In contrast to his more partisan and ideological policies, President Obama has been lauded for his bipartisan work on education, in which he has a supposedly unflinching commitment to evidence-based reform — “what works.” But in his 2013 budget, the president proposes to cut one program, close to home, that demonstrably works: the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This program gives poor students vouchers to attend various area private schools, helping them escape what is one of America’s worst big-city public-school systems. As President Obama faces the coming election, his budget limns his true priorities. The bloated Department of Education will grow by 3.5 percent, satisfying teachers’ unions, while the scholarship program will be eliminated, meaning fewer, and worse, opportunities for thousands of talented students.
In 2003, as part of President Bush’s wider effort to emphasize school choice as a preferred route to education reform, he signed the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program into law. Since then, the program has been paying tuition at local private schools for, each year, a couple of thousand elementary- and high-school students whose families are below 185 percent of the poverty line.
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The program has been, by all accounts, a resounding success. Of the students who have taken part in it, 92 percent left public schools that had been deemed “in need of improvement, corrective action, or restructuring” for smaller private schools, which they and their parents overwhelmingly rate favorably. Ninety-one percent of Opportunity Scholarship recipients graduate from high school, in a city where the overall graduation rate is just 55 percent. And these benefits have come at minimal cost: The vouchers range in value from $8,000 to $12,000, compared to the $18,000 the D.C. school system spends on each public-school pupil.
Obama’s budget is not the first time Democrats, in their anti-school-choice zealotry, have attempted to kill the program: Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) eliminated the appropriation for it in an obscure funding bill in 2009, but Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Senator Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) worked together to restore the program in 2011. It is one thing to see opposition to a successful school-choice reform from Democrats, like Senator Durbin, who have a history of kowtowing to teachers’ unions. It’s quite another to see the same thing from a president who has claimed a commitment to evidence-based and bipartisan reform.
It may be, in many instances, cheap political theater to deride President Obama for sending his daughters to one of Washington’s most prestigious private schools. But, in this case, he has callously chosen to deny to other Washington students an education that would cost just one-third of what he spends to send each of his daughters to Sidwell Friends per year (approximately $32,000 — just about twice the mean household income of Opportunity Scholarship recipients).
If I'm wrong, I'm open to someone explaining why. But I don't see how it's surprising that taking a sample of low income students out of their local public schools and putting them into private schools can provide any useful information. Of course they'll do better. But if we expand a voucher program to all students then private schools will simply raise their prices, and the vouchers won't be enough to cover the new tuitions. Rich kids will still go to the best schools and poor kids will still go to the worst, except that we will have defunded public schools to such a point that those students who can't get into private schools will be even worse off than they are now. So the only effect I can image vouchers having is increasing education inequality.
The market will expand to include schools which cater to low income families who will have vouchers; but those schools will be unable to attract high quality teachers who would prefer to work in the expensive schools which charge higher fees than the vouchers will cover. I believe those poor schools will be worse than public schools are now because their primary concern will be keeping costs low, not providing a quality education.
Better a "bloated Department of Education" and all those "evil" Teacher's Unions than all those bloated dead bodies being produced by our War in Afghanistan, not to mention Iraq. Anyone for live people who can still debate with others as opposed to the dead who can debate with no one?!
I am a teacher, and one of those rare ones who is opposed to tenure. That being said, there are some major problems in this article.
For one, the dept of education must grow, since the population grows. If more people are using a service, you either grow, price it so some drop out, or try to do more work with the same number of people. Only one of those choices makes any sense for education, and that is increasing the budget in line with the increases in population.
Secondly, there is no evidence that I am aware of that vouchers work. Private schools are not automatically better than public schools, despite the misinformation campaign. Why would they be, has anyone seen the low wages that teachers are normally paid at private schools? It is basic economics...you get what you pay for. You don't attract really good teachers with inferior pay scales. I think most people would agree that this is basic common sense. Vouchers will not cover the tuition of the private schools that are better than the public schools, but they will drain even more funds from schools that are already bursting.
Class sizes are too big (this costs money to fix). Some buildings are in disrepair (this costs money to fix). Attracting intelligent educated people to enter the field of teaching, rather than something in the private sector, requires offering salaries that compete with those offered in the private sector. Each and every problem requires money to fix. Good ideas help improve a situation, but the core problems need to be addressed, or it is only window dressing. The best way we can show our children that we care is to provide them with an excellent education. We are failing miserably.
Not to sound blunt; but, not only is your point about vouchers and private vs. public schools not true, but it inherently misses the point of the program.
Of course, not every private school in the country is necessarily better than every public school. But this program was DC specific. Those public schools are awful. And in that case, probably any private school that the vouchers allow the recipients to afford would be better than the schools.
Not to mention that your economic argument is flawed. Your assumption that higher pay necessarily attracts the best teachers to public schools is naive, and I would suggest could be proven wrong. Higher pay attracts nothing more than those seeking to make the most money. And those do not necessarily have to be the best at what they do - and I would suggest that many of the best teachers, as a profession that is SUPPOSED to be dedicated to the welfare of the children in their charge, would not make a purely monetary decision - they would consider it, along with the school environment itself, etc., and make a "best value" judgment. Assuming that the "best" teacher would take the most money available knowing that she her work environment was bad, and her students uninterested does not make a whole lot of sense.
Lastly, like I said, you seem to miss the whole point about the program. Its purpose is to give poorer students choices about which school they can attend, rather than being stuck with a single public school choice (whether or not that school be a great one, a decent one or a bad one). The fact that an outsider might consider the private school at which a family chooses to use a voucher the same or worse than the public school available is irrelevant. The point is that that family believes that private school is better for that child's education.
Now don't get me wrong. I wish the public school system good enough that it made the need for private non-religious schools irrelevant. But that is not the case. Public school systems all over this country are in terrible shape for a variety of reasons - ALMOST NONE OF WHICH ARE FUNDING RELATED. Why not give talented children the opportunity to choose a different path?
Congratulations, you're opposed to tenure. Why? After you break the ice, you front the statist, educrat party line. The department of education does not need to grow; I would argue it does not need to exist. My business does more with less constantly; in fact it is the expectation in the private sector, to drive results with more intelligent use of resources.
In terms of vouchers, why not allow parents/guardians to choose? Oh wait, could it have to do with dollars per pupil? The more kids in public school seats the more funding for the school?
Listen, I could counter each and every point you make (except I too oppose tenure). In my state 50% of the state's budget goes directly to K-12 public education. So don't tell me that "you get what you pay for", because we are not getting what we pay for. The people of my state hear constantly from local and state democrats that the schools are crumbling around the kids, the teachers are underpaid, and the money is not getting into the class room. My question is, where is the money going?
No sir, the money is going where it has always gone, to the teachers and administrators. They are rewarding themselves with some of it and mismanaging the rest. The answer to the many public education failures in my state is to incessantly lobby for excess levy referendums and to build new schools. There is no voice loud enough to counter the deafening refrains of the established public education system. The brave souls who point out the truth are quickly targeted and silenced by the educrat machine . . .and yes, it exists.
The good news for public education is that nothing will change, you'll get the money, more and more of it, and you'll have to do less and less for it. The bad news is that the kids will continue to languish in the established system. When and if they ask why, the system will lie and tell them that they need more money (you get what you pay for, right? and that they need new schools.
Be careful who you lie to Sean, not everybody buyin'.
1. Even if voucher schools are no better (on average) then public schools, they still introduce competition into the system. Which at least has the potential to improve both.
2. "You get what you pay for" mostly means that you cannot get $100. in value for $50. BUT it surely does not mean that you can't get $50. in value for $100. There are many reasons why public schools cost too much and deliver too little.
Automatic teacher tenure is one; so is a union salary scale that pays starting teachers too little but 20-plus year veterans too much. In most jobs, your pay will plateau after five years or so unless you take on additional responsibilities, yet union teachers receive raises every year just for having one more year of service. School boards would trade-in low performing, high seniority teachers for lower-seniority new hires if they could, but they can't because union contracts forbid it.
Not to mention perks such as full retirement after 30 years (or age 55, or 57- it obviously varies by location). Fully funded early retirement often means that taxpayers pay for a year of retirement for every year of active service.
Not that tenure is a minor issue. Perhaps only ten percent of union teachers are truly awful, but these do incalculable damage to students. And they'll continue to do so year after year, so long as attempting to fire them remains a very costly process with no guarantee of success.
Private schools don't pay much, but they apparently pay enough to attract talented people. Unlike public schools, they don't have to limit themselves to certified teachers. And they surely don't have to suffer burnouts and never-quite-got-its and other low performers
And presumably vouchers have the potential to bring in more money. No, they're not a panacea. But they surely are a most valuable reform.
Not to be blunt, but your statement that there is no evidence that vouchers work (and your subsequent statements about pay, pay's supposed affect on a school's academic worth, and voucher's affect on public funding) are both wrong and miss the whole point of the program.
First regarding your specific statements. Your assumption that higher pay (as a matter of common sense) necessarily attracts "better" or "the best" teachers is flawed. The only thing that higher pay necessarily attracts are those teachers who are going to base their decision about where to teach purely on how much money they make. I would suggest that the BEST teachers are not only the most qualified, but also the most interested in the student. And those teachers are going to factor in money into their decision, yes, but also the school environment, the mutual interest of the students/community, etc.
Additionally, if your argument that the highest salaries meant the best teachers meant the best schools was actually true, than DC and other city-based school districts would always contain the best schools in the country - better than more suburban and rural public schools, and any other private school with lower teacher salaries - based on the fact that the teachers' salaries are higher for public schools and in city communities. This certainly isn't the case. City public schools often (if not most of the time) underperform, both in general and when compared to either similarly located private schools or similarly or less funded public schools in other areas.
The point is, the problem with the public education system is not money. The average public school student already has more money spent on his education than does the average private school student, by a fairly big margin. And your right. some public schools systems are bursting - the DC system, bursting with money, spends more per student than anywhere else in the country, and is generally in the worst 5 school systems. Targeted voucher programs are not making these systems worse because their problems are not money.
So here is where you miss the whole point of the program. The purpose of vouchers is to give students choice. It does not matter whether or not you, or any other outsider, view a public school as a superior institution (either academically or otherwise). What matters is that the child's family decides a different school is better for him given his situation. And why would we deprive intelligent young kids this opportunity?
The Dept of Education is not equivalent to spending on education as a whole. The department is merely overhead, of which there is far too much in the system. We should completely eliminate federal administration of education, remove that layer of overhead, and either save the money or block grant it back to the states.
Even at a state/local level there is far too much bureacracy. At a local school the head administrator costs the school twice what a teacher does yet is more of a hindrance than a benefit (especially considering the more competent, lower paid assistant administrators who actually do the administrative work). Cutting her job would allow the hiring of 2 more teachers with a huge net benefit all around.
Until there is a market competitive system in place, that kind of inefficiency will remain in the public schools. Vouchers help introduce those competitive market forces and appear to be successful in many cases. I encourage people to look at the average amounts spent to teach students then build from the ground-up a budget for teaching students at that price. If you do the excercise you will see there is room in the spend for far more than is being delivered. The difference is being eaten by administrative inefficiencies.
Your analysis of the education industry is rather alarming in it's simplistic explanations and overall misjudgment of many of the major problems within the industry. To me, that is incredibly disheartening seeing as you are a teacher. I applaud you on being opposed to tenure, but what about the other problems that are just as apparent. I live in Kansas City (on the Missouri side), and we have one of the worst public school systems in the country. In the 1980's into the 1990's, the Kansas City Missouri public school system spent more money per student than almost any other school district in the country. Where did that get us? When it came around to choosing a school, what were my parents options? My parents were fortunate enough to be able to send me to private schools. And a good number of kids in my classes were recipients of voucher like programs (such as work grants, and most of them started by the private school itself rather than the local government).
On the Kansas side of Kansas City, most parents send their kids to public schools because they have one of the best public school systems in the Midwest (of which my mom happens to be a teacher at one). They are also one of the richest counties in the Midwest. But on the Missouri side, if you have any money you send your kids to private schools. Rockhurst, Saint Theresa's, Sion Academy, and Pembroke Hill are some of the best schools in Kansas City (Kansas or Missouri side). In fact, Rockhurst and Pembroke are some of the better schools in the Midwest both academically and athletically. You might be right that public schools are not automatically less effective than private, but they are in many areas of the country and Kansas City Missouri is certainly one of them. And I'd imagine DC, Detroit, Chicago, Miami, etc have the same problems.
You might wonder where all that public money went though. I would then tell you to go walk around Central High School in Kansas City and tell me how nice it is that they have a Olympic sized swimming pool with underwater viewing windows. Or how nice their desks are with mechanical desk arms that go up and down. Then I would ask you to look at the graduation rate over the years and tell me that the spent money actually helped the academics of the school. You would be alarmed to know the truth in that. None of this even mentions that there are tons of things that schools can do to become more efficient and to operate as such. Private school teachers where I'm from work for less pay because they know that their teaching will actually make a difference, so they don't have to supplement it with higher pay. Public school teachers here maybe do need higher pay to supplement the stuff they have to put up with, but that doesn't mean there aren't things that the school boards can do to save money. Or that in times of fiscal hardship, like now, that maybe they should forgo their pay raises in hopes of keeping their jobs at all. For one example of where budget shortfalls could be supplemented, there are tons of abandon publicly owned properties that use to be schools, but the city doesn't want to sell the land because no one will pay top dollar to incur the costs of tearing down defunct buildings just to build something different. And they pay people to monitor and secure those places too. I'd be willing to bet that's also the case in many other cities, especially Detroit. It's such a waste of money, but such is the stubborn mind of bureaucrats. You certainly do not get what you pay for where I come from. Not saying that's the norm, although it might be, but you just threw a blanket over everywhere.
An alternative to having the Dept of Ed grow, is to have it become more efficient. Every other organization in the country has made huge strides in providing more services with fewer people.
As to your claim that there is no evidence that vouchers work, I can only conclude that you have never bothered looking. I see that you are pushing the public school teachers must be better, because they are paid more meme. Let me guess, you are a member of the union.
Are we to assume "you get what you pay for" when a union is negotiating with public officials?
Let us acknowledge the right for all workers to collective bargaining with the limitation that it is a right, but should not be a condition of employment. The results of collective bargaining are often to the detriment of the workers. The UAW got sweetheart deals, and management looking the other way when workers got less and less productive. Result? Check out the nearest lot for Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas, and check out Detroit's dismal streets or available manufacturing space here in Fenton, Missouri.
The public sector, including the teachers unions, is much the same in that the negotiators across the table from the unions are as corrupt, perhaps even more spineless, then those of the Big Three who gave away the store to the UAW. So let us seek legislation that would require public sector contracts be put to the vote of the taxpayers, just as the UAW contracts and member behavior were put to the vote of the car buyer. Unions' and management’s last best offers go on the ballot for a binding vote by the electorate. And, should we feel the politicians charged with representing us have made too generous an offer to the unions, we need only look down the ballot to find the opportunity to throw them out.
After Waiting for Superman came out, the president hosted the children from the documentary at the White House for some photo ops. These are of course the potential victims of such a cut. Photo set below:
@Sean, what evidence would satisfy you? Unless those behind the voucher program are somehow fixing the lottery with ringers in order to prove its success, the following seems like pretty good evidence to my eyes. Good enough to keep the program going at least:
"92 percent left public schools that had been deemed “in need of improvement, corrective action, or restructuring” for smaller private schools, which they and their parents overwhelmingly rate favorably. Ninety-one percent of Opportunity Scholarship recipients graduate from high school, in a city where the overall graduation rate is just 55 percent. And these benefits have come at minimal cost: The vouchers range in value from $8,000 to $12,000, compared to the $18,000 the D.C. school system spends on each public-school pupil. "
The article indicates that it takes $18,000 to educate a child in DC. If the class is 30 students (OMG), that is $540,000 per class to educate these 30 students. If the average teacher is paid $80,000, "WHERE IS THE REST OF THE MONEY GOING?" That is some overhead!!!!
Try calling a school--the phone tree will tell you about all sorts of administrators, testers, and various and sundry other money-sucks. And remember, not every student gets the same slice of the pie. Mainstreaming means that some students are receiving a LOT more.
@Sean Gillhoolley, I couldn't disagree more. The Department of Education needs to be eliminated. It serves no useful purpose except to place unreasonable restrictions on local school districts and to enslave these same districts with "free" federal funds. These funds are free if the districts sell their souls to the devil in DC in exchange for them. The DOE is more about bureaucracy than it is education and results: In fact, it behooves this organization to encourage mediocrity so as to guarantee them longevity and continued funding.
Our society has placed too many expectations on schools beyond just education. They feed kids and dispense medicines...provide councillors...and they perform a range of social services not historically associated with schools.
Couple all this with the spare no expense attitude regarding schools, and that's where we have a problem. Just look at the temples of excess that are being built as elementary and high schools...often with costs exceeding $100 million. And with expensive trappings that require huge supporting expenses. Often, school expenses account for over 50% of a municipality's budget -- squeezing out other necessary expenses like infrastructure.
We need to restore austerity to education. Obviously spending money like it's going out of style isn't working. The product that we're producing is inferior to most other developed countries, and pitiful if one considers our considerable "investment" in education. We tried the megabucks approach...I believe that kids could learn in Quonset huts with plastic furniture...so let's try something completely different. Let's stop equating educational quality to the amount of money spent. Enough is enough!
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