Vouchers in DC

Given the shoddy state of the DC public schools, I think it's perfectly understandable why a lot of people are inclined to turn to vouchers as a remedy. What's more, as Fred Hiatt points out, the voucher pilot program in DC, much like other voucher programs in inner-city areas, is good at doing what markets do best -- delivering consumer satisfaction. As Hiatt's column points out, parents with kids in the program are generally much happier than parents with kids not in the program, and there are many more applicants for "Opportunity Scholarships" than there are scholarships to hand out.

One thing missing from Hiatt's long, entirely laudatory, article about DC vouchers, however, is any evidence that educational outcomes are improving as a result. That seems, however, like an important point! According to the article, "preliminary results" from the efforts to compare attainment by kids who won the raffle to that of eligible kids whose parents applied for the raffle and lost "are expected later this spring." Can't we wait until that's out until we start writing the columns about what a success this has been?

Comments

Matt,

I am likely repeating a point you are already aware of, but real educational outcomes are going to take years to establish, even assuming that the right data is being tracked now. Most everything in the way of short-term student outcomes (test scores, grade promotion, grades, etc) are considered important largely insofar as they are predictors of hlonger-term student outcomes such as high school graduation, college attainment and college graduation. Determining whether the vouchers program leads to increases in the rates of those three-- all else being equal-- is going to take years (obviously: four, five and eight, respectively). Of course, very few people like to wait that long before forming (or reinforcing) their opinions. Which is partly way so much commentary on specific K-12 education reform projects (like the one in DC) is not based as much on data as on people's preexisting sentiment about the issues at play

Posted by Ben | May 21, 2007 7:41 AM

At the end of his column Hiatt claims that the fate of the 1,800 school choice kids shouldn't distract from reforming the DC public schools. But I haven't noticed Hiatt devoting much column space to the difficult and unsexy topic of actually improving those schools.

Vouchers are a fun pundit friendly topic exactly because there isn't much data on how or whether they work. Therefore it provides a great opportunity to stir debate and spout weighty sounding opinions, without too much hard work or boring statistics.

Posted by AJ | May 21, 2007 9:17 AM

There is little data because Choice schools want there to be little data. Imagine an investment fund that refuses to tell you its historic record.

Posted by Rob | May 21, 2007 9:58 AM

Actually, Matt, I think that student outcomes are not as important as parental happiness. As long as student outcomes are pretty much the same, the increase in parental happiness will ensure that those parents remain in DC. Were it not for the vouchers, these parents would probably be the group most likely to move out of DC and into one of the neighboring suburbs in Maryland or Virginia.

Am I saying that vouchers are effectively a middle-class entitlement for city residents given to them as an incentive/bribe to stay? Yes, I am. And it's effective, so let's keep it.

Posted by Constantine | May 21, 2007 10:02 AM

> What's more, as Fred Hiatt points out, the
> voucher pilot program in DC, much like other
> voucher programs in inner-city areas, is good at
> doing what markets do best -- delivering consumer
> satisfaction.

The first few thousand autos that were used to test center-mounted (high) brake lights experienced substantial reductions in rear-end accidents. So DOT when ahead and mandated center-mounted brake lights for all cars. Results: once these lights worked their way through the car population, rear-end accidents returned just about to where they had been before. Reason: what worked for a small, self-selected, novelty test subset did not work for the entire population which was neither self-selected nor a novelty.

Hmmm....

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 21, 2007 10:08 AM

Interesting theory. Parenting decisions should be made by social scientists, not parents, since parents don't know what's good for their kids. Have you been reading The Republic of something?

Posted by Pithlord | May 21, 2007 11:04 AM

As always, vouchers benefit many individuals while worsening the brain drain in urban public school systems.

It's difficult to take a stand against a program that genuinely benefits some of the more educationally-motivated families in the District. But we're reaching the point where public school systems in major cities have become the educators of last resort. Everyone else gets to dump their kids with learning disabilities and behavioral problems, so they all end up in the one place required by law to provide an education. Then we wring our hands about the low test scores and unsafe conditions in public schools.

Voucher programs are appealing. They reduce the economic discrimination and allow poorer families that care about education opportunities previously only reserved for the well-to-do.

But the program also makes it harder to FIX the public schools, since it creates yet another perverse incentive for the best and brightest to leave the system. If you want to nuke the DC public school system and build a new system for educating the masses from the ground up, I'm willing to listen to suggestions. But I'm not hearing any.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 21, 2007 11:08 AM

> But we're reaching the point where
> public school systems in major cities

Since the migration to the suburbs and exurbs was essentially complete by 1990, I would be very curious to know what percentage of schoolchildren actually attend traditional core city urban schools.

However, it is clear that the ills of these relatively small percentage urban schools are used to drive policies intended to destroy _suburban_ public schools that are functioning quite well.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | May 21, 2007 11:14 AM

Constantine, I would love to see where an annual income of $21,000 for a family of four is considered "middle-class?" While it may actually be above the federal poverty line (and I am not sure either way), I can tell you that $21,000 is barely enough money for one person to live on in DC, let alone a family of four.

Anyway, educational outcomes are irrelevant in this program. It is highly likely that the students who are invovled in this program may do no better than any other student in or out of the program. That is not the point of the program, despite the spin to the contrary.

The whole point of a voucher program or any school choice program, including charter scools, is to provide options. People with money or the willingness or ability to sacrifice can chose any school for their kids. Poor parents don't have that option--they would be consigned to an edcuational system that does not serve them well.

I find it the height of hypocrisy for people who can afford to live in districts with subjectively or even objectively better schools, to tell people who don't have the ability to live there that they can't have this opportunity because the "educational" outcomes are not worth the price of admission. Wealthier parents have options, poor parents don't and any program that gives poor parents options at no higher cost than the status quo is worth the price of admission.

Posted by Matt Johnston | May 21, 2007 11:26 AM

Cranky, that's an excellent point.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 21, 2007 11:30 AM

It will take a while for differences in educational outcomes be different. A charter or parochial school can't do anything with a kid if one expects the results to show up in a day or a year.

Even if the educational outcomes are the same though vouchers win because non tony private schools are cheaper to run. One might not think so only if one of one's criteria on "goodness" is that the school system exists for the benefit of the govt employees that work there, which is the case with regard to Dems, so the Dems position on all this is no accident, given that govt employees are the Dem's "most equal" constituency group.

Last but not least there is one very big factor that left leaning social scientist's don't seem to be all that clued into but plays an enormous role in the decision making of an inner city parent, which is the likelihood of one's kids having first hand experience with the criminal justice system. Even if every other factor is the same, this factor looms huge, and most definitely plays a role in the satisfaction of the parents. I'd agree the difference in outcomes is much driven by parental self selection, but saying all of it is is a bit daft.

Posted by j mct | May 21, 2007 11:33 AM

Matt, I guess I'm defining "middle class" as "financially able to move out of the city in search of better schools."

Also, LaFollette, I think that public schools would be educationally better and retain more students if they didn't regard motivated, intelligent students as resources for them to exploit. Where do people get the idea that smart students are supposed to be some kind of exploitable resource whose primary role is to help the rest of the school? Most parents want a school that is going to cater to their children's academic ambitious and talents, not see them as collectibles.

Posted by Constantine | May 21, 2007 12:13 PM

Research results on whether the voucher schools raise standardized test scores are important, and I'll be interested to see how these things have worked out in the DC voucher program.

But parental satisfaction measures important things that standardized tests can't. In this case, a lot of parents are happy that there kids are in safer, more disciplined schools. In other cases, I've heard that parental satisfaction is driven by the availability of "frills" like music, arts, and foreign language programs.

So I think there are a lot of "educational outcomes" that aren't measured on standardized tests. It's important to know if vouchers are having an effect on these outcomes too, even if they're harder to measure.

Posted by Ragout | May 21, 2007 12:46 PM

The desire to have your kid go to a charter school can be grounded in nothing more than the desire to do something new. Or out of the belief that what you have is so bad that anything else would be better. The charter schools that I've come in contact with have been almost as dismal as Wackford Squeers's dump where Nicholas Nickleby meets Smike. A private institution in England, if we're keeping score.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 21, 2007 1:29 PM

"Also, LaFollette, I think that public schools would be educationally better and retain more students if they didn't regard motivated, intelligent students as resources for them to exploit."

I don't really disagree, as I hope I made clear. But the Brain Drain is a real problem all the same. Vouchers are probably a good idea in extreme cases, but in terms of a nationwide policy I think they'd be disastrous. Most public school systems have some problems, but only a few are so bad that they truly deserve to be nuked.

More specifically, if you're going to craft a policy that lets the bright and motivated students opt out, then you need a plan for how to address the costs to everyone else.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 21, 2007 1:30 PM

Yes, it will take a while to learn if vouchers "work", just as it took a while to see that the southern "academies" were exactly what they appeared to be- segregation in a different form, producing arguably the stupidest electorate in the history of the nation.

The purpose of the vouchers is to destroy our American heritage of universal free education. The tool they use to accomplish this is the same as the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes- YOU MAY BE THE LUCKY WINNER! Naturally, there will always be people who will believe this.

That doesn't change the fact that the public schools are owned by everybody, and paid for by everybody, regardless of whether you have children in school or not. We all get to vote on school board members and levies regardless of whether we have children in school or not. The public schools exist to serve the public, not just students or their parents.

Vouchers, and national testing, are an attempted end-run around the local control that was the foundation of our educational system. If liberals had tried this for liberal ends, the wailing and rending of garments among the segregationists and creationists would have rivaled a Class 5 hurricane.

As it is, highly paid pundits, who coasted through school on their own "affirmative action" programs for white people born with money, are perfectly happy to "give" poor people the chance to be poorly educated in a for-profit school.

Memo to pundits- just because the lunch you ate was free to you does not prove that there is such a thing as a free lunch.

It doesn't take a lot of booklearning to see that big downtown real estate owners would love to be freed from property-based school levies for inner-city schools. The man who owns a skyscraper will think a million dollars is cheap lobbying compared with the payoff if school levies can be transformed into a sales tax, or, better yet, lotto sales at the Speedy 7-11.

After all, why take just one bite out of the poor if you have the chance to take two?

Posted by serial catowner | May 21, 2007 1:41 PM

Matt Yglesias leaves out the elephant in the room. Isn't there some kind of conflict of interest involving the WP and education policy? Doesn't the WP own some kind of educational material company which has been getting Bush govt subsidies and stands to benefit from the kind of "reform" Hiatt likes? I am fuzzy on the details but I remember reading something about it.

Posted by DonB | May 21, 2007 1:58 PM

Vouchers are a good idea, because they allow the minority of black and Latino students whose parents are motivated enough for them to learn to send their children to school with children of other similarly-motivated parents. And the teachers at these voucher schools tend to be more idealistic and motivated to put in heroic efforts on behalf of these children.

More generally, there is no amount of money or creativity that will result in much better achievement for the majority of black and Latino students whose parents don't bother to apply for voucher programs. These children, on average, have significantly lower IQs than white or Asian children, and are culturally handicapped as well. Their parents are less likely to value education, reading, etc. D.C. already spends more per student than most school districts in the U.S. (what is it up to now, $10,000 per student per year?), so more money clearly isn't a panacea.

The best approach is to allow the "talented tenth" of African American students access to vouchers. This seems more just than to let this cohort fail and replace them with advantaged foreign and mixed-race blacks at the university level. Letting Barry Obama into Columbia after prep school in Hawaii doesn't make up for denying Tyrone Washington a shot at a charter school in D.C., if he and his single mother are both motivated for him to learn.

Posted by Harry | May 21, 2007 3:26 PM

Good old Harry, mixing apples, oranges, and a substantial amount of plain old BS- doesn't that all make a tasty dish!

Vouchers don't let minority parents send their children to good schools that get them into Harvard- the amount of the voucher isn't large enough. They allow parents to send their children to poor schools where the teachers aren't even certificated. But, you see, this is a good thing- when people with no real training in education will work at non-union wages, why, it just proves how dedicated they are.

Incidentally, Harry, there is no evidence that anybody has a "significantly lower IQ" because their parents didn't apply for a voucher. The only thing your statement proves is that you are racially prejudiced.

In any case, the value of a Harvard education may be over-rated, when we consider how many Harvard grads are willing to try a spoonful of a compote made of apples, oranges, and plain old BS.

Posted by serial catowner | May 21, 2007 3:47 PM

Harry, I don't know where that money for DC schools is going, but if you compare the facilities and physical plant to that of, say, a suburban school, you'll find that DC schools could use some money. That money is going to be necessary to create a learning environment that approaches what they have in a middle-class school district. I don't care that DC spends more per pupil than most places. What I see on the ground is that someone needs to spend money on the schools.

The reality of urban schools is this: when parents are dissatisfied with the school system, they leave town if they have the means to do so. If vouchers keep the parents living in the city, then I think the city comes out ahead.

Posted by Constantine | May 21, 2007 3:54 PM

Bad students make bad schools. Most of the students in D.C. are bad -- not bright or motivated to learn, behavioral problems, etc. Letting the best 10% or so select themselves out of these schools into charter schools gives this minority a chance to learn, because they will be surrounded by similarly motivated students, and they will be taught in a way geared to them.

Trying to raise achievement at D.C.'s public schools across the board is like trying to boil the ocean.

IQ tests measure something real. They are highly predictive of academic outcomes. You can pretend this isn't true, but that doesn't change reality.

Posted by Harry | May 21, 2007 4:14 PM

Vouchers are a joke. If a parent is involved enough to seek a voucher, their kid is better off than most of their classmates anyways. Alot of emphasis is placed on "underperforming schools" as if a magic wand can simply be waved and all of the children will magically learn better. It's not that simple and it never will be. Parental invovlement is a better indicator of academic success than anything else, and you can't really compare public school kids to charter school kids by that metric. Considering the charter schools get a better group of parents/kids to start with because they are self-selected, the poor performance (as in, not demonstrably better than comparable public schools) of charter schools would suggest they are actually poorer choices than public schools.

Private schools also have disparities in teacher pay and qualifications with public schools that are not addressed. Private schools generally pay less (smaller budgets eman smaller pay for teacher) and have less qualified teachers. The "prestige" positions in primary education are ALL public school positions. Highly qualified teachers have no incentive to get into a private school where benefits, pay and support are so poor compared to public systems.

To me, the poor performance of charter schools is enough to end the experiment. If you need further reasons, consider that the $7,500 a year the district paid per student for charter schools basically had no effect whatsoever--test scores have not gone up enough to justify that expense. Had that money not been lavished on a small self-selected group, perhaps real change could have occurred in DC?

The people pushing "charter schools" and "school choice" are hostile to the very idea of public education. I thought progressives had learned their lesson about foxes and chicken coops. Obviously not.

Posted by James Hare | May 21, 2007 4:37 PM

Just since another commenter mentioned it: the idea of schools as "consumer-oriented" or that they should be concerned about "parental satisfaction" is totally wrongheaded. Public schools do NOT exist solely to recreate the views of parents. Schools play an important socializing role that has NOTHING to do with what parents want. I think it's telling that in some subjects we basically give parents the right to force ignorance on their children.

And it does matter in the end. "Opt-out" sexual education may make political sense, but it makes NO public health sense. You might as well not even have the classes if certain kids avoid any exposure to that material. Kids need to be aware of contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases as a matter of public health, just as young ladies should be immunized against HPV as a matter of public health. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?

Public schools are not a business, and they should not be concerned with "making parents happy." Most of the parents I met in my short experience with the public schools were either not informed enough about their childs' schooling or totally unrealistic in their expectations. If you want to have an education to YOUR specifications, don't ask society to pay for it. Homeschool or send your kids to private school.

If we're not going to trust teachers to make the decisions about education that need to be made, why do we ask so much licensing for teachers? Why is it harder to maintain a teaching license than a law license? If teachers should solely be conduits for parental wishes, why do we require so much studying in early childhood development and educational theory?

Either teachers are professionals we've entrusted with educating our children or they are glorified babysitters. Until our society can accept one or the other role (and we seem to expect results that would demand professionals) we will continue to have an education issue.

And one more thing: expecting teachers to do a good job while making fun of them with statements like "those who can do, those who can't teach" is not going to delivery particularly good results. I certainly don't try hard for people who insult me.

Posted by James Hare | May 21, 2007 4:47 PM

James Hare:

Do you really believe that the teachers employed by programs like KIPP aren't as good as public school teachers? "Qualified", in the sense that public school teachers unions use it, isn't always the same as "good".

Even if charter schools can only help the handful of students who are "self-selecting" as you and Harry call it, isn't it better to help this handful than leave it to get its ass kicked in 'general population'?

Talking about the merits of public school versus charters sort of obscures the issue. Middle class towns with educated, white and Asian populations tend to have high-achieving public schools. Public schools work fine in places like that. They have failed in places like DC. That doesn't mean that charters would do a better job overall, but if they can do a better job of educating at least some of the students in D.C. they seem worth it.

Posted by Fred | May 21, 2007 5:16 PM

a couple of points:

it's important to note that with the liberal rules surrounding charter schools here in DC, any discussion of vouchers and their efficacy in urban districts when using DC as a base example is suspect. the "competition" market here is vastly different in many respects than other urban districts.

the problem with the DC Opportunity Scholars Program is that the amount of the voucher, as posters have noted, is not nearly enough to send a student to a truly high quality school. the voucher only covers something like one-fifth of the cost of tuition at a school like Sidwell Friends, for example. expensive schools like these, in order to admit students under the program, have to cover the remainder of their costs. as a result, slots at these schools are extremely limited.

harry, you state that:

IQ tests measure something real. They are highly predictive of academic outcomes. You can pretend this isn't true, but that doesn't change reality.

but you miss the point that IQ scores are not static. they have (a) been trending upwards over time, such that they have to be renormed periodically to reflect the standard normal distribution, and (b), even for a single individual, IQ is not constant over time, which flies completely in the face of what is supposed to make it a valid measure of "intelligence."

i'll resist the urge to keep pontificating, as education policy is so tempting and broad, but i'll note one point about urban school funding. true, expenditures in DC are extremely high, and there are legitimate complaints about that. but as kozol has stated, "equal funding for unequal needs is not equality." and harry, you advocate the systematic abandonment of a large swath of underprivileged youth, and i hope you rethink it.

Posted by looj | May 21, 2007 8:56 PM

According to the article, "preliminary results" from the efforts to compare attainment by kids who won the raffle to that of eligible kids whose parents applied for the raffle and lost "are expected later this spring." Can't we wait until that's out until we start writing the columns about what a success this has been?

But Matt, wouldn't that detract from the success of Hiatt's op-ed column in persuading his readers that vouchers are good?

Facts can be such a nuisance.

Posted by low-tech cyclist (formerly RT) | May 21, 2007 9:28 PM

Vouchers would be a wonderful idea if there was a level playing field for the schools that can accept them. Public schools have to provide education for every student, regardless of disability; hire certified teachers or face penalties under NCLB; implement mandated standardized testing regimes. Let parents use vouchers at any private school willing to play by the same rules.

Of course, its much easier to run a school if all you care about is making parents happy and that is where your accountablity begins and ends. Its cheaper if you aren't obliged to educate the disabled, provide transportation, or feed poor children.

Posted by William | May 22, 2007 6:04 AM