DC Voucher Buzz Part Trois

April 9, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
U.S. News and World Report’s story on the evaluation managed not to swallow the press release spin.

Over at the evangelical anti-religionists site, they’re celebrating their victory but warning their followers that the voucher boogey man might still arise

Over at Cato @ Liberty, Cato Vice President David Boaz makes the point that Secretary Duncan has claimed that vouchers can only help about 1% of DC kids, but that this is a supply side (funding) rather than a demand side issue. Boaz also notes that for all of Secretary Duncan’s talk of making “all the schools better” that he ran Chicago public schools for 7 years, and none of them were good enough for Barack and Michelle Obama’s children.

Also from Cato, Neal McCluskey makes the case that the bloom is off the rose of Duncan as a reformer. The Center for Education reform reaches a similar conclusion in Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain.

At Flypaper, Andy Smarick makes the point not to automatically assume that Secretary Duncan knew about the results of the program before Congress voted to kill it. Ed is Watching however responds with a number of questions about the conduct of the Department

UPDATE: Russ Whitehurst writes for Brookings that he finds it likely that Secretary Duncan did not sit on the results of the evaluation given the procedures in place. Fair enough. Whitehurst goes on to note that some procedures from how the Department conducted such business changed after he left in November 2008. His concluding paragraphs:

There is, however, substantial reason to believe that the secretary didn’t want to draw attention to the report. It was released on a Friday, whereas IES stopped releasing reports on Fridays several years ago when an important report just happened to come out on that day and critics accused the agency of trying to bury it. And there was no department press release or press briefing, which typically occur for important reports, including previous annual reports from this evaluation.

The future of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is far more important than the contretemps over when the secretary knew what. Many in Congress are on the record that their support of the program in the future would be contingent on findings from the evaluation. Many cited the results from last year’s evaluation, which found no effects on academic achievement, as the basis for voting to terminate the program. Was that a smoke screen to cover their real concerns – separation of church and state, opposition by teachers unions, whatever – or did they really mean that they would be guided by evidence on the program’s effectiveness? The 2009 Appropriations Act provides that funding for the program will end next year UNLESS Congress votes to reauthorize it. There is plenty of time for Congress to hold hearings, deliberate, and make a decision that is informed by the most recent results from the evaluation.

If I were the Denver Post and Secretary Duncan claimed that the Wall Street Journal made no attempt to contact him, and then had that assertion promptly refuted by my own lying eyes, I’d be more than a little suspicious. Nor does it help much that they tried to deep six the report on a Friday afternoon. Nor as the Denver Post columnist noted, does what Duncan had to say about the program make a whole lot of sense. Furthermore, the Department may have sat on the report even if Secretary Duncan really didn’t know anything about it. It’s also possible that the results leaked, leading to a rushed effort to kill the program.

It is also possible that it really just does take 4 or 5 months to process a study, and that the unions issued their kill order and Congress moved quickly to comply. If Russ Whitehurst and Andy Smarick say that it is likely that this is what happened, I can accept that as a very real possibility and even as a probability.

None of this can possibly excuse however the shameful attempt to bury and spin the report, or the glaring difference between the rhetoric and reality on education policy emerging from this administration. If the administration is going to talk the talk on evidence based reform, they need to walk the walk.


The Democratic Party of Story, Myth and Song

April 8, 2009

 (Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Shakespeare’s Henry V is a great play because, among many other reasons, it is deeply revealing about the national ideals of the British. Henry, pressed onto the throne at a young age after a checkered youth, rises the occasion when the odds are deeply against him. Shakespeare’s Henry is at once brave, inspiring, fierce, merciful, eloquent, God-fearing and even multi-ethnic (Shakespeare emphasized Henry’s Welsh lineage for contemporaneous political reasons).

Now of course the real Henry V didn’t begin to live up to these noble ideals. In fact, he ordered a group of French prisoners executed during the Battle of Agincourt. When his knights refused to murder, he had to order his archers to do the butchery.

Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? Shakespeare’s plays tell us about the aspirational ideals of the British- how they wanted to see themselves.

Democrats, before and after the creation of the New Deal coalition, have long seen themselves as champions of the little guy. The reality, of course, is that as a broad tent party, the Democrats have not always lived up to this ideal. Over the years some rather unsavory factions have drifted into and out of the Democratic coalition. The Democratic Party I know however-from books-deserves some credit for real moral courage. Sometimes.

In 1910, a group of Progressive Republicans teamed with Democrats to strip the Speaker of the House of power, including the power to appoint committee chairmen. Chairmen came to be appointed by seniority, which not only decentralized power in the House, but enormously empowered Democrats from the old Confederacy. The Republican Party was the party of Lincoln, you see. After southern racists saw to it that former Slaves couldn’t vote, Republicans were no threat to win an election in the south.

The Old Bulls, as the committee chairmen came to be known, ruled their fiefdoms with an iron fist. They decided which bills would get hearings, and which would die. They said jump, and the rest of the committee said “how high?” Disproportionately, the Old Bulls were southern segregationists.

So just for example, any change in American tax policy had to begin in the House Ways and Means committee, and there was the Right Honorable Bubba Klan serving in his 5th term as chairman. If you guessed that the Right Honorable Darrell T. Klux was biding his time waiting to replace Bubba when he finally went to pick cotton in Hell’s sharecropping plantation, give yourself a gold-star.

Think that might give Bubba and Darrell a little leverage in keeping African Americans down? You bet. The Old Bulls ran the House for a mere 60 years and change.

This however is not the Democratic Party of today. The Democratic Party of today was forged in opposition to these bigots, fought them, and finally defeated them at great cost through the prolonged application of blood, sweat, tears and moral courage.

In the Shakespearean telling, liberal Democrats grew to hate the oppression of Southern Democrats. The United States Supreme Court began chipping away at Jim Crow in the 1940s. Harry Truman integrated the military unilaterally. Martin Luther King’s voice sent the English language into battle, and his courage and conviction galvanized the conscience of the nation. Finally, when John F. Kennedy was struck down by an assassin’s bullet, Lyndon Baines Johnson, himself a southerner, defeated the Old Bulls by building the greatest tribute possible to the fallen President by passing the key elements of his previously stalled agenda-including (amazingly) the Civil Rights Act. Finally, in the wake of Watergate, progressives overthrew the Old Bulls by eliminating seniority.

Much is true about this story. Of course, like Henry V, much has been air-brushed out- like a series of Democratic Presidents including Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt who failed to do so much as to raise a finger to aid disenfranchised African Americans. The Old Bulls were powerful, you see, and to get along you had to go along with some things, even if they were shameful. You can learn to live with that, in return for power.

I’ve argued previously that today’s alliance between progressives and education reactionaries will not and cannot last, because the ideals of progressives are so completely at odds with today’s status-quo. It could however last a good long while- the call of cynicism is strong. It whispers in your ear that you have to accept certain things in order to do good things.

This much is certain- the cynics are going to have a hard time convincing anyone they are doing the right thing by throwing 1,700 DC kids under the bus simply to keep their reactionaries happy. When it comes to reauthorizing the DC program, which Democratic Party will show up- a group living up to their ideals or to their short term interests?

 Why do I think there is still a chance for DC Opportunity Scholarships? Because of people like Diane Feinstein. Read her quote again:

Why should the poor child not have the same access as the wealthy child does? That is all he is asking for. He is saying let’s try it for 5 years, and then let’s compare progress and let’s see if this model can work for these District youngsters…I have gotten a lot of flak because I am supporting it. And guess what. I do not care. I have finally reached the stage in my career, I do not care. I am going to do what I sincerely believe is right.

These are not the words of a cynic, or a stary-eyed naif, but rather someone who knows that she has a limited time in this world, and wants to do what is right.  In the end, I believe many Democrats will find moral courage to match that of Feinstein, but it is going to be a hell of fight to get there.


Harsanyi: Duncan’s Fundamental Dishonesty

April 8, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan yesterday. The encounter did not go well for Secretary Duncan. He claimed that the Wall Street Journal editorial was “fundamentally dishonest” and maintained that no one had even tried to contact him, despite the newspaper’s contention that it did, repeatedly.

The Wall Street Journal, however, provided Harsanyi with evidence of extensive contacts with high level high ranking Duncan subordinates. Harsanyi wrote:

When I called the Wall Street Journal, I discovered a different — that is, meticulously sourced and exceedingly convincing — story, including documented e-mail conversations between the author and higher-ups in Duncan’s office. The voucher study — which showed progress compounding yearly — had been around since November and its existence is mandated by law. So at best, Duncan was willfully ignorant.

So let’s review. Harasanyi essentially asks Joanne Jacob’s question “What did Arne Duncan know and when did he know it?” directly to Secretary Duncan. His response: I KNEW NOTHING!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looks as though the very next thing out of Secretary Duncan’s mouth was a denunciation of the Wall Street Journal and then a claim that they had made no effort to contact him. Given that this is empirically falsifiable, it certainly doesn’t add much to the Sergeant Schulz routine on his knowledge regarding the study.

Harsanyi goes on to discuss the incoherence of what Duncan had to say about the program:

But the most “fundamentally dishonest” aspect of the affair was Duncan’s feeble argument against the program. First, he strongly intimated that since only 1 percent of children were able to “escape” (and, boy, that’s some admission) from D.C. public schools through this program, it was not worth saving.

So, you may ask, why not allow the 1 percent to turn into 2 percent or 10 percent, instead of scrapping the program? After all, only moments earlier, Duncan claimed that there was no magic reform bullet and it would take a multitude of innovations to fix education.

Then, Duncan, after thrashing the scholarship program and study, emphasized that he was opposed to “pulling kids out of a program” in which they were “learning.” Geez. If they’re learning in this program, why kill it? And if the program was insignificant, as Duncan claimed, why keep these kids in it? Are these students worse off? Or are they just inconveniencing the rich kids?

Duncan can’t be honest, of course. Not when it’s about politics and paybacks to unions who are about as interested in reforming education as teenagers are in calculus.

Again with the magic bullet! The question isn’t whether vouchers are a magic bullet or not, but whether they help disadvantaged children learn better. The evidence is clear- THEY DO.

UPDATE: Mark Hemingway weighs in on the Denver Post column at NRO’s the Corner.


DC Vouchers: Not Dead Yet

April 8, 2009

They’re only mostly dead.  But like in Princess Bride, truth can revive it. 

I have a piece in NRO this morning to see if we can revive the mostly dead with some truth.


More DC Voucher Buzz

April 7, 2009

Patrick McIlheran at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asks, “And what happens to results showing school choice works?”  His answer: “Well, if it’s in the hands of a federal government hostile to the idea, it gets covered up… The students were tested in the spring, the results analyzed in the summer and the preliminary findings given to the team working with the Department of Education in November. Why, then, didn’t the department chime in when Congress was ending choice?”

Joanne Jacobs asks: “What did Education Secretary Arne Duncan know about the study’s findings and when did he know it? Duncan had to know during the voucher reauthorization debate that D.C.’s program is advancing students by nearly half a year, editorializes the Wall Street Journal. Why didn’t he speak up?”

Michelle Malkin writes: “It would have been helpful to know about a Department of Education study on D.C.’s school choice initiative before the Democrats — beholden to teachers unions allergic to competition — voted to starve the innovative program benefiting poor, minority children in the worst school district in the nation.  Somehow, the results of the study conducted last spring didn’t surface until now.”

As Matt has already noted, Whitney Tilson of Democrats for Education Reform has chimed in warning that charter supporters shouldn’t think they are safe if vouchers get squeezed.  As he put it: “First they came for the vouchers. I remained silent because I was not for vouchers….”

I’ve already noted, Neal McCluskey has an excellent post on the impotence of “tough talk” on education from the Obama administration when they won’t act to defend choice.

Lisa Snell argues: “Kids in the D.C. Opportunity scholarship program deserve the same chance to go to a higher quality school as President Obama’s own children. The taxpayers of the United States deserve at least one education program that actually gets results in exchange for the money.”

And this photo on “From the Pen” says it all.

“Democrats Block School Choice… Again”

Republicans made us do it! Honest!


Whitney Tilson: First They Came for Vouchers…

April 7, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Whitney Tilson of Democrats for Education Reform weighed in this morning in his email blast:

I think Duncan is doing a great job overall — but am still glad that the WSJ editorial page is holding his feet to the fire on renewing the DC voucher program:

“Education Secretary Arne Duncan did a public service last week when he visited New York City and spoke up for charter schools and mayoral control of education. That was the reformer talking. The status quo Mr. Duncan was on display last month when he let Congress kill a District of Columbia voucher program even as he was sitting on evidence of its success.”

Here are John Kirtley’s comments:

“Democrat reformers really need to think about the last sentence of this article. I know they think ‘we can let vouchers go undefended, and we’ll just defend and advance charters’.

If those who wish to kill reform are successful in killing off private school choice, trust me–they will redouble their considerable efforts to kill charters.

You had better hope you are invincible by then.”

To paraphrase the poem by Martin Niemoller:

“First they came for the vouchers. I remained silent because I was not for vouchers….”

Let the record show that Whitney Tilson was the first prominent Democrat in what we have to hope will be a growing number of Democrats who stood up for what is right on this issue.

(edited for clarity)


The Credibility of the Obama Administration Is on the Line

April 7, 2009

The gap between the Obama administration’s rhetoric and action on education policy is growing larger each day.  I’ve written previously that Obama and Duncan talk a lot about charter schools, merit pay, and getting rid of bad teachers, but those rhetorical priorities are almost completely absent as legislative priorities. 

And, as Matt has pointed out in NRO this week, Obama declared that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.”  Again, those lofty words do not match their actions.  When the DC voucher program produced positive results, they failed to release them in time to inform the congressional debate over killing the program, they buried the release on a Friday afternoon, and they attempted to spin the results as somehow disappointing.  Their actions were not guided by their rhetoric about ignoring ideology and doing what works.

Neal McCluskey captured the remarkable impotence of Obama’s “tough talk” on education:

So the Obama Administration is hostile to school choice. What, then, is its plan for reform? Here’s what Secretary Duncan recently told the Washington Post after dismissing DC’s voucher program:

The way you help them [all kids] is by challenging the status quo where it’s not working and coming back with dramatically better schools and doing it systemically.

Oh, challenge the status quo and deliver “dramatically better schools”! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” I mean, that’s powerful stuff, along the lines of how do you get to Mars? You fly there! Obviously, the important thing is howyou challenge the status quo and provide better schools, and for decades we’ve been trying sound-bite-driven reform like Duncan offered the Post, and exhibited in his recent declaration that he will “come down like a ton of bricks” on any state that doesn’t use waste-rewarding “stimulus” money effectively. And how will we know when a use is ineffective? Why, we’ll make states report on test scores, teacher quality, and other things, and then threaten to withhold money if outcomes don’t get better. Of course, we know how well that’s worked before. Simply put, tough talk from politicians has delivered pretty much nothing good for kids or taxpayers.

Many of of the rhetorical points made by Obama and Duncan have been great.  But now it’s time to prove that those words can be matched by action.  The credibility of the Obama administration is on the line.


Rotherham Seems to Take a Dim View of the Intellectual Honesty and Courage of Democrats

April 6, 2009

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Over at Eduwonk, Andy describes the gains among D.C. Opportunity Scholarships as “modest” and says he doesn’t think this evaluation will change many minds.

Oi vey

On this blog, I’ve previously complained about what I viewed as an inappropriately high bar as the focus on the evaluation in an Intention to Treat model. Some of you disagree, but my view is that the question that most people want to know is whether the kids who used a voucher have improved performance, or not. The second year evaluation found that the answer to this question was yes.

Because some kids won the voucher lottery but then didn’t find a spot in a private school, under the high bar evaluation they went into the experimental group. Other kids who lost a lottery but wound up going to private school anyway went into the control group.

So basically, the kids who actually did receive a voucher and used it had to make gains large enough to drag these other kids as a group over the level of statistical significance.

I’ll be damned if they didn’t do it in the third year of the program. Modest? You can’t possibly be serious.

Andy doesn’t think that evidence is going to sway anyone. Really? Why did the President say:

Secretary Duncan will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.”

Why did Senator Durbin say “Allowing the program to continue through end of next school year (2009–2010) will give Congress a chance to examine all the evidence to determine whether or not this program works.”

Why did Senator Feinstein say “Why should the poor child not have the same access as the wealthy child does? That is all he is asking for. He is saying let’s try it for 5 years, and then let’s compare progress and let’s see if this model can work for these District youngsters.”

Senator Feinstein went on “I have gotten a lot of flak because I am supporting it. And guess what. I do not care. I have finally reached the stage in my career, I do not care. I am going to do what I sincerely believe is right. I have spent the time. I have gone to the schools, I have seen what works, I have seen what does not work. Believe it or not, I have always been sort of a political figure for the streets as opposed to the policy wonks. I know different things work on the streets that often do not work on the bookshelves. So we will see.”

Indeed we will, and now we have seen. Senator Feinstein should be applauded for her courage. It’s too bad she didn’t get to see this report before Congress voted to require reauthorization.

Perhaps Andy thinks that evidence won’t change minds because of this letter sent by the NEA demanding that Congress kill the DC program. Perhaps Feinstein’s courage really is in short supply.

There are 1,700 kids that just surmounted a very high bar that really hope that this is not the case.


DC Voucher Buzz

April 6, 2009

Here’s a summary (with my comments) of what people are saying about the new DC voucher study as well as the manipulation of its release:

Wall Street Journal — There is a great editorial this morning.  It condemns Duncan and the U.S. Dept. of Ed. for failing to release the positive voucher results in time for the congressional debate on killing the DC program last month: “Voucher recipients were tested last spring. The scores were analyzed in the late summer and early fall, and in November preliminary results were presented to a team of advisers who work with the Education Department to produce the annual evaluation. Since Education officials are intimately involved in this process, they had to know what was in this evaluation even as Democrats passed (and Mr. Obama signed) language that ends the program after next year.”

The piece also condemns the hypocrsiy of the Obama administration declaring that they will make education policy based on evidence, not ideology, while hiding and spinning the positive DC results: “Opponents of school choice for poor children have long claimed they’d support vouchers if there was evidence that they work. While running for President last year, Mr. Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that if he saw more proof that they were successful, he would “not allow my predisposition to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn . . . You do what works for the kids.” Except, apparently, when what works is opposed by unions.”

And the WSJ has a quote from yours truly about how the DC results are consistent with evaluations of other voucher programs, where students initially suffer from transition difficulties but benefits compound over time.

National Review Online — Our very own Matt Ladner has a piece this morning in NRO that contains many of the same themes as in the WSJ piece described above.  In addition, Matt emphasizes his Rawlsian argument about the justice of vouchers: “If you have any doubt as to whether this program should exist, ask yourself a simple question: Would you enroll your children in violence-ridden D.C. public schools with decades-long records of academic failure? Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t. Barack and Michelle Obama didn’t. Members of Congress don’t.  What about you? Would you enroll your children in those schools?”  And Matt notes that vouchers in DC produced superior results for a fraction of what is spent on students in DC public schools.

Washington Post — The Post objected to Secretary of Ed Arne Duncan’s rush to shut down the DC voucher program in the face of positive results.  “We had hoped that Mr. Duncan, who prides himself in being a pragmatist interested in programs that work, would have a more open mind…. So it’s perplexing that Mr. Duncan, without any further discussion or analysis, would be so quick to kill a program that is supported by local officials and that has proven popular with parents. Unless, of course, politics enters the calculation in the form of Democratic allies in Congress who have been shameless in their efforts to kill vouchers.”

Cato— Andrew Coulson emphasized the positive results results at a fraction of the DC public school spending per pupil. 

Eduwonk— Andy maintains his beltway credentials by dismissing the importance of evidence in deciding the fate of vouchers.  So, is Andy saying that Obama lied when he declared that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works”?  Maybe I’m naive enough to believe that evidence makes a difference in public policy.  If it doesn’t at all, then let’s shut down the universities and think tanks and leave public policy to the brute force politics of organized interest groups, since that is apparently all that matters.

Andy does correctly identify how determined voucher opponents are to crush the DC program and suppress the evidence ir produces (by releasing it on a Friday afternoon and not having the study available in time for the congressional debate):  “For voucher opponents the program is like that scene in “Saving Private Ryan” where the Germans keep shooting the runner to make sure the message dies with him.  As long as the voucher program lives it carries a message, they must stop that.”

Flypaper has a few posts on the topic.  Mike Petrilli has some excellent comments: “Releasing bad news on a Friday afternoon is a time-honored tradition among governments of all political leanings. (The public is distracted by weekend plans; few people read the Saturday paper.) The Obama Administration is showing itself to be no different; it’s no coincidence that the latest (very positive) findings about the D.C. “Opportunity Scholarship Program” were released this afternoon. It creates a conundrum for Team Obama and its allies on Capitol Hill, all of whom want to kill the program (some sooner than later)… Keep in mind that, as Education Week just reported, almost every “gold-standard” study in education finds “null” results. So the fact that researchers could detect such dramatic impacts for reading is a very big deal. (And it’s not too surprising that the same can’t be said about math.)”  And he concludes: “President Obama has saidthat he will support vouchers if they are proven to work. Now’s his opportunity to show his commitment to pragmatism and post-partisanship, and go to the mat for this unusually effective experiment.”

Andy Smarick correctly notes that the Obama administration has failed in their attempt to bury the study results despite their best efforts of releasing them on a Friday afternoon.  He also comments on how odd it is that people are focusing all of this energy to kill a voucher program that costs a tiny fraction of what has been newly committed to education spending by the Obamites. 

But Andy also had an unpersuasive post suggesting that we should focus on shutting down the bad schools that can be found in both the public and private sectors rather than on allowing people to switch between sectors.  What’s strange about this argument is that it doesn’t describe the mechanism by which one identifies and replaces bad schools with better ones.  Isn’t that what choice does?  Saying that we should just get rid of the bad schools doesn’t explain how they get to be bad and how new ones are likely to be better.

There’s more out there, and more will come, but this is some of the buzz so far.


DoE agency attempts to Bury the Third Year DC Evaluation

April 3, 2009

DoE to DC kids

(Guest Post byMatthew Ladner)

The third year evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is out, and the results are POSITIVE.

I’ll leave a discussion of the results to others. I’m feeling more than a little perturbed by the blatant Machiavellian politics surrounding the use of the report. 

The Department of Education released this report today, on a Friday afternoon. This constitutes a completely obvious attempt to draw as little media attention as possible.

Worse still: WHERE WAS THIS REPORT DURING THE DEBATE ON THE FUTURE OF THE PROGRAM?

Let’s review: the Congress essentially voted to kill the program a few weeks ago, this report must have been sitting on some bureaucrat’s desk in the department of education. A number of Democrats, including President Obama by the way, have stated that they are open to the school vouchers depending upon the results of research.

A few weeks later, the Department releases the study in a way obviously calculated to draw the least amount of attention. I’m starting to read the report, but the press release looks to contain some negative spin as well.

The future of 1,700 students at stake, after all, and such attempts at manipulation are simply sickening.