Moderators
Delegates
Recent Caucuses
Search
Voucher impact
A bill to give school vouchers to students in the lowest performing Chicago schools is working its way through the Legislature. What do you believe the impact would be? What are the potential pluses and minuses?
So much for Chicago school reform, Arne Duncan's "Chicago miracle," Renaissance 2010 and fixing broken schools. Mayor Daley has now given up on his own reform. He has historically opposed school vouchers but has now flipped and signed on to Rev. Meeks' voucher bill, giving away badly needed public school dollars to send more students to Catholic & private schools (including Meeks'). This, even after major studies on the nation's oldest voucher program in Milwaukee show zero net gains for students.
Milwaukee's two-decade old voucher program (the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program) is a bust. 20 years, millions of dollars and lots of divisive politics funded by the extreme right-wing Bradley Foundation, have done nothing to improve measurable learning outcomes for the city's 87,000 mainly black, Latino and poor kids.This according to a major study done by pro-voucher researchers at the University of Arkansas (http://www.news.wisc.edu/17934).
Daley took control of Chicago's schools because he thought he could tie his own political fortunes to the early successes of school reform. But with the failure of his own and Duncan's Renaissance 2010 initiative, combined with the state's financial collapse, he's shifting to vouchers as a bailout plan.
But vouchers won't do anything to improve the funding situation. Nor will it improve teaching or learning outcomes. They will only serve to reproduce inequities and the widening gap in our two-tiered system of public education.
The real goal of vouchers is to divert money from public education to private education. At a time when our public schools are sorely under funded, it is unconscionable to take badly-needed dollars from public institutions. This is particularly troubling when examining the effect of voucher programs on student performance.
Milwaukee's voucher program has been in effect for two decades, so it is a natural place to start. A recent research project (University of Arkansas) pointed to the fact that fourth graders in Milwaukee's voucher system were actually less proficient in reading and math that comparable fourth graders elsewhere. A recent study of Florida's voucher system ( Northwestern University) found little difference between voucher and non-voucher students. It is natural to be skeptical about solutions that cost millions of dollars and have questionable results!
Most of our state's top performing schools are public schools, many of them in Chicago. This is particularly impressive when the low-income level of these students is examined.
Public schools must accept all students, even those with identified social and emotional needs, cognitive delays, learning disabilities and language differences. Public schools reflect the multi-linguistic, pluralistic society in which we live. Consider how Senator Meeks' school might react to such challenges. Consider too that Meeks has proposed SB2494, a program which would give vouchers to students in public schools to attend non-public schools of their choice.
Meeks' Salem Baptist Academy on the city's south side acknowledges on its website that it seeks students "who are able to achieve at grade level with a minimum amount of special assistance". It also diminishes the applicant pool further by stating that it wants students who "score at the 50 percentile or above" on standardized tests. In return the school will "emphasize the lordship of Jesus Christ over all activities". Should this school be supported with public tax dollars?
Passing a voucher bill will only serve to separate students according to income and religion. Most private schools, such as the one run by Meeks, cannot meet the needs of underperforming children plagued by societal problems most often associated with poverty.
The real solution is to work at making every public school a school of choice. Public schools need the resources to address the unique challenges that students bring into the classroom. Siphoning off tax dollars to fund private schools is a poor investment - if improving public education and educational opportunities for all is the real goal.
The idea of vouchers has been raised more than once. Both its supporters and detractors have valid viewpoints and the effect will have immediate and long-term ramifications regardless of the legislative outcome. The list below (by NO means, all-encompassing) exemplifies “food for thought”.
Impact:
The “nice” problem would be that there would be a "flood" of applications from willing, eager, and responsive parents wanting “more” for their children. This, “flood”, however, will be contingent upon advertising. (This is an entire dissertation on its own). What, unfortunately, will occur in too many instances is the "you can bring the horse to water but not make him drink it" outcome, i.e., seemingly not enough interest or timely participants. This will then trigger: “This is why they’re from low-performing schools”.
In addition to the systemic questions that are raised, we can’t ignore the economic ones. There will certainly be job and tax income losses to certain communities due to the shift of populations. I can see the editorials now: “Where is the money coming from to pay for this considering the state of Illinois?”
Let’s also not forget the outcries of: (1) teachers' unions at the loss of jobs and about how "lowest performing" is determined and (2) neighborhoods and parents of the receiving schools of how their children will be influenced, and test scores lowered. This will be simultaneous to questions raised about which schools are eligible and how vouchers amounts are determined. There will also be in the inevitable comparison to the processes used to get students into Chicago magnet schools.
And last, but certainly not least, for some, this will be viewed as an indictment or acknowledgement of the failure of the public school system.
To not seem to be the “voice of doom”, I’d like to note the following, if the bill does indeed meet with approval.
Pluses:
1) Competition should encourage improvements across the board
2) None of us would argue about the need for a better educational chance for at-risk students
3) This would proved enhanced role models for both students and parents
4) Transformation within the community of transferring students (hopefully due to better role models, less disengagement by students, increased parent engagement, etc.)—NOTE: This community transformation could also be a viewed as a “minus” by the receiving community.
Minuses:
1) Is the system in place to actually "place" these students in a systemic fashion and provide the “education needed” and resources for an underserved population of students?
2) How will the unions react?
3) Are the new schools ready and able to handle an influx of students?
4) Will the new schools have the tools needed by "lower-performing" students, e.g., counseling, tutoring, after school programming, hot lunches, transportation?
5) Will there be a rise in violence for those students "crossing into" the “territories” of others?
6) Will there be other costs not covered by the vouchers? If so, how will these be addressed?
7) What happens to those students who can not adapt to the new environment, culture, expectations or pressures?
Although a day late, since the House voted against the voucher bill yesterday, I don’t think that vouchers are the answer. Our organization has been focused on school reform efforts to improve the quality of public neighborhood school options that don’t necessarily corner a parent to have to choose a bus ride away, cross their fingers and hope to win the lottery, or be selected based on often non-transparent criteria. Thus, the option of vouchers, much like the recent local and national reform efforts around creating new schools through Renaissance 2010 and charters tend to do just that. I believe current efforts and vouchers will continue to negatively impact funding from the students and district, and thus away from what really needs to take place when it comes to improving our neighborhood schools.
The recently proposed voucher legislation did not provide full funding for private school tuitions; nor does it guarantee any and all applicants will be accepted even if you have the funds, so they can turn you down for no reason; nor does it apply to any private school you’d love to have your child attend. The other “what if” that crosses my mind is whether there would have been this much bi-partisan support were by eligible Chicago families could have the option of using the vouchers across school district lines such as Oak Park or Evanston where families reside across the street. While I am not against the idea of vouchers fully, where Chicago public education is today, vouchers would only add to the confusion and mix of CPS still not developing comprehensive and community-inclusive strategies to help reform neighborhood schools and not fully address how we are going to be responsible for educating all children with high quality opportunities no matter where they live, what their race and ethnicity is, or whether their parent(s) believes applying elsewhere fits into their own lifestyle.
The research exists on what works – just refer to the past few research documents that the Consortium on Chicago School Research has found (i.e. Organizing for School Improvement, or the document on students who attended closed schools and their current educational opportunities provided as a result); However, the system’s ‘will’ to do just that with our neighborhood schools has not been at the forefront of CPS’ efforts. Not that it will be easy. Were CPS serious about improving schools for all students, it seems they would jump at working with groups such as our organization’s Peer Parent Education Network with all of the proactive solutions and tools this parent group has developed to increase positive relationships between parents and schools, educate parents policies and expectations for high quality schools, and proactively attempt to address how we improve the quality of neighborhood schools. While CPS recently presented on its new strategy to close and open schools with communities involved, it still puzzles me as to why they talk about harnessing missed opportunities, but continue to limit their own strategies that increase parental and community involvement where when done right, could become major resources from within the community. By the way, about half of the families we work with believe the focus should be on improving neighborhood schools in spite of them having their children in schools outside of their neighborhoods and in R2010 and charter schools; thus, they have a big interest in seeing this through.
In hindsight, I think the voucher bill went sorely under people’s radar, mine included. Before anyone expected, it had sailed through the executive and rules committees, and were called to the floors; even the Black caucus was split. In the end, I believe that there were not as many people in favor of this, but felt that their voice to the legislators would be too little, too late as people once learned of all of the major and bi-partisan legislators that were in favor of it. However, two days before the House voted against the bill, groups such as ours did an educational campaign to remind people that whatever their perspective, they should let their voice be heard. I believe this is a strong reminder that collective action can result in the people’s voices being heard, and that not speaking out is equivalent to our approval of what our legislators believe is in the interest of their constituents. This is a huge victory for that once silent majority, and I encourage us to work more collectively on education reform matters that are aimed on improving education opportunities for the majority of Chicago children, not the exceptions. Choice will always be there, but why not collectively encourage our system to focus on making neighborhood schools choice schools versus letting them fizzle out, so that families don’t necessarily have to leave their own neighborhoods.