A school choice study suppressed
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. And that’s a damned shame. The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Obama’s stimulus is sending some $100 billion to the nation’s school districts. What will he demand in return? The state budget passed by the New York legislature last week freezes funding for charters but increases it by more that $400 million for other public schools. Perhaps a visit to a charter school in Harlem would help Mr. Obama honor his reform pledge. “I’m looking at the data here in front of me,” Mr. Duncan told the New York Post. “Graduation rates are up. Test scores are up. Teacher salaries are up. Social promotion was eliminated. Dramatically increasing parental choice. That’s real progress.”
Mr. Duncan’s help in New York is in stark contrast to his department’s decision to sit on a performance review of the D.C. voucher program while Congress debated its future in March. The latest annual evaluation was finally released Friday, and it shows measurable academic gains. The Opportunity Scholarship Program provides $7,500 vouchers to 1,700 low-income families in D.C. to send their children to private schools. Ninety-nine percent of the children are black or Hispanic, and there are more than four applicants for each scholarship.
The 2008 report demonstrated progress among certain subgroups of children but not everyone. This year’s report shows statistically significant academic gains for the entire voucher-receiving population. Children attending private schools with the aid of the scholarships are reading nearly a half-grade ahead of their peers who did not receive vouchers. Voucher recipients are doing no better in math but they’re doing no worse. Which means that no voucher participant is in worse academic shape than before, and many students are much better off.
“There are transition difficulties, a culture shock upon entering a school where you’re expected to pay attention, learn, do homework,” says Jay Greene, an education scholar at the Manhattan Institute. “But these results fit a pattern that we’ve seen in other evaluations of vouchers. Benefits compound over time.”
It’s bad enough that Democrats are killing a program that parents love and is closing the achievement gap between poor minorities and whites. But as scandalous is that the Education Department almost certainly knew the results of this evaluation for months.
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.
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.
Mr. Duncan’s office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You’d think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program. A reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Duncan’s department didn’t want proof of voucher success to interfere with Senator Dick Durbin’s campaign to kill vouchers at the behest of the teachers unions.
Accountability? Transparency? Not much.
Read a round-up of reax on the news from Jay P. Greene and Matthew Ladner.
And more from Jeff Emanuel.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- It’s Tea Time! (The public is boiling mad) « Goodtimepolitics
- Department of Education school choice study supressed | Radio Vice Online
- The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (Public schools on April 17) « Goodtimepolitics
- Democrats Block School Choice...Again
- Southern Appeal » The right to choose . . .
- Don’t act surprised « Right Minded Online
- Detroit Public Schools plans closures, layoffs (Thanks Obama) « Goodtimepolitics
- Johnny Paycheck Unhinged: Take This Job and… Love It! LA Teachers Paid to NOT Teach « Frugal Café Blog Zone
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It’s no surprise that the Democrats could care less about the people they say they support. They want the victimhood for politcal and economic use but not the remedies to fix the victims plight.
It’s just so hard to understand why so many sheeple can’t see this and call the Dems to account.
It would not have stopped their agenda. There are no donations and lobbyists in home schooling and alternative education, only competition against their pet projects coming out of the public re-education camps.
In public education (actually all public financing), it’s influence more than success that determines who or what gets funded.
Yeah, we need more unions. /sarc
Anyone who doesn’t support school choice has no right whatsoever to bemoan the need for more tax dollars “for the children”, nor do they have any credibility when they say Obama (or any other liberal) cares about poor, minority families and wants to win the war on poverty.
School choice does that. Unlike a lot of government, tax-sponsored programs, it works and it gives kids who wouldn’t have an opportunity to attend a decent school.
This is pure selfishness on the part of teachers’ unions, and political pandering by politicians. They should be ashamed.
One step further…
The teachers union is comprised of more ne’er do wells than competent teachers. It’s about them being paid high sums of money for a crappy product. Unions as a whole have outlived their usefulness when it comes to doing the right thing for the rank and file. The union mantra has always been and always will be: “We want all the rights/benefits in the world and no responsibility”. High dollar price for a crappy product. More “change” we can believe in.
The Democrat social plan appears to be to kick the kids while they’re down.
Why no choice? The motives are looking more anti-social all the time.
So the liberal coda of ‘It’s for the children’ does not apply here. They need to change that slogan to ‘It’s for the unions’. Hypocrites, one and all.
Typical of the Dumocrats. They don’t want to do anything that ACTUALLY WORKS
‘It’s for my re-election’
Supressing the report was “for the children.”
If they are not in public schools how can we indoctrinate them?
We know best what’s for your children. Just be quiet, submit, and keep watching American Idol.
.
Very True. Because, “Journalists” today are turning as ‘Shoe-Throwers’, instead of true-reporting.
Yes, today, another “journalist” threw shoe at an Indian Minister.
It’s all for the children!
We can’t have some getting an education at the expense of others so obviously Obama decided nobody will get educated.
Just more “spreading the ignorance around.”
Think of how this will improve everyone’s self esteems.
Considering Arne Duncan is the former head of the futile Chicago Public School system, where a 50% dropout rate is the norm, the idea he’s actually put in CHARGE of schools is as ridiculous as putting an empty-suit blatherer in the White House. Duncan is just as qualified as Obama in shutting off protests against teacher’s unions. One day the people who keep getting screwed by the teacher’s unions and the Democrats are going to wake up, unless the Dems and unions keep them in the dark. Wait. That will never end, so the wakeup call will never come.
This is no different than the report clearing GHW Bush of the “October Surprise” released after the 1992 election. Remember, if the report had agreed with the liberal agenda it would have been released in plenty of time before any decision was to be made.
Nothing new here.
So far I see no redeemable characteristic in Obama, with the exception of ‘first black President’. He’s all hack.
I think I generally support school vouchers, but the WSJ’s implication that the Department of Education “sat on” this report seems disingenuous.
The previous two year’s reports were released in June 21 and June 17. So…the administration releases the report a full 2 and a half months prior to previous years, and it is somehow delaying its release?
no democrat is going to look at reality when it comes to education, the teachers union has them by the scrotum. you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it tapdance. just as the steel industry, and all it’s union people fell, now the auto industry, and all it’s union people are falling, and soon the coal industry, and it’s union people will fall, the education industry will become the lowest education for the stupid and uncaring parents while anyone with any money and any concern for their children will send them to private schools. this will lead the citizenry to increasingly vote against tax raises for schools starving them. we have several districts in and around st louis where they haven’t been able to get a tax increase for years because the people all send their kids to private schools.
What an odd comment. What reasonable person would have a “predisposition” that does NOT include making sure that our kids can learn, and doing what works for the kids? Clearly he was “off the TOTUS” when uttering this revealing comment.
Dem Doublespeak.
Chap, the issue is not the timing of the report, but the administration’s reaction to it.
Please refer to the last paragraph of the WSJ report above.
So that is why MM uses the term “suppression” and says:
Please. She is clearly making an issue of the timing.
So they kill the school choice program in March but release a good report showing improvement with the voucher program last Friday?
At my school in LA, we had to buy new books every year because the students destroyed them, and the parents couldn’t be expected to pay for them since they were so poor. Millions wasted. We served breakfast and lunch every day but Sunday. There were so many administrators it became a running joke with the teachers. Social promotion was moving illiterate kids along, so we wouldn’t have to deal with them. Special education programs eat up a great deal of the budget. The classes move as fast as the slowest kid in the room.
Point is, if you can, if it’s at all possible, teach your kids yourself. Unless, of course, you are one of the lucky few who have a great public school.
At my local school, they don’t have a cafeteria or other kitchen facility. SO what do they do do? They cart the kids over across the street to a building that shares the same roof with a halfway house where two sex-offenders currently reside.
Hi i are kris an i are da praduck of Whashunton dc puhlic skol sistin.
School Choice by parents is not conducive to the power of the State-the Power of the State, the UN, the World Community is everything-the individual is nothing. You will have Choice on abortion and where to put your shoes at night but that will be about all.
Power. But we KNEW this was going to happen. Did not Barack H. Obama tell us his views during the election? I think he did. Did not he tell us his views in his books? Yes he did. Teachers Unions? Just another tool in the bag of tricks.
Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Maxine Waters, Noam Chomsky, Laurence Tribe, William Ayres have been telling us for years what their plans are for us. Would UN Committees be in favor of School Choice? I think not. Read President Obama’s words and do not be surprised.
To the Left and the Obaminites they are NOT your children. They may well come up with a plan to give you vouchers–and control all that many more schools. Notice a pattern here? It is not your money either?
Exactly. Next, BHO will be saying, “I will not allow my predisposition to get in the way of parents raising their own children”. And that, too, will be a lie.
Right on Soap!
I just had an epiphany! We can spend twice as mush in DC as we do on the average school system and fix the problem. Oh, wait…
I seem to remember one of our trolls arguing that there was no study ever showing that voucher recipients performed better. I wonder if he/she will be big enough to change his/her tune in light of this. I fully expect to hear nothing but crickets.
…as much… pretty bad when you are putting down a faulty system
But it’s OK that Obama can send his kids to an elite private school on the taxpayers’ dime.
If public schools were so great, why not send them there? Is he implying they’re not as good? Or as safe?
Hmmm…hypocrisy.
It’s because those greedy Republicans (just like people on this site) spend money on war instead of the children. They just don’t care. It will be a great day when the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber to kill innocent muslims. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” was just a PR stunt.
Insult conservatives. Check.
Insult MM.com commenters. Check.
State Dem talking point. Check.
Bumper Sticker politics. Check.
Add Bush was bad statement. Check,
Now for the tag.
/lgm
I had said that the previous studies on the D.C. voucher program didn’t show much evidence of success and if continuing studies reflected the same trend then the program should be cut.
As this study seems to be different, I think it would be worthwhile to continue the program and collect more data.
I hardly consider that trolling, rather an objective analysis on the data that was available at the time. Then again, you may not be referring to me as the troll.
“We be for ya, ‘cept when we be against ya”.
They don’t want, in fact they Fear a truly educated population.
taylork,
Just because there was not a study done in DC does not mean there is no data. There is plenty of data to support the advantages of privates schools and their benefit. Just saying…
Bingo!
The Federal government, populated by liberal Democrats top to bottom, is an ongoing criminal enterprise. States need to file RICO charges against every politician in Washington. The system is permanently biased towards Democrats to breed larceny, waste, and inefficiency. There is no way out of this short of Constitutional amendments to contain the scope and reach of a self-promoting self-serving government. It won’t help charter schools caught in their clutches but it will help the states and citizens restrain the beast.
JD,
You keep up the lgm stuff and it will hurt your brain!
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t you. It was more confrontational which is why I was thinking troll. You are definitely not a troll.
There’s always the chance that I could be mistaken. It might have seen it somewhere else.
When the people in charge refuse to answer questions and operate in a transparent manner, what else are parents and taxpayers left w/ but reasonable conclusions.
Mr Duncan and his office invited the WSJ’s censure by their refusal to be open and accountable. Let’s hope it results in increased public pressure for school vouchers and greater transparency in public education.
Double bingo!!!
And the proof? Easy: just watch as the cesspool of Pelosi, Dodd, Schumer, Reid, Frank, Durbin, et al, all get re-elected”.
Tale of Two Americas.
You are not mistaken. I remember reading that statement here too, although, like you, I’m not certain which troll posted it.
These kids in DC are their future constituents, just like all the kids in urban areas. It would likely ruin them if their future constituents were able to get a good education, lift themselves out of poverty and realize that the Democrats want to take a huge bite out of their income.
The Dems constantly whine about everyone’s right to an education. It’s so laughable since their policies have destroyed most good education in this country.
Forgive me. I couldn’t resist.
I’ll put away the Purina Troll Chow for a while.
The only way to solve this problem would be to force — and I mean force — these mirror-worshipping double-taking hypocrites to send their off-spring to inner-city public schools.
Alas, there aren’t enough pitchforks for that.
sounds like you’re trolling for trolls (sorry, the devil made me do it)
Coming soon to a town near you…or already there. Add to that scenario that in LA, the majority of the kids are illegals who can’t speak English. None of this is exageration! Truly a frightening future for our country unless we can somehow take back the schooling of our kids! I am unable to homeschool my grandchildren, but I intend to read every single history book they are given in their classes…and correct the errors contained therein.
What an indictment of public schools.
Tragic.
So now that the study is out, couldn’t something be ‘reintroduced’? (Maybe someone in DC wants to make a good name for themselves by doing that…/sarc)
Anyway, call it something different or whatever…you know, like they do to other issues that fail at first.
If “conservatives” were serious about sending a message to Washington concerning education, then they’d remove their children from state-run education en masse. But they won’t, which is tragic. If provided the chance to get a higher-paying promotion for which they weren’t quite qualified, most Americans would say, “Whatever I have to learn, no matter how hard I have to work, I’ll do it.” Why won’t most Americans adopt this attitude when it comes to training and educating their own children?
No need to apologize. I am just watching out for your brain!
the same reason most americans voted for obama
Do we need a Troll Stamp when we go trolling for Trolls?
In our next war with Mexico, American troops will be served tacos, Mexican troops hamburgers, and the menu written in Arabic.
Geese The Almighty has a wicked sense of humor.
Dude,
With this congress, we will have to pay a tax soon.
Only if you’re using a trawler to troll for trolls.
Allow me to rephrase: Why won’t most
Americans“conservatives” adopt this attitude when it comes to training and educating their own children?Actually, Obummer was worried about those wretches stinking up his childrens private school. Those icky poor people, ya know?
Poor people sharing OUR school ?
Are you then suggesting that the WSJ suppressed the story?
I never heard a thing about this until now, and I doubt many others did either. Did you? Where is our “objective” press, reporting the news, either now or then? I see the WSJ. Is the NYT to follow? Objective or subjective, you can’t report what you don’t know about, and that seems to be the case.
The WSJ said the following:
That indicates that while the figures were there, the reporting of it was not, and Michelle is correct.
Maybe the real question is: where did the suppression of this information occur, and if a study was in progress, why couldn’t the vote wait until the results were made public?
O/T:
Did any of you guys watch Obama’s “Townhall” from Turkey at 5 AM this morning on FNC?
I listened while I was getting ready for work and though I still can’t get my mind to wrap around the idea of an American President conducting a political Q&A w/ European citizens, from what I was able to glean by being in another room, those Turkish college students sounded less than impressed w/ Obama’s somewhat staggered, not so fluid answers.
My neighborhood: 5 houses in a row
3 houses with kids: All go to private school or are home schooled.
2 out of three of those houses are inhabited by rabid liberals.
go figger
If I know that the study I’m working on will prove my boss incorrect in the statement he’s about to publicly make, I’m going to make sure he’s aware of that before he is proven wrong in the public square. Likewise, if I’m publicly taking a position on an issue and I find out one of my employees has information that proves me wrong and didn’t tell me, he’s fired.
Of course, if my agenda requires that I ignore the data to get what I want…
Tired of the who knew what and when!
How about moving forward to correct it??
Any suggestions?
Unless you’re trailing a trotline from your trawler to troll for trolls.
I am afraid I am not following you here.
Dimsdale and John,
I would say that the fact that previous reports were so much later in coming would indicate that it simply takes a while for the data to be analyzed and for the report to be produced. I would say this is more likely a function of the inherent inefficiencies of buerocracy, something I have no doubt you have no problem imagining, than any concentrated effort to “suppress” the information.
It wasn’t stand-alone legislation, right? Wasn’t it part of the the spending bill? And in any case, Duncan had previously expressed support for the program.
I love alliteration! Like this…”A plethora of pots percolating profusely”. I put that in my novel, just because it was fun! It was when one of the characters went into a Starbucks.
Negatory. If you were talking about nuclear secrets, they’d have been all over the NY Times.
No perception of victimization = lower Democrat turnout at the polls = lower Democrat representation in government = less power.
You can see why Democrats and their liberal string-pullers want to kill choice. Hmmm…”kill choice” sounds a little less like democracy or republic and a little more like socialism and dictatorship.
Mine eyes are now opened.
I eight stake lost knight for super and it was sure good. i was tot two spell in the DC school system but i am glad my spell checker can catch my occasional miss steaks. see! no miss steaks.
I see no valid reason why the report would have otherwise been be held up except that its release before the vote on the voucher program posed as a possible stumbling block to higher-ups in getting their anti-voucher agenda passed.
As far as I know every system in the country makes it testing data available on schedule, in compliance w/ NCLB and legislature mandated accountability.
KY tests every spring (CATS) and releases the results to the districts for a September publication; although districts always downplay less than stellar results by pointing out their aggregate scores, which are two year comparisons and invariably higher, the annual scores are still made available.
See, but I am just not seeing where the report was “held up.” It seems clear it was not. It was finished in what appears to be a very timely manner, at least according to past history.
If you are saying that they should have:
1) released preliminary data and incomplete analyses; or
2) waited to take up the issue
that is fine. But I think it is clear that the administration and the Congressional Dems were not necessarily on the same page with this issue.
Based on my own experiences in education, most Democrat controlled legislatures and school boards (they claim to be non-partisan but that’s not the case) build in delays as political outs when scores or funds are in jeopardy.
Done all the time in education, for expediency, w/ caveat.
I don’t see the urgency in their voting before they had all the facts made available to them.
I only know what I read and the opinions I form thereof.
Another question: where in the Constitution is the government charged with developing an education system? I don’t recall seeing it in the enumerated powers.
When you are talking about a program that is still in it’s early stages, I would have thought that taking option #2 that you suggested, would have been the more prudent measure in this case, Chap. I realize you are arguing that to suggest that the report was suppressed is disingenuous, but seeing as how the prelims were available in November and a vote to kill the program was made in March, it is reasonable to come to the conclusion that the report was suppressed to facilitate the outcome the Democrats desired.
All he had to do was to issue a statement. He didn’t.
Democraps keeping the children in giverment schools gives them all the victims they need to repay the useless unions in any industry, from schools to auto-manufacturers…let us not forget the over paid, arrogant, ignorant giverment employees.
I have so much disdain for the the fat cat Repubs of the 90’s for having it all and flushng it away with greed…ba$tard$…un-Amrican fat cat country club republicans, vote them out.
I notice that a lot these days. We are being given the silent treatment by the administration. Let’s be sure we don’t give them the silent treatment when we go to the polls in 2010!!! We need to speak loud and clear.
I think it’s more reasonable to conclude that they didn’t care what the studied said. Why else do you vote on the thing when you know your getting additional data about the efficacy of the program in a few months.
It also bugs me that our friends in the GOP had (or at least ought to)of known that there was additional research being done and either asked for preliminary findings or called the dems out on it.
That made my day. see! no miss steaks.
Just tuned back in:
Yes Happy and thanks for asking..
I tend to get antsy when problems are hashed for (IMO) too long, wanting to find a fix…
Per my earlier comment, I was wondering if this voucher issue could be ‘reintroduced’ since there is more info to go on now. You’d think some politician would could start raising it up the flagpole.
No truer words have ever been spoken…the giverment needs victims to exist. What better way than to keep ‘em dumbed downed.
I agree with you. This was a pilot program in it’s infancy, to kill the program when there was a preliminary report available was premature, to put it nicely. A logical conclusion would be that they didn’t want to view the completed report, because their minds were already made up for them …… by the teacher’s union.
I hope and pray for this. and that the Republicans listen to the message of the Tea Parties. The message is for them too.
Sure the Repubs are listening. The first thing the RNC did was give us Steele – a RINO.
Good point. Maybe we need to write to our republican “representatives” in congress and suggest that, in just that way. Of course, they already know they should do that…so I wonder if they will? Maybe if enough of us let them know we are watching what they do. EVERYONE WRITE TO YOUR CONGRESSPERSON AND TELL THEM TO REINTRODUCE THE VOUCER ISSUE NOW THAT THE DATA IS IRREFUTABLE.
When I taught I got the opportunity to work in some charter schools. It was a mixed bag to say the least. I noticed, overall, that many charter schools are different from their more mainstream counterparts in that there is more discipline, expectation, and delivery than what is seen in more public school settings.
This isn’t to say that all charter schools succeed. Based on my experience, if the charter schools don’t have a concrete list of things that separate them statistically and success wise from regular public schools, then they’re just another public school. I’ve found that if the charter school is privately run, the public school system doesn’t have as much chance to interfere. The charter schools, like any private school, still must adhere to its educational association’s standards.
Teachers and teacher unions are doing a real disservice to kids and their families. Does political capital and influence count more than helping educate a self-sufficient, successful kid who can interact and be an independent thinker? Right now, I don’t think ideolocally driven teachers and their unions are really interested in what’s best for their clients: kids and their families.
Awwwwwwwww c’mon, next thing you know people will be telling us home schooling actually works too! The gubmint knows better which is why they cannot allow us to follow this self-destructive path to viable education (instead of indoctrination) and viable and marketable skills in an increasingly global work place.
/sarc
This does not surprise me one bit. The Democrats are simply too beholden to the teachers unions. The only thing that would change this is if and when the tea parties threaten to unseat these selfish politicians. That is when they will stand up and listen to we, the people of the United States of America.
Ignorant victims = Democratic voters.
This is the overriding formula that drives leftist policies. They pretend to want education when in reality they couldn’t care less about the 3 R’s. What they care about is teaching “diversity”, which is a code word for “victimhood”.
The more ignorant victims they create, the more voters they’ll have for the party of class warfare. When there’s a choice between party politics and education, the party comes first. Similarly, when there’s a choice between helping the student or benefiting the union, the union comes first. They don’t care that vouchers benefit students. Their policies make it clear that schools exist for the benefit of the union, not the student.
They tried that little failure of a social experiment where I grew up. That was in the days before advanced placement or college classes being taught in the high school. I was bored out of my mind, wasnt self-motivated and learned the hard way that I wasnt prepared for college.
It must have been those extra months/years of HeadStart that I went to. I just found out last year that Mom used it as her babysitting program while she taught.
They dont even send books home here. I try to engage the teachers but they are more concerned about me as a person than me as a parent. You cant get a one-on-one parent teacher conference without them tag-teaming the meeting. The kids are more concerned with the color of their pens/print-outs or how MANY colors they can use on one homework assignement or what font they are going to use rather than the content of their assignment.
It’s not in the Democrats and unions best interests to have poor ghetto children wandering off the plantation.
Oh come on, you know it cant be true that Blacks owned slaves too.