The Hits Keep Coming, Friday Night Massacres Just Couldn’t Bury This Story

April 23, 2009

Despite Obama and Duncan’s best efforts to conceal their steps to kill the D.C. voucher program by acting on Friday afternoons, they have utterly failed at burying this story.  The hits just keep on coming.

In the latest round we have Morton Kondrake picking up on the appeasement metaphor I used in my WSJ piece:

“In a demonstration of obeisance to union power, however, Congressional Democrats refused to re-fund a private school voucher program in the District of Columbia and the administration swallowed the decision. Obama and Duncan say they have hopes to “work with” the unions rather than openly confront them and capitulation on D.C. vouchers may have been a goodwill offering. Whether appeasement will buy cooperation remains to be seen.”

George Will seems to be channeling  Juan Williams’ fury:

“As the president and his party’s legislators are forcing minority children back into public schools, the doors of which would never be darkened by the president’s or legislators’ children, remember this: We have seen a version of this shabby act before. One reason conservatism came to power in the 1980s was that in the 1970s liberals advertised their hypocrisy by supporting forced busing of other people’s children to schools the liberals’ children did not attend.

This issue will be back. In a few months, the appropriation bill for the District will come to the floor of the House of Representatives, at which point there will be a furious fight for the children’s interests. Then we will learn whether the president and his congressional allies are capable of embarrassment. On the evidence so far, they are not.”

Peter Roff writes in U.S. News and World Report:

“Former North Carolina Sen. and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards liked to go around talking about the “two Americas.” Where education is concerned, he may have been on to something. There’s one America for the elites, like members of Congress and the President and Mrs. Obama, who send their children to private schools; and there’s one for everyone else, the regular people who, at least in the District of Columbia, are seeing the educational dreams they have for their children shattered on the altar of politics.”

And Adam Schaeffer over at Cato has given Arne Duncan an award.  Unfortunately for Duncan it is the Chutzpah Award.

All of this is on top of the greatest hits collections, volume one and two, as well as a bunch of other hot singles from the Washington Post and others too numerous to mention in this 30 second commercial.

How can Obama, Duncan, Durbin, and the rest stop this pain?  One easy solution is to do the right thing, follow the evidence, and renew D.C. vouchers.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Dan Lips and Lindsey Burke = Will Muschamp

April 22, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

So the University of Texas has a defensive coordinator named Will Muschamp. Muschamp is known as “Coach Boom” because a clip of him reacting to a big hit went viral on youtube. Going nuts after one of his players delivered a bone crunching hit, Muschamp ran out on to the field happily screaming “BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!” in a voice louder than I would have ever expected humanly possible, with the possible exception of the Ladner children
 
Texas fans now happily yell “BOOM!” from the stands when they see a big hit.
 
This is the reaction I had when I read Dan Lips and Lindsey Burke in the NRO today. The lines from President Obama’s open letter to his daughters is priceless. I take that back. They are beyond priceless:

“In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation. I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential – schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college – even if their parents aren’t rich.”

BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Posted by matthewladner

Taking School Choice for Granted

April 22, 2009

Dan Lips and Lindsey Burke have a great piece on National Review Online today about how members of Congress (I’m looking at you Dick Durbin) and the Administration (you know who you are Obama and Duncan) either went to private school and/or sent their kids to private school, yet are willing to deny those opportunities to others.

Here’s the money quote:

“the D.C. voucher debate presents President Obama with a great opportunity to match his words with action. Before his inauguration, he published an open letter to his daughters explaining why he had sought the presidency. Obama wrote: ‘In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation. I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential — schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college — even if their parents aren’t rich.’

President Obama now has the chance to live up to that promise by fighting to give low-income families the power of school choice that politicians take for granted.”

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

What Does He Take Us For?

April 22, 2009

Arne Duncan of Friday Night Massacres fame has an op-ed in the WSJ today. 

I’m not sure how someone can take 707 words to say almost nothing of substance, but Duncan somehow manages to do it.  What little he has to say seems to be this — If we improve the quality of data about low-performing public schools they will experience pressure to improve and will respond to that pressure:

“When stakeholders — from parents and business leaders to elected officials — understand that standards vary dramatically across states and many high-school graduates are unprepared for college or work, they will demand change.”

Didn’t Duncan get the cue card from his teacher union masters that it is now spelled “steakholders“?

But more to the point, does Duncan really think that the central impediment to school improvement is that we lack information about how bad things are?  Really?

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for improved data, but it seems to me that we already have plenty to understand the magnitude of the problem. 

In addition, it’s not at all clear how Duncan will get us to that dreamy, far-off land “when stakeholders [sic]”, “when parents,” “when educators,” and “when community leaders” will do the various things he describes once they have improved data.  Does he really think that dangling $5 billion in federal funds in front of the states will get the improved data he wants let alone all of the proper responses to the information (that all of these folks already possess)?

Lastly, Duncan has the gall to repeat: “We must close the achievement gap by pursuing what works best for kids, regardless of ideology.” Given how he willfully has ignored the D.C. voucher evidence as he moves to kill that program for ideological reasons, he isn’t exactly credible.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Juan Williams Tells It Like It Is

April 21, 2009

Juan Williams has a new piece on D.C. vouchers and it is clear that he isn’t holding anything back:

“As I watch Washington politics I am not easily given to rage. Washington politics is a game and selfishness, out-sized egos and corruption are predictable. But over the last week I find myself in a fury. The cause of my upset is watching the key civil rights issue of this generation — improving big city public school education — get tossed overboard by political gamesmanship…”

Williams notes that Obama and Duncan pledged themselves to following the evidence on vouchers:

“all along the administration indicated that pending evidence that this voucher program or any other produces better test scores for students they were willing to fight for it. The president has said that when it comes to better schools he is open to supporting ‘what works for kids.’ That looked like a level playing field on which to evaluate the program and even possibly expanding the program.”

And the evidence has come in, he notes:

“What happened, according to a Department of Education study, is that after three years the voucher students scored 3.7 months higher on reading than students who remained in the D.C. schools. In addition, students who came into the D.C. voucher program when it first started had a 19 month advantage in reading after three years in private schools.”

But Williams accuses Obama and Duncan of violating their earlier pledge and disregarding the evidence.  Instead, in a “politically calculated dance step” and implementing “a sly, political check-mate” Obama and Duncan have taken steps to kill the D.C. program.

Juan Williams then identifies the culprit in this story:

“The political pressure will be coming exclusively from the teacher’s unions who oppose the vouchers, just as they oppose No Child Left Behind and charter schools and every other effort at reforming public schools that continue to fail the nation’s most vulnerable young people, low income blacks and Hispanics. The National Education Association and other teachers’ unions have put millions into Democrats’ congressional campaigns because they oppose Republican efforts to challenge unions on their resistance to school reform and specifically their refusal to support ideas such as performance-based pay for teachers who raise students’ test scores. By going along with Secretary Duncan’s plan to hollow out the D.C. voucher program this president, who has spoken so passionately about the importance of education, is playing rank politics with the education of poor children. It is an outrage.”

What do you really think, Juan?

“This reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not bode well for arguments to come about standards in the effort to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. It does not speak well of the promise of President Obama to be the ‘Education President,’ who once seemed primed to stand up for all children who want to learn and especially minority children.

And its time for all of us to get outraged about this sin against our children.”

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Heritage and WaPo Bring the Pain

April 20, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation published the results of the latest survey of where members of Congress sent/send their own children to school. The survey finds:

 • 44 percent of Senators and 36 percent of Representatives had ever sent their children to private schools. Among the general public, only 11 percent of American students attend private school.

• While members of the 111th Congress practice school choice for their own families, they should also support school choice policies for all of America’s families. A failed amendment offered by Senator John Ensign (R–NV) on behalf of the popular and successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program would have passed if Members of Congress who exercised school choice for theirown children had voted in favor of the amendment. The future of the D.C. voucher program is now uncertain.Approximately 20 percent of Members of the 111th Congress attended private high school themselves—nearly twice the rate of the American public.

The Washington Post editorialized on the study this morning:

The gap between what Congress practices and what it preaches was best illustrated by the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of a recent vote to preserve the program. The measure was defeated by the Senate 58 to 39; it would have passed if senators who exercised school choice for their own children had voted in favor. Alas, the survey doesn’t name names, save for singling out Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), architect of the language that threatens the program, for sending his children to private school and attending private school himself…

Mr. Duncan, in a recent interview, spoke eloquently of his family’s choice of Arlington as a place to live because of what he called the “determining factor” of schools. He told Science magazine: “My family has given up so much so that I could have the opportunity to serve; I didn’t want to try to save the country’s children and our educational system and jeopardize my own children’s education.” We don’t think it’s too much to expect our leaders to treat their constituents with the same fairness and regard they demand for their own families.

Next year, I’d love to see Heritage go in to even greater depth. Let’s see how many Congressmen sent their children to Anacostia High, etc. Let’s put the over/under at one.

I’ll take the under.

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Posted by matthewladner

The Hits Keep on Coming, Extended Dance Remix

April 18, 2009

 

As hard as Obama, Duncan, and Durbin try to minimize media attention to their efforts to kill D.C. vouchers with language slipped into an omnibus spending bill and Friday afternoon sneaky political tricks, the story just won’t go away. 

Since our latest summary of greatest hits, I have an op-ed in the WSJ.  Greg has a new piece in Pajamas Media.  Shikha Dalmia has a piece in Forbes.  Glenn Beck has devoted a segment of his Fox TV show to the issue.  Senator Ensign gave a speech describing his fight for D.C. vouchers and vowing to expand federal voucher programs to include special education nationwide.  Senator Lieberman will begin holding hearings on the re-authorization of D.C. vouchers next month.

If D.C. vouchers go down, they won’t go down quietly.  Politicians who break their word to abide by the evidence,  who would deny to others the choices and opportunities they enjoy, and who try to get away with sneaky Friday afternoon political tricks will have to account for their actions. 

Greg put it best in his PM piece:

“Vouchers may lose in D.C., but that doesn’t mean they’re not winning in the long term. Every successful movement loses some battles. Indeed, the more important the cause, the more we should expect the entrenched interests of the status quo to invest in fighting it off. That will inevitably mean some setbacks alongside the victories.

Where would we be today if Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham jail had just said, ‘Well, here I am in jail — I guess I’ve lost the fight’? King knew he wasn’t in jail because he was losing. He was in jail because he was winning.

And the cowards who put him in jail knew it just as well as he did.”

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Get Well Arne

April 18, 2009

Someone should send Arne Duncan a get well card.  A Friday afternoon passed without another sneaky political trick to kill the D.C. voucher program.  Maybe he was sick and just couldn’t muster the energy. 

Or maybe his conscience is getting to him and he could no longer betray his commitment to “do what works for kids” regardless of predisposition or ideology.  Maybe he was sick before and is now getting better.

Whatever the case may be, let us wish for the physical and policy health of the Secretary so that he does what is right by D.C. vouchers with good body and spirit.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

Are You Asking for a Challenge?

April 17, 2009

Over at Flypaper, Mike Petrilli found the opening paragraph of my WSJ op-ed unpersuasive:

“On education policy, appeasement is about as ineffective as it is in foreign affairs. Many proponents of school choice, especially Democrats, have tried to appease teachers unions by limiting their support to charter schools while opposing private school vouchers. They hope that by sacrificing vouchers, the unions will spare charter schools from political destruction.”

Has Mike become a fan of appeasement and declared that he has reached “education reform in our time”?  No, but he believes that his anti-voucher/pro-charter beltway buddies are principled in holding their views:

“I challenge Jay to name one person he knows who supports charter schools but opposes vouchers because he or she hopes to appease the unions. I hang out with a lot of these folks and it’s clear to me that most of them oppose vouchers either because of queasiness over church/state issues or because they don’t want public funds going to schools that don’t face any public transparency or accountability requirements. ”

Of course, there is no way to prove who’s right about this because it involves knowing people’s motivations.  If people are willing to let vouchers die because they are eager to protect charters, they won’t exactly go around telling people (or even themselves) that their views are based more on political calculation than principle.  They’ll invent reasons for their views, like being uneasy about church/state issues or having concerns about accountability, even if those are not their true motivations.

So why do I believe that the anti-voucher/pro-charter view is largely a political calculation rather than a principled position?  Well, because most people who hold this view are not consistent in their principles.  If church/state issues are the problem for the anti-voucher/pro-charter crowd, why don’t they oppose Pell Grants or the Day Care Tuition Tax Credit, both of which are vouchers that include religious schools?  If their objection is principled, then we would expect them to be consistent in applying that principle.

And if their objection is the lack of public transparency and accountability, why don’t they advocate for whatever regulations on vouchers they believe are necessary and desirable?  It is simply untrue to say that current voucher programs “don’t face any public transparency or accountability requirements.”  And if people thought even more regulations would be beneficial, the principled position would be to support vouchers with those regulations.  After all, there is nothing magical about the word “public” that makes schools accountable or transparent, so whatever regulations people prefer could be imposed on vouchers as easily as on district or charter schools. 

Of course, I think much of that regulation is unnecessary for accountability and undesirable for schools whether they are district, charter, or voucher schools, but there is nothing in principle that makes one type of school more impervious to accountability regulation than another.  A principled position for believers in choice and competition would be to support charters and vouchers and advocate for a particular regulatory regime, regardless of whether it applied to charters or vouchers.

So if the objections to vouchers among some charter supports are not based on principles, it is reasonable to suspect that they are based on political calculations.  We’ve already rehearsed this argument in an earlier post and I’m too polite to name names, but if you think hard it won’t be a challenge to come up with a the names of a bunch of people.

(edited for typos)

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

You’re Locked in Here with Me!

April 16, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

The Watchmen has a great scene where one of the heroes is unmasked and sent to prison. Needless to say, the place is swimming in criminal anxious to kill him. Our hero, a rather rough-edged sort of chap, is assaulted in line by a prisoner far larger than himself and using a makeshift knife to boot.

Not only does our hero quickly disable his attacker, for good measure, he smashes a plate of glass, grabs a container of hot cooking grease, and douses the bloke who dared to assault him. As the prison guards dragged him away, he growled out “You don’t seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you…YOU’RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!!!!!”

You can watch this, grisly violence and all, here: 

Now much gloom surrounds the fight over DC vouchers. Jay even seems to refer to them in the past tense in the Wall Street Journal. Could it be, however, that we’ve misread things? Perhaps we’re not locked in the prison with Dick Durbin. Perhaps he is locked in the prison with us.

Mike Petrilli writes:

Now Messrs. Obama and Duncan find themselves in a Vietnam-style quagmire. They’ve crushed the hopes and dreams of 200 low-income D.C. families while staking out the otherwise-reasonably-decent position that 1,700 youngsters already in the program should be protected until they graduate. Yet even that outcome is in doubt, as the program’s enemies strive to kill it outright. Meanwhile, both are vulnerable to personal attacks, with the President’s children in an elite private school and the Secretary admitting that he chose a (public) school outside the District for his daughter because he didn’t want to “jeopardize my own children’s education.”

The time has come for both to learn some key lessons. First: though it might look like a teapot, the D.C. voucher program is capable of causing a major tempest that isn’t going to end anytime soon. Second: if you want Congress to cough up funds to keep the program’s current students in their schools, it’s going to take a fight–an affirmative fight by you in defense of vouchers that work for poor kids! And third: don’t fear such a fight, because the facts–not to mention a compelling human narrative–are on your side.

This fight rids us of all illusions- you are either with the kids, or with the unions. Period. You either believe in evidence based education reform, or you do not. No middle ground. If you are a Democrat, you must choose whether you are a hero or a zero. If you want to be a zero, are you willing to throw 1,700 kids under the bus in order to do it?

No amount of complaining by policy wonks, of course, is going to change the political realities on this. It’s not hard to imagine, however, the DC Parents drenching the zeros in the political equivalent of hot grease.

In today’s Wall Street Journal Jay makes a lot of good points about the teacher unions and their true feelings about charter schools.  Along the way, however, he says Obama has “done union bidding by killing the D.C. voucher program.”  This is likely true, but readers should not think that all attempts to save the program have run their course.  Senator Lieberman has stated that he plans to hold hearings about the program in May.  Senator Feinstein said in March that if the official evaluation by the Department of Ed found positive results (which it did) then she too would support extending the program. Negative press and public pressure calling on Obama to support reauthorizing the program has been increasing daily. 

Congress and, most importantly, President Obama, still have an opportunity to do the right thing, stand by their stated principles, and reauthorize a program that has been scientifically proven to help disadvantaged D.C. schoolchildren improve their lives. 

DC kids would tell Jay (although certainly with less cheese):

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Posted by matthewladner

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