Poll: Most Americans Feel Fine about Choice? Not True

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says that 58% of people don’t know much about charter schools.  Even more, 66%, know little or nothing about private school vouchers.  Nevertheless, 47% favor expanding charters and 43% would expand vouchers.  Media headlines say most Americans support choice, but this is misleading.  Most Americans either are opposed or have no opinion.  The report found that four in ten believed that the country in general would benefit from more choice.

The poll has value. It made me think.  See what you think!

 

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Don’t be fooled by the DOE: Charters bomb in Florida cities

Every year the Florida DOE compares charter vs. traditional public school performance.  The report shows percentages of proficient students in each sector.  Charters win, hands down in this report but not on reports from national research studies.  Why is that?

  • Charters enroll a lower percentage of students who qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch, disabilities and English Language Learners.   Thus, given the correlation between income and achievement, charters should look better.  In general they represent higher income families.  See the Florida DOE chart below.

 

The achievement for Florida charters is dismal when compared to similar traditional public school (TPS) students.  The DOE comparisons do not match students based on their test scores.  The CREDO  urban area study did.    Look at the evidence for achievement gains, in 42 cities, between charters and traditional public school students when matched on their initial achievement levels and the amount gained three years later.

CREDO STUDY RESULTS:  The picture for urban charters in Florida is not pretty.  Based on results from Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Tampa and West Palm Beach:

  • Charters in five of seven cities did worse than the TPS in reading. Miami and Tampa had small charter gains.
  • Charters in three of seven cities did worse in math.  One showed no difference; three (Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa) did slightly better than the TPS students.

Only in Jacksonville and Miami are student demographics similar between charters and TPS.  In other cities, Florida charters generally enroll a lower percentage of students in poverty and with learning disabilities.    It should be noted that in Miami, while there are similar numbers of students in poverty, the charter sector is largely Hispanic.   This is generally not the case in most of the urban areas studied.  No matter how you look at the comparisons, something is lacking in Florida’s charter sector.

Some U.S. city charters do remarkably better than the TPS e.g. Bay Area, Boston, Memphis, Newark, New Orleans, and New York City.  Most cities do not.  These gains are largest for low-income black students and Hispanic English language learners.

While the data from these cities are disputed by reliable sources, it is important to look at the charter sectors in these areas to see if and how they differ from those in other cities.  For example, Boston has a limited and tightly controlled charter group.  New York City charters are known to have high dismissal rates.  What is happening in these charter successful cities?  Who do they really serve?

Is the formula for successful charters to weed out students whom they cannot help?  Should traditional public schools do the same?  Where does this road lead?  Want to find out?  Read the blog tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Politifact: Bush is Mostly Wrong

Jeb Bush is pushing privatization in New Hampshire.  In this latest move, all parents would receive a voucher to attend a school of choice–private or public.  Bush argues that competition from vouchers make public schools better.  He cites research in Florida conducted by David Figlio.  Figlio himself says that the number of students he studied was small, and it makes sense that public schools were able to make modest gains because they had not lost that much revenue.

(In the long run, public schools had lost some low achieving students to private, small and mostly religious schools in early grades, half of whom in middle school, returned.)

 

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Pennsylvania: What is the Cost of Charters?

In this article by Valerie Strauss, Carol Burris states: “All of the problems associated with charter schools, such as, siphoning public school funding, increased segregation, scandalous recruiting practices and blatant profiteering can be found in charters in and surrounding America’s Christmas city.”  Superintendent of Schools Joseph Roy (Pennsylvania’s Superintendent of the Year) budgets $26 million for its charters.  He estimates that if all charter students returned to public schools, the district, even after hiring some new faculty, would save twenty million dollars.

 

 

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Voucher Students Get Dismal Results

I was particularly interested in this report about Ohio.  For many years the lead author, David Figlio, conducted evaluations of Florida’s tax credit voucher program.  Figlio is a strong advocate for competition.  In Ohio, he stated that competition helped public school students but hurt students with vouchers who attended private schools.

At the risk of being overly harsh, I have to wonder if the purpose of vouchers is to create ‘sacrificial lambs’ i.e. sending some students off to fail in private schools so those remaining in public schools will do better.  Nothing in me wants to believe such an idea, but until the quality of alternative choices is assured, that is the risk parents unknowingly take.

 

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What is ‘Public’ in Public Education?

School reformers want to privatize public education ‘in the name of choice’.  Literally, it means parents should expect to find a ’boutique’ school to match their children’s needs or aspirations all for free.  If one cannot find just the right school, parents can get together and create their own using public tax dollars.  There is something lurking underneath such an idea.  It is an expectation that the individual is more important than the common good.  The ‘right’ to exclude dominates a need to include.

This line of reasoning has societal consequences.  The stronger the pull toward privatization and profit, the greater the strain on a sense of equality and justice.  This is one of those perpetual tug of wars that our democracy experiences.  The history of this power struggle is summarized in a New York Times article entitled:  Have we lost sight of the Promise of Public Schools?

This theme is central in the debate over school choice.  A collection of individual choices does not lead to an equitable system.  As our recent history has shown, our schools and neighborhoods are segregated in complex ways.  Even within a school, students are grouped into academies and academic levels more intensively than those of our youth.  Magnet schools, charters and tax supported private schools accentuate the racial, economic and achievement segregation process.  Are we simply running away from one another and/or competing for some elusive advantage we are afraid to share?

Communities are beginning to look at how they are structured. Have they become a collection of silos that have no common core?  Or, is there a sense of the ‘common good’ that actually reflects the structure of neighborhoods and the student bodies of schools?  How far along the continuum of the individual right vs. the public good have our communities moved?  It is a worthwhile conversation.  Read the NY Times article and ponder.

 

 

Blended Learning: A Paradigm Shift?

by Krista Sobel

Krista argues that Florida was the first to launch into online learning in any significant way with the Florida Virtual School (FLVS).  This is true.  It is also true that Florida had significant growing pains. In 2013, enrollment in the virtual school dropped 32 percent and funding reductions caused serious layoffs.  It seems that FLVS was allowing students enrolled full time in public schools to take multiple online courses at the same time.  They made a lot of money using that policy.  The legislature stepped in.  There must have been a quality gap somewhere.

Quality gaps of other online companies reached national attention as well. 

FLVS filed a 2014 lawsuit and won against K12 Inc., the mega online course management company, over copyright infringement.  The State of Florida filed a suit against K12 Inc. for falsifying teachers who were assigned to courses.  Many local districts countered the practice by negotiating their own online academies taught by local teachers.  The districts also kept the records of student progress.  They might purchase rights to online course content, or they may develop their own courses, but they control the process.

Problems with for-profit online companies are everywhere.  Politico published a series on the academic failure and profiteering of the online charter schools.   They may advertise blended learning experiences, but the reality is too often a computer or two in a corner.  What is clear is that citizens have a duty to be wary but an obligation to recognize the opportunities new technologies can bring.   Read Krista’s vision for change.  This is her view; it does not represent LWV positions.

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DeVos Confirmed: Split Vote in Florida

The telephone lines to D.C. were jammed with protest votes over the DeVos nomination for U.S. Secretary of Education.  In Florida, Senator Rubio voted yes and Senator Nelson voted no.  The U.S. Senate was tied and VP Pence broke the tie.

I saw a note about a one sentence bill to abolish the Department of Education.  It was filed by Rep. Thomas Massie RKY.  He thinks local parents and communities should control schools.  He may be right.

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DeVos: Single Issue Candidate?

By now most people who care realize that Betsy DeVos has one issue:  parental choice.  To achieve that end, she supports state control over education policy.  In the New York Times analysis of her confirmation hearing, her knowledge of the law and education policy was non existent.  This is not surprising.  She has been a one horse pony in the private sector for vouchers and charter expansion.

The NY Times piece cites DeVos’ ignorance about special education law, regulation of for-profit universities, or even the difference between achievement gains and proficiency levels.  The answer to every question was:  leave it to the states.  Will Congress bow out?

Suppose the federal government did close down the Department of Education.  The federal government was not always involved in K12 education.  Its history is interesting.  Where would that lead?  State after state is cutting funding.  School districts and the private sector are supposed to find the money locally to manage the schools.

My grandmother taught in a country school.  So did my husband’s mother.  A few people got together, built a one room school and hired a teacher.  Will this approach raise our PISA scores?  It reminds me of an old time saying:  Watch out what you wish for. 

Talk to Little Children: Don’t dehumanize them

by Susan Bowles

This article was written in response to a Gainesville Sun commentary about pushing math skills on preschoolers to raise U.S. PISA scores.  Bowles is a kindergarten teacher who calls attention to the need for age appropriate teaching and learning strategies.  Simply pushing the mastery of high level skills on younger and younger children is ineffective and unfair.

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