Who are you going to believe, a comforting ideology or “experts” with their “analysis of available evidence”?
A new study out of Stanford concludes that voucher programs do not improve educational outcomes. (Unfortunately, I read this immediately after reading a piece that said contrary evidence will cause ideologically committed people to adhere even more firmly to their factually unsupported beliefs. So, maybe I’m doing more harm than good by sharing the Standford report.)
Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs. In the few cases in which test scores increased, other factors, namely increased public accountability, not private school competition, seem to be more likely drivers. And high rates of attrition from private schools among voucher users in several studies raises concerns.
. . .
In the only area in which there is evidence of small improvements in voucher schools—in high school graduation and college enrollment rates—there are no data to show whether the gains are the result of schools shedding lower-performing students or engaging in positive practices. Also, high school graduation rates have risen sharply in public schools across the board in the last 10 years, with those increases much larger than the small effect estimated on graduation rates from attending a voucher school.
. . .
The report suggests that giving every parent and student a great “choice” of educational offerings is better accomplished by supporting and strengthening neighborhood public schools with a menu of proven policies, from early childhood education to after-school and summer programs to improved teacher pre-service training to improved student health and nutrition programs. All of these yield much higher returns than the minor, if any, gains that have been estimated for voucher students. (Emphasis added)
The report also notes that voucher evaluations often do not reflect the hidden costs — such as erosion of the quality of the teaching profession by private school practices such as hiring younger, lower cost teachers and not compensating them at a long-term level necessary to sustain them throughout their career. This depletes the level of experience available in the pool of teachers. It also notes that voucher schools are able to avoid retaining higher cost students and that there are administrative costs associated with managing voucher programs. It also argues that there is a cost to voucher programs in the form of distracting from potentially more successful strategies like early childhood education and nutrition programs.
There are many evils of the voucher system, but the biggest ones are: 1. The profit motive. Profiteers make a profit on charter schools by hiring newly minted, inexperienced teachers. They either don’t give any fringe benefits, or very limited ones. People newly out of teacher training don’t think much about retirement or health insurance. The money that would have gone for teacher retirement and other fringes goes into the profietters’ pockets; experienced teachers won’t work for charter schools. 2. There is very simply no substitute for experience. A teacher with 30 years’ of experience knows so much more about how to reach kids, how to identify learning disabilities, health problems, vision and hearing problems, how to engage kids, how to make learning fun, how to engage parents and so many other things that inexperienced teachers don’t know. This is why charter schools will never do a better job than public schools; 3. Charters and private schools do not have the accountability that public schools do. They do not have the community involvement, either. Results prove they do not do a better job overall.