by simply giving federal funding to local school districts.

[Oregone]

28. Ah, needs some private special DNA running things, skimming from the top

Thats always the answer. Those guys have special stuff other people can't have. We can't figure it out. We are stupid compared to the great grandchildren of plantation owners. Those guys...oh...brilliant from birth.

[BrentWil]

29. The money could go to the local public school or another public school... it is the parents choice.

NT

[Tansy_Gold]

30. "Funding doesn't always provide the answers"

If it's not a matter of funding providing the answers, then why do you want to solve the problem with more funding?


Big holes in your logic, Brent. BIG holes. HUGE holes.




Tansy Gold

[BrentWil]

32. No I don't. I solve the problem by giving the poor power. Money is power, in our society.

Giving the poor the same choice the rich have and targeting funding to schools that cater the poor, will provide for a multitude of solutions on the local level.

[Tansy_Gold]

33. So, funding solves the problem if the funding goes to the poor

so they can have the same choice as the rich even though that funding is far from sufficient to give them the same choice? LOGIC FAIL.

Targeting funding to the schools that cater to the poor if it's funneled through the parents is okay, but just giving the funding to the schools isn't okay. LOGIC FAIL

Again, Brent, not one single person has been persuaded by the force of your impeachable logic or incomparable rhetoric to agree with you. NOT ONE. You gave up on the other thread and now you're trying the same thing here in another forum. I'm sure you know that one definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results.

You're using a lot of rightwing code words and putting forth a lot of rightwing ideas. Walkin' like a duck and squawkin' like a duck, if you get my drift.




Tansy Gold

[BrentWil]

36. What is conservative about giving the poor 10K to use for education..

It isn't the same choice. Never will be, but it will be some choice. The average private school costs below 10K ($8,549 as per http://www.capenet.org/facts.html ) Giving funding directly to the schools forgoes the step of giving power to the poor over their education.

However I wish to continue the argument, is my own business. It is about me sharping my opinions and maybe even changing them, if the facts are there. This is a BB for debate, isn't it?

[Tansy_Gold]

39. But you aren't sharping(sic) your skills, Brent

You're parroting rightwing talking points.

Your arguments don't make sense. Your research is out of date and inappropriate. Your logic defies logic. You tried it on the Davis Guggenheim film thread and now you're trying it again. Your dog is not getting enough cheese, it could be worse in a lot of places as well as Milwaukee, and the world continues to deteriorate. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe -- or at least the part of it that's posting here -- is laughing behind your back.

And this is NOT a bb for arguing rightwing positions. NO ONE here is supporting you. That kinda sorta suggests that maybe you're not in the right (pun intended) forum.


Give up.




Tansy Gold

[BrentWil]

40. agreement is required to post?

Bottom line is that I am suggesting billions of dollars of resources be given to the poor for education. That is not a GOP idea.

Please, outline what argument doesn't make sense? What research is "out of date and inappropriate"? As I said earlier, I would be more then happy to give you the full version of it.

Asserting things do not make them so

[Tansy_Gold]

42. This is my last post to you Brent.

I don't have time to waste on you.

A bunch of us have gone over this several times, last week and now again. I'm sure you're laughing your ass off at us, but I always think of the lurkers (though there probably aren't many in the Ed. forum).

First of all, you're talking about setting up a huge bureaucracy. It's not just a matter of writing out checks and direct depositing them. There's the determination of which private schools are good enough (teaching science, not teaching religion, etc.) to get the funds. That's the first thing that makes your plan totally unworkable. yes yes yes, I know about social security and all the other existing bureaucracies. This is a NEW one, Brent, one that would require by your calculations (augmented with my corrections of your math) $150 billion a year. Yes, it's a fraction of what we're spending on war, but let's deal with reality. Unless and until you have a mechanism for reversing the trend, there's no funding. And don't give me that shit about taxes. We aren't even going there. The point is, the infrastructure does not exist.

Second -- handing a voucher to someone does not equal "choice." That is, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, a rightwing code word. In other words (pun intended) "choice" when used in the context of "school choice" does NOT mean "choice" at all. It's a code word, Brent, and it really means "We're going to make up this policy that looks like we're giving people a choice so they'll fall for it but what we really are going to do is fund a program that will either allow US to send OUR kids to the schools of OUR choice, or at least it will funnel the money to our chosen schools. We're not going to make it easy for the poor to get into our schools." So right off the bat, Brent, you're using rightwing lingo but trying to tell us it's something else.

I don't give a shit about your research, not because I don't care but because I don't have time to mess with it. I already have a more than full plate and I'm not going to be debating this with you any further. The point I was making in both this and in the other thread is that you've cherry picked your research by picking the first few things that come up on your google scholar search. That's a piss poor way to do research.

Third -- You cannot claim that funding doesn't work to improve education and then say that your solution is all about funding. That's beyond nonsensical -- it's pretty close to batshit stupid.

Fourth -- Your basic claim is that people who think private schools are better places to educate their kids ought to have the choice to do so. And if there aren't enough private schools to go around then the market will provide them. Unfortunately, the market doesn't work when the product is kids. Kids don't wait around for the schools to be built; the schools have to be there when the kids are ready. So if a kid's quality education hinges on whether or not a school is available or has room for him/her, then it's not a real choice anyway.

There will always be limits to choice, by geography and by availability. But there will also be limits imposed by social constructions. The private whites-only schools for example. The church-structured schools. The legacy admissions. And so on. Furthermore, many private schools, because they operate in opposition to public education, are inherently elitist. They do not in and of themselves exist to level the playing field. They owe their existence to the uneven playing field of class stratification. THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY. Even a $10,000 voucher to a poor family is not going to be enough to make up the non-tuition expenses, as were pointed out by another poster. There is also the cultural capital that a student brings to an elite private school: educated parents, discretionary income, etc.

Fifth -- if the problem is that public schools aren't educating the poor adequately, why not look at the REASONS why that is so? Are all of the problems solved simply by moving the kids from one school to another? Or are there additional factors that contribute? Are most of those additional factors grounded in the inherent poverty that infuses the communities where most of the failing public schools are? Will moving the kids to private school eradicate those problems? Will it get rid of the violence in the neighborhoods?

What will be the effect on the public schools of lack of dependable funding? Will there be lack of job security for teachers? Will children show up for school one year and not have enough teachers because so many of them left the profession rather than not know from one year to the next if they will have a job? You can dismiss the teachers if you wish, Brent, but without them you have no school. And when the shortage of teachers hit the public schools in the early 2000s, they had to scramble for several years -- until the economy tanked and other people with degrees lost their jobs and had to settle for being classroom teachers. They weren't the greatest.

You can bemoan the stranglehold the teachers' unions have on the education system, but what is that stranglehold really? The unions don't tell teachers how to teach, nor do they tell them what to teach. All of that is in the hands of the school boards. All the unions do (and I do not mean to make light of their contribution) is to protect the livelihood of the essential element in the whole learning process -- the teacher.

As too many people posting in these threads have said, most people who go into teaching and virtually all the people who stay in the profession are dedicated to teaching. They are not in it for the money, because in most cases the money isn't all that great; they could make more elsewhere. They aren't in it for the cushy hours because many of them have to give up nights and week-ends to extracurricular activities and paper grading and lesson planning. Sure, they get the summer off in some districts that don't have year-round classes, and holidays, but they also often use those summers for continuing education or they teach summer school or they have another job to supplement the teaching salary.

Nor are they in it for the power, because they really don't have a lot. It's not an easy job, and you have to love it to do it well.

You post little snippets and little snarks, Brent, but you don't really propose anything workable. You don't offer any funding programs, and you shrug off the details. You seem to think that merely giving "poor" people $10K a year to do with as they please in terms of their kids' education is sufficient. But even the mechanics of that are beyond your grasp. In order for a plan to come together, the details have to fit smoothly. Every last one of them.

Public education, by which I mean reliable, dependable, safe, and quality public education, is a cornerstone of our democracy. Making sure that each and every child has assured access to quality public education should be our goal. We should not be undermining public education. We should not be turning education into a lottery. We should not throw annual uncertainty of funding into our schools.

What you've proposed is pure right wing. I don't care how you want to deny it, but it is. I'm through arguing with you. You and your threads are going on my ignore list.


Tansy Gold, who is not even going to proofread this for typos

[Oregone]

6. Hm...I recognize that name

Number 1 DU Capitalism Apologist?


In favor of privatizing education (aka "school choice")


:rofl:

[Tansy_Gold]

13. Do you mean this one?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8458134

[BrentWil]

18. Ad hominen attacks do not prove your case.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[zazen]

10. I think we're talking apples, oranges, grapes, soybeans. .

I applaud you for bringing up an issue that on first glance seems to have an official "progressive" position, the questioning of which in this forum can lead to some harsh attacks and I'm afraid ad hominen.

It seems to me however that the studies you raise describe such vastly different cultural and socioeconomic contexts that the construct of "school choice" cannot hold any meaningful constancy across them.

I don't think there's some feature in the natural world that can be teased out from these contexts such that we can say, a ha, school choice demonstrably does A and not B. In some subcultures, it reflects that the parents were simply paying more attention to their childrens' education, which would account for the small net gains in testing scores.

Apart from this, I think the point you raise about justice for poor and minorities is really important and kind of separate from what "school choice" means in Sweden. I think you're suggesting that the standard progressive position that "school choice is bad and only supports the rich and/or right-wing zealots" might not be acknowledging some realities in the minority community, like maybe wanting to control their own budgets instead of being dictated to by a bunch of do-good, liberal white folks.

Do you have any other citations about school choice improving circumstances for low SES and minorities?

Thanks again for your bravery in bringing up something that's clearly important to you, and doing it respectfully, knowing you're going to get the unfortunate but inevitable attacks.

:-)

[BrentWil]

14. Certainly what I would suggest hasn't been tried on a large scale.

I would not and do not support giving vouchers to everyone. What I would suggest is giving vouchers that are means tested to the poor and under middle class. I would suggest the system involves certain controls on the curriculum and the vouchers start at a reasonable substantial amount, around 10K. This would give the poor a true means to attain choice while ensuring that we are not sending them to schools with nonsensical out curriculum.

As far as other studies, I think it shows that school choice does work, in various forms in different cultures. It certainly works for the rich, as they can buy their way out of sub-par education. However, as mentioned, these types of means tested vouchers have never really been tried. Perhaps because the GOP uses the issue to get money for rich people already sending their kids to private schools.

[zazen]

20. sadly I think the rich would just keep increasing their tuition to screen out the vouchers

I guess I don't know enough about this issue to form (or express) an opinion. I just thought that this was the ideal of charters and magnets, rendering the need for vouchers moot. The magnets around here have been nationally recognized (who knows what will happen with the big takeover of the Wake Co School Board), and we have one of the top performing (and it's non-corporate with a very progressive curriculum) charter schools in the country. But that still doesn't mean you can get out of a shitty base school, although until two months ago you had a better chance if you were "poor." Now they're actually going to change the criteria to disadvantage parents with more advanced education. Which is f-ing great, since many of us with advanced degrees around here are falling out of the middle class if we haven't already.

Unless private schools were forced to accept the vouchers, I'm pretty sure the very expensive private academies in the Triangle would just keep raising their tuition to screen out the lower SES kids. Plus, private schools have all sorts of add-on fees and expectations (summer travel abroad, expensive meal plans, academic year field trips) that would be cost-prohibitive for the lower SES families and lead to their feeling ostracized.

But I'll read up more on this. Thanks for raising the issue.

[BrentWil]

24. Well, if a private market didn't develop then the public schools would get the money

Either way, it is a means to get federal resources to whoever cater for these kids. Rather it would be public or private. However, I think 10K of money is enough for a market to develop and for parents to have a choice.

[Catshrink]

34. ...

[Tansy_Gold]

35. .

There are no words.

[Catshrink]

37. Energy conservation

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. MTE

[Starry Messenger]

43. This.

Thank you.

[donco6]

44. JeezuzMaryJoseph. n/t