Asked and answered: School vouchers
Posted by sanityinjection on August 28, 2009
The WashPost is up today with an op/ed criticizing President Obama (and rightly so) for killing the school vouchers program in Washington, D.C.:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703576.html
As I’ve written previously, here is a program that specifically benefits poor minority kids in the city and has been proven to work. You would think that President Obama and the Democrats would be all over something like that. The Post ends by asking, “Why would a Democratic administration and Congress want to cut such an experiment short?”
Of course, the question is disingenuously cute: The WashPost knows the answer to its own question, and it bets its readers do too. The only reason Democrats oppose school voucher programs like Washington’s is that they are bought and paid for by the teachers’ unions. And the teachers’ unions oppose voucher programs for the simple reason that they don’t put any money into the pockets of the teachers’ unions.
One of the arguments the unions make is that voucher programs that allow children to attend private schools shift resources away from the public schools (true) and make it more difficult to fix the problems of the public schools (arguable.) However, this argument is akin to saying that children should not be allowed to evacuate from a sinking boat because it will decrease the urgency of trying to salvage the boat. I am all for improving our public schools, but the education of children is too important to hold them hostage in crumbling crime-ridden environments while the people who are supposed to be their advocates play political games. If you ask any parent, they will tell you that if they could afford it they would send their kids to the school where they can get the best education possible, whether it be public or private, urban or suburban, parochial or located on the planet Melnak. (Witness the many non-Catholic families that continue to send their kids to Catholic schools knowing they will receive instruction in a faith that is not their own. How’s that for religious freedom?)
Most teachers care deeply about giving students the best possible education. However, the teachers’ unions would happily throw children under the bus (pun intended!) in order to obtain more money and benefits for their dues-paying members. It is a mystery to me why teachers – many of whom are troubled by the union positions – continue to support a bloated union leadership that does not always reflect their own views.
Sanity Injection 
The Center Square said
I agree completely. This is nothing more and nothing less than paying a debt to the unions, paid at the expense of the kids of DC. I’m a huge Obama fan, but sometimes I guess even he succumbs to political realities. That’s a shame.
http://thecentersquare.wordpress.com/
Jess Chapman said
Obama previously announced a good chunk of federal funds intended specifically for charter schools, rightfully pissing off the teachers’ unions. He’s also been on the record supporting merit pay. So he’s not nearly as in their pocket as other Democrats have been. Either way, school choice doesn’t always have to come in the form of vouchers. It would be more effective to promote choice within the public school system, as the above noted funds are intended to do, instead of just abandoning it. Vouchers should only be used if that fails.
I myself am a staunch supporter of merit pay; my mom teaches music at an inner-city public elementary school, and she doesn’t get paid much differently than lesser teachers, even though she’s a better disciplinarian than they are, and she’s given a good many of her students something healthy to do (choir, recorder group, etc.) after school.
More good beach reading: http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-East-Harlem-Choice-Education/dp/0812963547/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251479918&sr=8-1
sanityinjection said
Good point about the charter school funding – maybe that’s why they wouldn’t buck the unions on DC’s voucher program.
Ms. D said
Don’t even get me started about merit pay!! Are you kidding me?? *obviously I’m nuts about this topic!* 🙂
Merit pay will be even worse for teachers like your mother — teachers of urban schools who perform well below wealthy school districts. Merit pay, if God forbid it ever comes to reality, will be the death of urban schools and the teachers who work there. Here’s why: Schools already have “merit” pay in terms of receiving more money from the government if a greater percentage of students pass the state mandated tests. Urban schools more often than not score MUCH lower than other schools and therefore, under current NCLB standards, receive LESS money than those who score higher, when in fact, urban schools need it more than anyone else! The NCLB theory is that all children should receive the same education (arguable) and they think that if schools are more accountable, kids will get equal education across the board (possibly true). However, in reality, it is nearly impossible to take low socio-economic schools to the same level as a higher one, because the fact is most of these kids have ZERO resources at home, many don’t speak English, many work part or fulltime and can barely stay awake during school. Why should teachers be held accountable for factors out of their control?! So schools are penalized when their low socio-economic kids don’t perform as well, when most teachers are doing everything they can to get them to.
Now, with merit pay, you take it even further. Do you even know what kinds of things will go on in the classroom when teachers have to make ALL children rise to the same expectations, and their very livelihood will be based around it? Teachers already don’t make that much money, not for the responsibility they have to the kids! Perfectly good honest teachers are going to turn into crooks. Already, we are threatened by our administration that if scores don’t go up, we get canned. Now, we will have our income based on student performance? Are you kidding me? How can I help it if Johnny has no money for school clothes, and Johnny gets teased and therefore skips school every chance he can except during the state test? Right now, the state science test contains several of the sciences that I don’t teach, but I’m accountable for all the 10th grade scores? Even if Sue had a crappy physics or chemistry teacher? So, since my job depends on it, what will I do to get Johnny to pass the test? Maybe I will cram him full of test questions whenever I can and abandon the curriculum which will make him a well-rounded individual. Maybe I will do worse, maybe I will manipulate data, give unauthorized help on state tests, or who knows what else. Schools are already “teaching to the test” and teachers absolutely despise it. Why give them reason to HAVE to do it even more?
It will kill everything that’s good about education right now, and if you haven’t been to a school lately, you should see the things these kids are doing. It’s awesome. Higher performing teachers SHOULD be paid higher, absolutely NO doubt about it. But using student performance on state tests as an indicator of teacher performance is absolutely ridiculous and makes me sick. The ramifications will be devastating, mark my words.
Jess Chapman said
My mother’s school is located in Canada, and we aren’t nearly as bound by standardized test scores as American schools are. We don’t even have SATs here, just a mind-numbing provincial language arts exam for 12th graders. Besides, I don’t know what kind of scores elementary-school music classes can possibly churn out.
Curricular reform should come with whatever funding reform there is. I would personally like to see the integration of student-directed learning and actual grades, not any of that pass/fail nonsense.
Ms. D said
Things here are so contradictory, it’s not even funny. The current educational “theories” (i.e. constructivist learning) support self-directed learning (project-based) and student groups, peer mentoring, etc, etc. But the state test puts a quick stop to that because self-directed learning takes time, is drawn out, goes deep. The state test keeps everything very superficial and the time is just not there anymore for the students to learn any one thing very well. They must learn all of it, but only at the surface. There’s some serious work to be done out there. A lot of people blame Bush for NCLB but it was actually started back in the 50s and has really gotten carried away. (I wrote a paper on this in graduate school so forgive my going on and on!) 🙂
I was hoping Obama would help reform in some way (or any president for that matter) but with his support of year-round school, longer school days and merit pay, I’m not looking for him to make the changes we need. It’s going to get worse, I fear.
sanityinjection said
“Already, we are threatened by our administration that if scores don’t go up, we get canned.”
Doesn’t that only apply to teachers who aren’t tenured? Under the tenure system, teachers with seniority can’t be fired based on performance.
And while I think your points about tying merit pay to test scores are very valid, as you say, higher performing teachers SHOULD be paid more. Let’s just not base it on an absolute test score basis that doesn’t take into account the kind of differences in school systems that you note.
Ms. D said
My department head last year was on the chopping block with the rest of us, so I don’t know about tenure (she did retire this year) but I know for certain her job was not secure if the scores were not there. That being said, we brought our kids up to ‘recognized’ this year, and I’m sure it was partially because of the intense pressure they put on us. The hispanic sub-pop is up from 55% to 75% passing the state test. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the test itself. It is a test of higher-level thinking and not just content, which I agree with. Kids should learn how to solve problems and not memorize definitions. But linking it to school funds has turned it into a demon.
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