Three Things Not to Miss in Wolf’s Post

May 16, 2013

Tyson-Spinks SI cover

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Jay has already linked to Pat Wolf’s devastating knockout of the special ed smear campaign against Milwaukee vouchers. However, it’s such a long piece (there’s so much falsehood to debunk!) that I want to make sure the most important points don’t get overlooked:

  1. Pat catches the Department of Public Instruction lying about how many disabled students are in the voucher program. “Lying” is a strong word, but that is what happened here.
  2. USDOJ faults DPI for not requiring schools to report how many voucher students are disabled, so they can monitor discrimination against disabled students - but the reason is that state law gives them no power to do so, and regulations forbid them from doing so. The purpose of the regulation is to protect against schools using the information to discriminate against disabled students!
  3. “A statistical analysis that my research team conducted during our five-year evaluation of the program confirmed that no measure of student disadvantage – not disability status, not test scores, not income, not race – was statistically associated with whether or not an 8th grade voucher student was or was not admitted to a 9th grade voucher-receiving private school.  Our evidence is consistent with the expectation that private schools are admitting voucher students at random during that critical transition, as the law requires.”

Pat also points out, against the USDOJ’s claim that private schools in the voucher program are covered by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, that the U.S. Supreme Court has twice reviewed and let stand Wisconsin court rulings finding that voucher schools are not government contractors, and students in the program are “parentally placed” not “government placed” in their schools, so the schools are not within reach of laws that apply to government services. In my (non-lawyer) opinion that does not make it a slam dunk that the voucher schools aren’t covered by ADA, because the ADA is such a badly crafted law. But it’s still worth remembering.

Update: This post has been modified because the original version didn’t state point #2 quite right. My apologies!

1 Comment | special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Wolf on Milwaukee School Choice and Disabilities

May 16, 2013

Pat Wolf does a beautiful job on the Ed Next blog of dispensing with a series of false claims about school choice and disabilities in Milwaukee.  You should really read it.  It’s a work of art.

1 Comment | special ed, vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Two New Studies on How School Choice Impacts Students in Vulnerable Demographic Categories

May 15, 2013

Race Card w watermark

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

At Brookings, Matthew Chingos looks at a huge swath of CCD data and finds no evidence that charter schools increase racial segregation. No surprise there, as readers of Win-Win already know. It’s been a while since I had occasion to trot out the old race card graphic – my sense is that the segregation talking point has had its day in the sun.

In Education Finance and Policy, Rajashri Chakrabarti looks at Florida school data and contributes the latest in a line of studies showing that schools act in self-interested ways, responding to structural incentives, when classifying students into special programs. Chakrabarti finds that schools threatened with vouchers due to low test scores increased the classification of students as Limited English Proficient, removing them from the pool of tested students; however, schools did not increase classification of students into special education, where they would become eligible for McKay vouchers. The obvious conclusion? All students should be eligible for vouchers – then there’s no system to game.

PS Sorry for the awkward headline – I couldn’t come up with anything snappier or any pop culture references. Uh . . . release the kraken!

2 Comments | charter schools, civic values, special ed, vouchers | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Momma Ain’t Happy

May 9, 2013

If Momma Aint Happy(Guest post by Greg Forster)

My colleagues at the Friedman Foundation have released a big new survey of mothers of school-age kids. And let me tell you, momma ain’t happy:

  • 61% of school moms say education’s on the wrong track; just 32% say it’s on the right track.
  • Watch out, Common Core test consortia: 79% of school moms rate the federal government’s handling of education as fair or poor; only 17% said good or excellent.
  • 82% of school moms gave an A or B to their local private schools, compared to 43% for public schools. (Momma ain’t unhappy enough!)

The study also surveyed non-moms, so you can compare and contrast. Unsurprisingly, the differences aren’t large – because if momma ain’t happy…

Image

2 Comments | research reports, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

ACLU Applauds as USDOJ Orders Wisconsin Public Schools to . . . Stop Blocking Kids from Using Vouchers?

May 3, 2013

Wile falling

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Well, this is interesting. Someone just sent me a hyperventilating press release from the ACLU bragging about how they got the USDOJ to issue a letter to Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. The letter declares that the Milwaukee voucher program is a “public entity” under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is therefore subject to ADA prohibitions on discrimination. USDOJ orders Wisconsin to undertake several actions designed to allow USDOJ to determine whether such discrimination is taking place, and to deter it. You can read the letter here.

I doubt this will be a big deal. There is certainly some minor bad news for school choice here. Assuming this letter stands up to any challenges brought against it, private schools may lose a small degree of autonomy over admissions and services. Private schools ought to be free to say to some parents “we are not able to accommodate your needs”; I know some people think that’s bad, but not every school can be the right school for every child. The failure to realize this basic fact is at the very heart of our dysfunctional government school monopoly. Turning from admissions to services, one reason private schools are able to provide better services to disabled students is because they aren’t tied down to the rigid IDEA bureaucracy that public schools are required to use. This letter will not impose the IDEA monster on voucher schools, thankfully, but it could lead to steps in the wrong direction. The letter also orders Wisconsin to conduct ADA training for staff in voucher schools; that’s a hassle they don’t need, but not likely to impact education in a major way. Still, things like this are a good example of why ADA is a very badly crafted law – it basically empowers USDOJ to issue arbitrary orders based on ambiguous definitions (what exactly is a “reasonable accommodation”?).

On the other hand, I wonder if the ACLU has rushed to brag about something that, upon further reflection, it may live to regret. The USDOJ letter begins by listing the allegations made against Wisconsin public schools, which justify its investigation. The very first allegation is that “students with disabilities in the Milwaukee Public Schools are deterred by DPI and participating voucher schools from participating in the school choice program.” That’s “DPI” as in “Department of Public Instruction.”

So the U.S. Department of Justice is now officially investigating whether Milwaukee public schools are blocking students from using vouchers . . . thanks to the ACLU!

One thing the letter orders Wisconsin to do is conduct “public outreach about the school choice program to students with disabilities.” By all means – make sure they know their options!

Thanks, ACLU geniuses!

PS Do you think anyone at the ACLU asked themselves why public schools would seek to prevent students from using the voucher program, if (as we are constantly told by voucher opponents) the imperative to serve those students is a terrible drain on the public school system?

6 Comments | vouchers | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

We Win Pop Culture! Also, a Podcast on Win-Win

May 2, 2013

Sci-Fi fest poster

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

In a major news development, today the Heartland Institute described JPGB as a ”widely read education reform-pop culture blog.” After all these years of struggling for recognition as a major voice in the pop culture world, at long last our toil and struggle has been vindicated.

Oh, and they have this podcast I did on the Win-Win report showing that the research consistently supports school choice. If you’re, you know, into that kind of thing.

Win-Win 3.0 chart

In case you forgot what that column of zeros on the right looks like, here it is again.

Leave a Comment » | civic values, competitive effects, methodology, random pop culture, research reports, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Louisiana Union Pres: School Choice Steals “Our” Kids

May 1, 2013

the daily spin(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Remember the hoopla a few weeks back about the MSNBC promo that told us our children aren’t really ours? Well, in case you were wondering whose they were, the president of the Louisiana teachers’ union spells it out for you:

There isn’t anything fair about using something like [school choice] only against the public schools and then taking our children from us, and sending us where we don’t know what they’re getting. [ea]

Mocking her is left as an exercise for the reader.

I’m starting to get worried. The unions are still powerful because they have money and troops, but they’re now totally humiliated and publicly shamed for their evil, and they’re clearly lost and bewildered in a new social world where the rules of legitimacy have all changed and they can’t make sense of anything. At what point is it just cruel to go on pointing out their depravity?

6 Comments | teacher union, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

My Own Personal Narcissus Index

April 19, 2013

John-Stossel

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Picking back up on our discussion of narcissism, I’m sure you’re all dying to know that my new Win-Win report was featured on John Stossel last night! While you other losers here on JPGB have been wasting your time on Twitter, I’m finally getting the undivided attention of millions that I’ve always known I deserved.

Oh, wait, sorry – I didn’t mean to bash Twitter, because . . . Stossel also tweeted my study. Twitter’s totally cool now!

0035 rotated square
In case you forgot what I look like.

Seriously, I’m always grateful when people bring attention to my work. Stossel highlighted the numbers for impact on public schools: 23 empirical studies have looked at how school choice impacts academic outcomes in public schools, of which 22 found a positive effect and one found no visible difference; no empirical study has ever found a negative impact. He also mentioned the numbers for racial segregation: eight studies, seven positive, one neutral; none negative. (Stossel’s description may have left viewers thinking those public school academic effect studies were participant effect studies – I know it’s hard to do justice to the details in the short time TV allows, but at least I can note the difference here.)

Hope others are finding the report useful – that unbroken line of zeros in the “negative effects” column can’t be publicized too widely!

4 Comments | journalism, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Vouchers Win More

April 18, 2013

On the heels of Greg’s updated review of the research on the effects of vouchers, we have a new article in Education Next by Matthew Chingos and Paul Peterson finding significant benefits from New York City’s private voucher program on college attendance by African American students:

We find that the offer of a voucher increased college enrollment within three years of the student’s expected graduation from high school by 0.7 percentage points, an insignificant impact. This finding, however, masks substantial variation in impacts among students from different ethnic groups. We find evidence of large, statistically significant impacts on African Americans, but fairly small and statistically insignificant impacts on Hispanic students. We discuss results for the small number of students from other groups below.

The SCSF-NSC linked data indicate that a voucher offer increased the college-enrollment rate of African Americans by 7 percentage points, an increase of 20 percent. If an African American student used the scholarship to attend private school for any amount of time, the estimated impact on college enrollment was 9 percentage points, a 24 percent increase over the college enrollment rate among comparable African American students assigned to the control group (see Figure 1). This corresponds to 3 percentage points for every year the voucher was used.

The impact of a voucher offer on the college-enrollment rate of Hispanic students is a statistically insignificant 2 percentage points. Although that estimate is much smaller than the one observed for African Americans, the impacts on the two ethnic groups are not significantly different from one another.

We obtain similar results for full-time college enrollment. Among African Americans, 26 percent of the control group attended college full-time at some point within three years of expected high-school graduation. The impact of a voucher offer was to increase this rate by 7 percentage points, a 25 percent increment. Among students using the voucher to attend a private school, the estimated impact was 8 percentage points, or roughly 31 percent. No statistically significant impact on full-time college enrollment was evident for Hispanic students.

Only 9 percent of the African American students in the control group attended a private four-year college. The offer of a voucher raised that proportion by 5 percentage points, an increase of 58 percent. That extraordinary increment may reflect the tight connections between private elementary and secondary schools and private institutions of higher education.

The percentage of African American students in the control group who attended a selective four-year college was 3 percent. That increased by 4 percentage points if the student received the offer of a voucher, a better than 100 percent increment in the percentage enrolled in a selective college, a very large increment from a very low baseline. Once again, no impacts were detected for Hispanic students.

3 Comments | vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Third Edition of “Win-Win” Adds a Third Win

April 17, 2013

Win-Win 3.0 cover

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

This morning, the Friedman Foundation releases the third edition of my biannual report summarizing the empirical research on school choice. As in previous years, I survey all the available studies on academic effects – both for students who use school choice and for public schools. Hence the title “A Win-Win Solution” – school choice is a win for both those who use it and those who don’t.

New in this edition of the report, I also survey the impact of school choice on the democratic polity in three dimensions: fiscal impact on taxpayers, racial segregation and civic values and practices (such as tolerance for the rights of others). Guess what it shows? School choice is not just win-win, it’s actually win-win-win. It not only benefits choosing families and non-choosing families; it also benefits everyone else through fiscal savings and the strengthening of social and civic bonds.

Here’s the most important part of the report – that unbroken column of zeros on the right remains as impressive as it ever was. Do please read the rest if you’d like to know more!

Win-Win 3.0 chart

2 Comments | civic values, competitive effects, personal tax credits/deductions, research reports, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

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