Private Choice and the Disruptive Technology Model

July 24, 2008

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Christensen has made the case that online learning is a disruptive technology: competing against non-consumption, filling niches, and on the way to becoming a much more prevalent practice. I have been thinking lately that a similar model may apply to the private school choice movement.

One big difference: private choice often competes against demonstrable failure in the public system rather than non-availability of schooling at all. Inner city students in Cleveland, for example, have access to public schools. The problem isn’t that they don’t have access to schools at all; it is that the schools they do have access to often perform outrageously poorly.

Thus we experience political difficulty in promoting private choice. It would be much easier to compete against non-consumption. Ironically enough, a Democratic State Senator in Texas proposed just this sort of bill last year: a school voucher bill for dropouts.

The modern choice movement began in Milwaukee in 1990 when a group of frustrated inner-city Milwaukee Democrats teamed with Republican Governor Tommy Thompson to create the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

Since 1990, we’ve seen the creation of Milwaukee-like programs in Cleveland and Washington DC, failing school vouchers in Louisiana, Ohio and Florida. Lawmakers have created broad eligibility tax credit programs in Arizona, Illinois, Georgia and means-tested tax credit programs in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Voucher programs for children with disabilities have passed in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Utah, and Arizona passed the nation’s first and (as yet) only voucher program for foster care children.

Some in the movement would look at this list and say the movement needs to refocus on inner city programs. Some resentment towards the success of the special needs programs (5 and counting) has been expressed. These sentiments reflect deeply held value preferences.

I however disagree with them.

The passion of the progressive private choice movement is to provide the opportunity for low-income inner city children to have the chance to attend a high quality school. This is a passion I share, obsessively. Low-income inner city children are too often trapped in schools so dysfunctional that no one reading this would even think having their own children attend. Using the Rawls criteria of justice- if those schools aren’t good enough for your children in theory, then they aren’t good enough for disadvantaged children in practice.

Children with disabilities, however, have an equally compelling case for choice, and may in fact be the most poorly served children and frustrated parents in the public school system. Pop quiz: would you rather be born to a low-income family in an inner city, or the son of a billionaire with autism? The current IDEA system promises an “Individualized Education Plan” for children with disabilities, but all too often involves simply filing out the paperwork to prevent a successful lawsuit. Children- especially minority children- are often mistakenly shunted into special education due to poor reading instruction and effectively if not purposely left to rot academically in the most blatant and vivid example of the bigotry of low expectations imaginable.

In case for foster children is also compelling- having already rolled snake-eyes in their opening roll in life, children in foster care bounce from home to home, and thus because of attendance boundaries, from school to school. Ultra-frequent transfers between schools effectively destroy any chance they have to make academic progress.

Anyone for giving these kids a chance to attend a stable set of schools over time free from the disruption of attendance boundaries? Good- me too.

Thinking again of the disruptive technology model- inner city poor children are a niche that we should passionately seek to aid through parental choice. They do not however constitute the entirety of students extremely poorly served by the public school system. Children in failing schools, dropouts, English language learners, foster care children, free and reduced lunch children, functional illiterates, and special needs children are all demonstrably poorly served in the public school system.

One argument made used to be that special needs programs could not demonstrate systemic effects on public schools. This is no longer true. Nor is the case for the failing schools model. Don’t get me wrong: I prefer larger and broader programs to smaller ones, every day of the week. I’m most interested in helping as many poorly served children to get as much access to a broad array of school choices as fast as possible.

The passage of special needs bills were followed by choice bills with a broader set of eligibility in both Utah and Georgia. From a disruptive technology perspective that is a good thing.

From a disruptive technology perspective, the problem with say, Wisconsin would be that they haven’t moved on to new aid disadvantaged children in different niches. There are low-income children in places like Racine, for example, moving through dropout factory schools. Children with disabilities around the state could benefit enormously from a special needs voucher bill.

Ohio, on the other hand, started with a means-tested bill focused on Cleveland, and then moved on to a bill for children with autism and a statewide failing schools bill. Choice efforts in the state now focus on moving to a full blown McKay bill. Bully for them.

Florida’s programs focused on free and reduced lunch eligible children (Step Up for Students Tax Credit), special needs students (McKay Scholarship Program) and students in failing schools (Opportunity Scholarships). That’s a good start to build on, and Florida has overcome a very contentious debate on choice to develop bipartisan support and strong statewide public school improvement.

Once again: I’ll have what Florida is having.

(edited to correct typo)

3 Comments | politics, vouchers | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Eduwonk: Vouchers Boring, Bus Service Consolidation Fascinating

July 23, 2008

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

One of Eduwonk’s most important contributions to the education blogosphere is the snarky comment. Snark is frowned upon in these parts (don’t leave a snarky comment on this post, or you’ll be violating site policy). But if I may register a minority report on behalf of the loyal opposition, I think snarky comments do for the marketplace of ideas what short sellers and speculators do for the stock market: they’re not classy or respectable, but they perform an indispensable price-discovery function. (Another similarity is that the people who do them make tons of money – right, Andy? Andy?)

Of course, not all brokerage houses are interested in having their services used by short sellers, and there may be some sense in declaring some education blogs as snark-free zones. The short sellers can always take their business to other brokers – just like I post all my snarky comments on Pajamas Media.

But if Eduwonk is going to dish out snark, he’d better be able to take it. So check out what I found while scrolling through Eduwonk this morning.

In response to John McCain’s big education speech at the NAACP:

If this campaign turns into a debate about vouchers please just shoot me now. I’d prefer a debate that ignores education than that tired fight again.

Two days earlier:

Shouldn’t we be . . . trying to get school districts out of the busing business altogether? Big school districts like to boast about how they bus more passengers each day than Greyhound. That’s true, but also sort of insane if you think about it and consider that their primary mission is teaching and learning. Besides, today’s buses are horrendous polluters even when greener technology is available, control over transportation means control over parental decision-making, and school districts often aren’t even very good at designing efficient transportation schemes or adapting to changing circumstances like $4 gas, which was not exactly an unforeseen issue in the transportation world…Student safety means that, especially for younger students you want to be careful about how you merge transportation schemes, but having local or regional agencies that handle transportation would pay a lot of dividends if was approached with the dual principles of being greener and more parent- and civic-friendly at the front-end.

Got that? A debate about the policy that represents the most fundamental break from the existing system, is most consistently supported by empirical evidence, and is currently the most politically successful movement in the education world is boring enough to induce suicide. But the prospect of transferring control of bus services from school districts to local or regional transportation agencies is fascinating.

Supply your own snarky comment; I’m not allowed.

But before leaving the subject, I will note that if you’ve seen the new Batman movie, you already know whom to call for all your school bus operation needs:

You know how I got these scars? I was in an accident caused by an incompetent school bus driver, because educational transportation is controlled by school districts whose core mission is teaching and learning rather than by local or regional transportation agencies!

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

Dan Lips Interviews the Chef

July 22, 2008


(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Dan Lips interviews Jeb Bush about education reform on National Review Online today.

4 Comments | competitive effects, instructional reform | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Savage Comments

July 22, 2008

The blow-hard radio host Michael Savage has never been known for his careful and thoughtful analysis, but he recently went a big-mouth mile too far when he declared that autism was “a fraud, a racket … In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. … They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. … Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “

2 Comments | special ed | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Camp Education

July 21, 2008

“I desire macaroni pictures! And those little shaker things where you put beans inside of paper plates that are glued together! And let us put patterns of glue on the outside of those paper plates so we can then pour glitter on them so they look nice and sparkly!”

As I drop the kids off at sleep-away summer camp, I’ve been thinking about whether school should be more like camp.  At camp the kids learn an enormous amount, including a large amount of traditional academic content.  Two of my children are at a Jewish camp where they learn Hebrew and Judaics in addition to more typical camp activities.  (And no, there is no giant Moses in the shape of the CPU from Tron demanding macaroni pictures).  My oldest goes to a special needs camp that offers an emphasis on independent living skills (just like school) in addition to the usual camp stuff.

They all learn a lot.  But unlike school, the kids love it.  Don’t get me wrong, they like school quite a bit — but they love camp.  They love it even though they are made to do all sorts of challenging or sometimes unpleasant things that they rarely do at home.  They have to do all of the cleaning, they serve and clear all of the meals, and they fold their own clothes.  It can be broiling during the day and freezing at night.  They help tend farm animals.  They climb to the top of a high tower.  They go for long hikes.

The camps my kids go to have very nice facilities and are considered expensive.  Their camps offer activities not usually found at other summer camps, including go-carts, mountain biking, computers, water trampolines, and tennis.  The ratio of counselors to campers at the Jewish camp is less than 5 to 1, and at the special needs camp is about 2 to 1 (including specialists).

How are these camps able to teach kids a lot, get them to work hard, and get the kids to love it, while schools struggle to do any of these things?

What’s more, even these expensive camps are less expensive than the average public school.  The Jewish camp costs $151.92 per day, which given that they are cared for 24 hours per day, comes out to $6.33 per hour.  The average public school, as of 2006-7, cost $10,725 per pupil for 180 days, which works out to $59.98 per day or $8.51 per hour for the 7 hours they are in school.  Even the special needs camp, which seems quite expensive, costs less than the average special education in public schools.  The hourly cost of the special needs camp is $11.02 compared to $16.17 for special education at the average public school.  I also looked up the tuition of a popular Christian camp in the area.  The charge there is only $3.33 per hour.

How do sleep-away camps get kids to work hard, learn a lot, broaden their experiences and love it — all for less than the cost of public schooling?  A big difference is that most of the counselors are young, college kids.  They don’t get paid very much but tend to be enthusiastic, bright, and energetic.  Some will later be doctors or lawyers, but they are happy to be counselors for a few summers in the meantime.  It’s easier to get talented people for low pay for a short time than for an entire career.  Camps always have some wise old-hands to keep the young staff in check and to maintain the norms and mission of the organization, but camps mostly succeed at low cost because of their energetic young counselors.

Could schools be more like camps?  Could we hire a lot of enthusiastic, bright, and energetic teachers fresh out of college, who know full well that most of them will leave in a few years to become lawyers, doctors, or something else?  A few old-hands would stick around to keep the young staff in check and to maintain the norms and missions of the organization.  But schools could potentially attract more talented people as teachers at lower cost if they followed the camp model.  And perhaps schools with a high-turnover, young staff would better connect with students and convey the love of learning and working hard.

I know that current research finds that teachers tend to be less effective in their first few years and that turnover is harmful.  But those are findings about new teachers and high turnover under the current system that rewards teachers for sticking around for 20-25 years.  We can’t simply extrapolate from that to what would happen under a system that attracted a different crop of new teachers and where turnover was effectively encouraged (reform of the pension system and pay scale could move us in that direction).

Maybe the intensity of camp just couldn’t be sustained for an entire school year.  Maybe adding even a little more academic content would ruin the camp magic.  I’m sure many things would go wrong if we tried to make schools more like camps, but I think it’s worth thinking about what we can learn from camps to make schools more effective.

17 Comments | teacher pay, teacher quality | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Bigger is Not Better in Education

July 20, 2008

I have a piece in this morning’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette arguing that consolidating school districts in Arkansas to 75 countywide school districts is not a promising reform strategy.  A number of state officials as well as the Dem Gaz have floated the idea of cutting the number of districts to less than one-third of the current number as a way of saving superintendent and football coach salaries while improving the capacity of high schools to offer state-required courses.  I argue that the salary savings will be few, there are better ways to help high schools offer courses (such as with distance ed), and student achievement tends to suffer in larger schools and school districts. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that reconfiguring larger urban high schools into “small” schools within a school, as the Gates Foundation once pushed, is likely to produce much of an improvement either.  The benefits of smaller schools and school districts may be related to the tighter connection they have to their communities and the more competitive market provided by having more districts.  Simply breaking up big high schools may not better connect schools to communities or create more competitive pressure. 

Being able to choose among schools within a district is like being able to choose among the menu items at McDonalds.  It’s nice that you could choose the Filet-O-Fish if you prefer to eat fish, but there is no change in competitive pressure from adding that menu item — all of the money still ends up in the same place.  The same is true for choice within school districts — all of the money still stays with the school district, so their motivation is not significantly altered by your choice among their schools.  We should only expect significant competitive pressure when money leaves one organization and enters another as a result of consumer choice.  School districts are the main organizational unit of education funding.

3 Comments | competitive effects | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Would You Pay $43,479 for a 1971 Impala?

July 19, 2008

Andrew Coulson at Cato does a great job of illustrating how disastrous it is to have had stagnant achievement outcomes for 17 year-old public school students since 1970, while per pupil spending has increased by a factor of 2.3 (adjusted for inflation).  He likens it to paying $43,479 for a 1971 Chevy Impala, which is 2.3 times the $19,011 inflation-adjusted price back then ($3,460 before adjusting for inflation).  Meanwhile, a brand new 2008 Impala sells for $21,975 and comes with features like On-Star, side air bags, and anti-lock brakes that weren’t even imagined in 1971. 

In the automotive industry cars keep getting better with little increase in cost (after inflation), while education has not improved significantly and costs us 2.3 times as much (after inflation).  It isn’t every day that people wish that an industry would be as efficient as car-makers.

4 Comments | competitive effects | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Pass the Popcorn: Black Belt Jones

July 18, 2008

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

A few weeks ago, we covered the great cinematic saga of Truck Turner, a multisensory journey through a pimp civil war in 1970s Los Angeles. Your humble correspondent reported that, without a doubt that Truck Turner represented the most delightfully over the top Blaxploitation film.

There is however one contender to the supremacy of Truck. Filmed in the same year (1974) by same filmmakers and using 8 of the same actors as Truck Turner, the film Black Belt Jones is also a cinematic masterpiece of the genre.

The plot of BBJ revolves around an African-American Kung-Fu school in downtown Los Angeles. THE MAN, in this episode portrayed stereotypical Italian mobsters, wants to get their greedy clutches on the kung fu shop so they can destroy it and build a convention center. Remember, no Institute for Justice back in the 1970s.

Scatman Crothers runs the school, and THE MAN begins putting the screws on him to sell his property. Sadly, given his advanced age, years of drinking, gambling and carousing, Scatman’s Kung-Fu powers had grown weak, and he dies during a confrontation with the mob.

Scatman’s death draws the attention of the School of Kung-Fu’s most illustrious alumni, Black Belt Jones, played by the great Jim “Dragon” Kelly. PSSSSRSSST! goes the can of instant whoop-ass that Jones opens up on the spaghetti-eating mobsters.

Now, Black Belt Jones isn’t just about Black empowerment, but also women’s liberation. Jones gets help in his war against THE MAN from the daughter of Scatman, Sydney. Her kung-fu powers are equal those of Jones, and she knows how to put a sexist pig in his place-

Great moments in Women’s Lib

In any event, Netflix BBJ. You’ve never seen fights on a train, the use of undergarments as a weapon in a car chase, or a soap bubble filled climatic battle at a car wash before, but trust me, you need to in order to be that well-rounded highly educated person your mother always wanted you to be.

3 Comments | Pass the Popcorn | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Bolick on School Choice and the Election

July 17, 2008

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Clint Bolick, recovering from an accident in Wyoming, nevertheless managed to hit the Wall Street Journal this week on education and the Presidential election:

Education is slipping in priority among many voters but not among Hispanics, many of whom see school choice as a deciding factor in whom to vote for this fall. This has implications for the presidential election.

A new poll shows that 82% of Hispanics consider education as one of three most important issues facing this country. The survey also shows that, even while Hispanics trust Democrats over Republicans on education by more than a two-to-one margin, that ratio could change if Republicans heavily promote school choice while Democrats oppose it.

The poll was conducted last year among more than 800 registered Hispanic voters for the Alliance for School Choice and the Hispanic Coalition for Reform and Educational Options, but never publicly released. It was conducted by two polling firms, The Polling Company (which works primarily for Republicans) and the Ampersand Agency, (which polls mostly for Democrats).

This survey found that although Hispanic voters generally consider public schools to be effective, they also favor, by a wide margin, school choice (defined as allowing parents a choice in whether to spend their children’s education dollars in public or private schools).

Fifty-two percent of Hispanic voters have a favorable view of school choice, according to the poll, while only 7% had an unfavorable view. When asked about vouchers specifically, 32% expressed a favorable opinion compared to 13% unfavorable.

But where the poll really gets interesting is on school choice as an electoral issue: 65% of those surveyed reported that they would be more likely to support a candidate for office who supports school choice, including 35% who said they would be “much more likely.” Only 19% said they would be less likely to vote for a pro-school choice candidate.

These numbers were high regardless of whether the person was of Mexican, Puerto Rican or Cuban descent. They also transcended party affiliation: 67% of Republicans, 70% of independents and 63% of Democrats preferring pro-school choice candidates. And 70% of those who prefer pro-school choice candidates — including 66% of Democrats — said they would cross party lines to vote for a candidate who supports school choice over one who opposes it.

Barack Obama has hinted at being open to serious education reform. Before the Wisconsin primary in February, he praised Milwaukee’s highly successful school-voucher program. But, facing furious criticism from the establishment, which is disproportionately influential in Democratic politics, he backtracked.

John McCain has been a consistent supporter of school choice and passionately endorsed it during one of the Republican debates, although the issue is far from a mainstay of his campaign. His appointment of pro-school choice former Arizona Superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan as his campaign’s top education adviser may signal a new emphasis.

Sen. Obama will count heavily on teachers’ unions for support. The unions, though, have nowhere else to go. Hispanics do. If Mr. Obama opposes school choice, he will cede to his opponent a huge opportunity to make inroads among Hispanic voters — if Sen. McCain seizes it.

Hispanic votes will be crucial in key battleground states, including Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. George W. Bush won 40% of Hispanic votes in 2004, but support slipped to 30% for GOP congressional candidates in 2006. Mr. Obama fared poorly among Hispanics in the presidential primaries, while Mr. McCain carried 74% of Hispanic votes when he won re-election to the Senate in 2004. All that adds up to this: Hispanics voting on school choice could tip the balance of the election.

Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly young and have exhibited a propensity toward political independence — and no issue is more tangible for them than educational opportunity. If Hispanics align their voting with the educational interests of their children, it could alter the electoral landscape — not merely for this election, but permanently.

5 Comments | politics | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

Being Misquoted

July 17, 2008

Dean Millot has a new post attacking me on the peer review issue that Eduwonkette promotes on her own site.

But Dean Millot is being fundamentally dishonest in that he misquotes me. He says that I argue: “In short, I see no problem with research becoming public with little or no review.”

In fact I wrote: “In short, I see no problem with research initially becoming public with little or no review.” (See here )

The absence of the word “initially” makes quite a difference and sets up the straw man that Millot wishes to knock down. The issue is not whether research can benefit from peer review, but whether it is inappropriate to make it publicly available INITIALLY, before it has received peer review.

Readers may want to wonder about the credibility of Millot’s claim that “One of the reasons I do my best to quote the very words of people I write about in edbizbuzz is that I prefer to fight fair.”

And so much for Eduwonkette’s praise of Millot’s “measured, careful, and thoughtful analysis.”

I’m waiting for the correction and apology from both of them.

3 Comments | journalism, research reports | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

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