Utah voucher advocates take low road

September 17, 2007

Utah’s voucher referendum vote is just over six weeks away. From here in Dallas, it appears the anti-voucher forces are leading.

Why do I say that without looking at a single poll? The pro-voucher forces have gone dirty, by Utah political standards: They’re pushing an opinion piece that says God and the Mormon pioneers favor vouchers, according to an AP report via KSL.com (radio and television).

It the occasionally peculiar language of Utah politics, it’s a desperate move, intentionally below the belt, in hopes of crippling the opposition so a win by default must be declared, even over the foul.

A conservative think tank is distributing a lengthy essay on the history of education in Utah that implies that if Mormons don’t vote in favor of the state’s school voucher law that they could face cultural extinction.

The “conservative think tank” is the Sutherland Institute (SI), which would be a far-right wing group in most other places. SI published a 40-page brief in favor of the Utah voucher plan, and its director, Paul Mero, is on the road in Utah speaking before every Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce and gathering of checkers players he can find. An excerpt appears at their website, and this appears to be the subject of the current controversy.

Education is one of the key values of the Latter-day Saints Church (LDS or Mormon). “Knowledge is the glory of God,” reads one inscription on a gate leading to the church’s flagship school in Provo, Brigham Young University (BYU).  Schools were always among the first things built in new Mormon settlements.  The University of Utah — originally the University of Deseret — is the oldest public university west of the Missouri, founded in 1850.  Mormons take pride in their getting of education, and in the education establishments they’ve created.

Mero’s argument is that the Mormons were forced to give up their private schools for public schools in the anti-polygamy controversies leading up to Utah statehood in 1896.  This is a weak hook upon which to hang the voucher campaign.  He’s trying to appeal to Mormons who worry about government interference in religion.

The foundations of his argument do not hold up well.  “[LDS] Church spokesman Mark N. Tuttle issued a two-sentence response to the essay, saying the church hasn’t taken a position on school vouchers,” the AP article notes.

Utah’s voucher program is the standard vampire voucher structure, taking money away from public schools in favor of private and sectarian schools, and not putting any new money into public schooling.  When the Utah legislature passed the program, public opposition was so strong that a petition to put in on the ballot as a referendum captured a record number of signatures in a record period of time.

More to come, certainly.

6 Comments | Education, Education reform, Education spending, History, Politics, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Create panic, herd the stampede

September 6, 2007

In old western movies, the bad guys would try to get their way by stampeding the cattle herd of the good guys, knowing that the least that would happen is a lot of destruction, even if they couldn’t exactly control the stampede. Destruction, even mindless destruction, is good for bad guys — in the movies.

I’m not sure why that image popped into my mind this morning. I was reading about the vouchers election campaign in Utah, and then I was looking around the Strong American Schools (SAS) website  (“ED in ’08”).

Strong American Schools is a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, two of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, have provided grant funding for Strong American Schools.
Roy Romer, the former governor of Colorado and most recently superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is our chairman and lead spokesman.

At the SAS site I found an interactive map of the U.S., you can roll your cursor on a state and see that state’s graduation rate. ED in '08, campaign from Rockefeller and Gates Foundations

What’s the most-often stated reason for vouchers in Utah? Somehow, the schools are failing.

Which state in the U.S. has the highest graduation rates? At 84% of students graduating from high school, Utah leads the nation in that category. New Jersey is #2 at 80%, and most other states lag 10 to 20 points behind.

What are the Utah voucher advocates using to show “failing schools” when the state leads the nation in graduation?

If Utah leads the nation in graduation, with per capita spending on students in schools ranking near the bottom of the states over the last decade or three, what factor is pulling students from least spending to best graduation? It’s probably the teachers.

Excuse me while I wonder: Why are Utah voters (and the rest of us) in this hand basket, and where are we going in such a damned hurry?

5 Comments | Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, School vouchers, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Utah to get vouchers over objections of people?

May 30, 2007

Only in America can a state get what it votes against, maybe.

Utah’s Attorney General Mark Shurtleff’s opinion would require the Utah State Board of Education to implement school vouchers now, even though the state legislature did not intend the implementation now, and even though the people may reject the plan for vouchers in a November election.

According to the Shurtleff’s opinion, vouchers would have to be implemented despite the state’s rejection of them.  The Deseret Morning News tried to explain the mess.

Complicating affairs is a “technical amendment” passed by the legislature after the original voucher authorization legislation, to correct problems in the first bill.  The referendum is on the first bill; the amendment was billed as a “clean-up” bill fixing technical problems with the first bill.  But the attorney general now says that the amendment can stand alone, and consequently the law would require the Board to implement a law they oppose, even if the people reject the law.

So, of course, the courts may be asked to parse out the truth and the law.

If you’re not confused yet, stick around.   Mark Twain famously said no man’s life, limb, nor property is safe so long as the legislature is in session.  Utah’s corollary is that nothing is safe even after the legislature goes home.

2 Comments | Education reform, Education spending, Jurisprudence, Law, School vouchers, State school boards | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Looking up to Finland

May 30, 2007

Commenter Bernarda sent a link to a Washington Post story by Robert Kaiser about Finland, a nation who redesigned its education system with rather dramatic, beneficial results. Among other things, the Finns treat teachers as valuable members of society, with high pay, great support, and heavy training.

Finland is a leading example of the northern European view that a successful, competitive society should provide basic social services to all its citizens at affordable prices or at no cost at all. This isn’t controversial in Finland; it is taken for granted. For a patriotic American like me, the Finns present a difficult challenge: If we Americans are so rich and so smart, why can’t we treat our citizens as well as the Finns do?

Why not? Why can’t we treat our citizens as well as the Finns? Their system boosts their economy and leads to great social progress — which part of that do we not want?

5 Comments | Classroom size, Creativity, Economics, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, Free market economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Politics, Public education, School vouchers, Socialism, Teacher Pay, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

121st Carnival of Education — School’s out, part I

May 30, 2007

The Education Wonks hosts (host?) the 121sth Carnival of Education — including a nice referral to my post on the voucher wars in Utah.

Franklin HS in Seattle, WA -- Natl Reg of Hist Places

School’s out in much of the nation, and won’t last much longer in the rest (except for full-year schools). It’s a good time to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what to change for next year. I was especially intrigued to learn that Mr. Teacher of Learn Me Good teaches in Dallas — close by, somewhere. One wonders how an alternative certification sneaked through the human resources shredder of the Dallas ISD to get a job, and one hopes it may show a trend; and then one wonders why DISD doesn’t pay more attention to the obvious success of the guy and go back to that alternative certification well. (HR departments in Texas school districts have reputations that they really don’t like alternative certification, even when the teachers work out well; one more indication that we don’t know what the heck we’re doing in education. My experience suggests the reputation is well-earned.) [See comment on alternative certification by Mr. Teacher, below.]

There is much, much more in the carnival. The Carnival of Education is an outstanding example of what blog carnivals can be — useful packages of information, summaries of the field they cover. Spread the word.

3 Comments | Education, Education blogs, Education quality, Education reform, Education spending, Education success, School discipline, School vouchers, Teaching, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Utah voucher fight: Ball of confusion

May 25, 2007

It’s not clear who will win in the bloody vouchers war going on in Utah — it’s only clear that, once again, public education, students and teachers, lose.

Utah’s legislature, a bastion of Republican conservatism in the last decade or so, passed a voucher bill in its just-ended regular session. Conservative legislature, conservative governor — a law authorizing vouchers is what should be expected these days, no? What the advocates of vouchers failed to take into account has made this quite a drama.

Utah’s voters don’t like vouchers much, but love their public schools a lot.

So, the Utah state board of education opposed the measure. A hint of graft in existing alternatives to public schools angered many citizens. Opponents pointed to, among other things, the possibility that vouchers would vacuum funding from public schools — Utah is already dead last in per-pupil spending in the U.S.

It’s turned into a real donneybrook. [Bloody details below the fold.] Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments | Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Elections, Politics, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Utah’s legislature boosts education across the board

February 27, 2007

Gifted with a surplus of funds due to a good economy, the Utah legislature hiked education spending in almost every category, providing pay increases for teachers, more teachers, more schools, more books, more computers — adding more than $450 million, raising the total state education check to $2.6 billion for elementary and secondary schools.

Much of the increases will be consumed by rising enrollments.

Through much of the 20th century Utah led the nation in educational attainment, but fell in state rankings as population growth accelerated especially through the 1980s and 1990s. The Salt Lake Tribune’s story sardonically noted:

The budget package increases per-pupil spending by more than 8 percent. But because other states may also boost school funds this year, fiscal analysts can’t yet say whether the new money will move Utah out of last place in the nation in money spent per student.

Classroom size reduction is excluded from the increases, because the legislature thinks earlier appropriations for that purpose were misused, according to the Associated Press story in the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune:

The extra $450 million will have little effect on reducing classroom size, however, because even as Utah hires more teachers, every year brings more students.

Lawmakers said they were withholding money for reducing classroom sizes until legislative auditors can investigate reports that districts misappropriated some of the $800 million dedicated for that purpose since 1992.

Every teacher and librarian should get a $2,500 pay raise and a $1,000, one-time “thank-you” bonus. Starting pay for teachers in Utah averages barely over $26,000 now.

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Charter schools, Classroom size, Classroom technology, Economics, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Libraries, Public education, School vouchers, Teacher Pay, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Revolutionary call for education reform”

December 18, 2006

Reaction to the report of the Skills Commission is most interesting.  Is it just because it’s the end of the year, and politicians think few people are watching?  Reaction is completely on the positive side. One bellwether:  U.S. News and World Report, usually the more conservative of the three big news magazines, calls it a “revolutionary call for education reform” in the headline of a mostly positive piece.

Potential for controversy remains, though.  That article highlights what is probably the most vociferous complaint about the report so far.

The revolutionary calls from a decidedly establishment group. Funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce includes two former education secretaries, two former labor secretaries, and education officials from Massachusetts, New York City, and California. Nevertheless, opposition surfaced as soon as the report was issued.The American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National School Boards Association rushed out statements lambasting key ideas–like, for instance, the way the report “basically blows up the governance structure,” explains Antonia Cortese, AFT’s executive vice president.

Leave a Comment » | Curricula, Education, Education reform, Education spending, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Champion of free markets, Milton Friedman

November 17, 2006

94-year old free market champion Milton Friedman died yesterday. Many great accountings for his career will be written, I’m sure — here is the New York Times notice.

Milton Friedman in 1964, NY Times photo

Milton Friedman in 1964 – New York Times photo

At the end of the 20th century, it certainly appeared that Friedman was more right than Keynes, and almost diametrically opposed to Marx. There are questions about whether free markets will be able to pull the former Soviet Union out of its economic woes, however, and we have run into a lot of questions about how to establish the free markets that guarantee political freedom in nations in Africa, Asia and South America.

Friedman was the greatest exponent of school vouchers in America, a view that I found had intellectual appeal but which, to me, fails to win any respect in actual practice, especially when the voucher programs hammer away at the foundations of public education (such as the public schools Friedman attended) by systematically choking off funding for public education.

I for one will miss his voice in these debates. It was a well-educated, gentle voice, tempered by reason and a lot of common sense. Free market economists grow almost abundant these days. There will never be another Friedman.

Update: Nice tributes and serious criticism. A friend uses an exercise in class requiring students to write obituaries for famous economists — Friedman’s death offers ample opportunities to collect real obits to use for examples. See some of the comments, such as:

Nothing about Friedman is up yet at The Becker-Posner Blog.  If they do anything at all on Friedman, it will be worth the read.

7 Comments | Adam Smith, Current History, Economics, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NOW they tell us: Education reform not working

November 2, 2006

Yesterday I wondered about the effect of next Tuesday’s elections on education and education reform.

Last night I discovered the Fordham Foundation published a new study showing that “half of states miss the bus on education reform.”

Say what? One week before the election?

Fordham Foundation’s President Chester E. Finn, Jr., was a high-ranking official in a Republican administration, true, but that was after working closely with Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan for years. I doubt the study was published with any intent to affect the election at all.

It’s well worth the reading, though.

A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science.

The study also finds that most states making significant achievement gains-including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas-are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

“Many state officials have claimed credit for gains in student achievement,” said Chester E. Finn, Jr., the Foundation’s president. “But this study casts doubt on many such claims. In reality, no state has made the kind of progress that’s required to close America’s vexing achievement gaps and help all children prepare for life in the 21st Century. Nor are most states making the bold reforms most likely to change this reality. Real leaders will study these data, then focus on what needs doing, not what’s been done.”

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state’s track record in implementing bold education reforms. (Click here for more information on the indicators and methodology http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/TFR06Methodology.pdf.) A table listing states’ performance in all three categories is at http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/page.cfm?id=388#TFR06fullstategrades.

And, one week before this year’s election, it is not too early at all to start thinking about the next elections, and how to use the results of this report.

3 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Education, Education reform, Leadership, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers, Testing | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas better than Paris (France)?

October 29, 2006

I think such comparisons are usually a bit on the odious side — but this blogger, Faux Parisianne, balances it with a “Why Paris is better than Texas” post.

All beside the point. The best part of this post is the photo, with the one line caption.

Go see.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Humor, Leadership, Politics, School vouchers, Texas, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Friedman’s irony: Public schools work

October 14, 2006

Much checking yet to do, but one ironic result show up in anecdote, at least. Milton Friedman’s advocacy for vouchers may not be borne out even in the economics Nobel winners. Edmund Phelps, it appears so far, attended public schools near Chicago, in Friedman’s back yard.

Milton Friedman, the eminent Nobel-winning economist from the University of Chicago, author with his wife Rose of the best-seller that fueled much of the intelligentsia of the Reagan movement, Free to Choose (which was made into a television series for PBS), has long been an advocate for vouchers from public schools. Friedman argues that a dose of competition would be good for public schools, and the ability of students to choose to take their voucher to another school would also be good for students.

My belief is that we do not have sufficient data to make predictions that any voucher system would be an improvement. Public education as an American institution is an outgrowth of communitarian spirit coupled with strong need and strong desire for better-educated people to drive the economy; this spirit and these needs provided demand for education which could not be filled by private enterprise. Public education is, in my opinion, already the market response to consumer demand.

But data are difficult to parse out — not much was collected in the U.S.’s western expansion, we may not be collecting the right data now. So we argue from anecdote. Friedman’s anecdote’s talk about good private schools. Other anecdotes note public school successes.

Richard Feynman’s autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, covered his public school education in some detail, and it offered me some solid anecdotes for policy discussion when I was higher in government. Feynman won the Nobel in 1965 (Physics), was a genius, and also a product of the public schools. A quick survey of U.S. Nobelists shows most of them are also products of public schools. Since then I have watched with a one eye open the announcements of Nobels, wondering whether this trend will change in my lifetime.

So far, no change. The Nobel press packages and official biographies generally lack information about primary and secondary schools of winners. Digging is necessary. Phelps’ biographies are no exception. I finally got something close to an answer from a .pdf rendering of a chapter from The Makers of Modern Economics, Vol II, Arnold Heertje, ed. (1995, Edward Elgar Publishing Co., Aldershot, UK, and Brookfield, US), linked from Phelps’ biography page at Columbia.

Phelps was born in 1933, a Great Depression baby. Both of his parents lost their jobs ultimately. Although he was enrolled in a kindergarten for the gifted, there is no indication that he attended private schools.

If you have contrary and correcting information, please send it.

Friedman makes a good case, but it is a case that I find to be lacking in data. Even, perhaps especially, among the Nobel winners including economics, public school alumni win a disproportionate share of awards. There are all sorts of problems with the data to project trends, but there are few contrary data that I can find. Even with problems in data accounted for, public schools look good.

One problem is whether such data have any correlation at all to today’s public schooling. We may not know for 40 years whether the radical experimentation in standardized testing and other changes shepherded by the federal government will have any effect.

2 Comments | Economics, Education, Freedom - Economic, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Education reform clips, and “new math” for vouchers

October 7, 2006

Interesting bunch of clips on education reform.

At Homeland Stupidity, a poster named Dana Hanley wonders if Bush is really proposing that we model our schools after China’s and India’s schools.

Hanley is direct:

There has been a 52% increase in spending on the key provision and an unprecedented amount of federal control taken over education. And all we have to show for it is trends that were evident before the act took effect? It isn’t worth the cost and it certainly isn’t worth the loss of our state’s rights in education.

Hanley writes strongly on the “qualified teacher” provisions of the “No Child Left Behind” Act, too. Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Economics, Education reform, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Today’s civil war in the U.S.: Homeschooling

September 9, 2006

Noting only that there is a vicious fight going on below the waterline at the moment, below the fold I offer two press releases about recent California legislation boosting pre-school programs for at-risk kids. Without my telling you, and without the numbers on the bills being the same, would you know these people are talking about the same bill?

Please, offer your own opinions in comments.
Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | Current History, Curricula, Education spending, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Homeschooling, Public education, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Detroit: No bumper sticker solutions

September 4, 2006

Teachers in Detroit may not be in class when school opens on the day after Labor Day — tomorrow. They are striking for higher wages and better use of classroom resources; the district is asking for $88 million in cuts to salary and benefits. Here is a summary of the issues from the Detroit Free Press.

Detroit’s troubles demonstrate, simply, that education reform is not easy.

There are test pressures:

“We don’t want to disrupt the education environment of our students,” said Lekan Oguntoyinbo, spokesman for the district. “We have MEAP exams coming up in a couple of months here. We’re striving to be more competitive. Every day is important.”

District officials plan to replace 9,500 teachers and other union members with 250 administrators, to manage the 129,000 students.

Parents want good teachers in the classroom:

Kizzy Davis, whose 5-year-old daughter is to start kindergarten, said putting non-teachers in classes concerns her. “I wouldn’t send my child to school” without teachers, Davis said. “I’d put her in another school district.”

Superintendent William F. Coleman III had promised to hold classes whether teachers showed up or not. And about 250 teacher-certified administrators attended orientation sessions so they’d be ready to hit the classrooms Tuesday. But Saturday, Coleman said the district might reconsider.

Delores Smith Jackson, whose grandchildren attend King Academic and Performing Arts Academy, said schools shouldn’t open if they don’t have enough administrators to fill the classes.

“It would just become a warehouse,” Jackson said.

But she said if school went on, “I’ll be right there, doing whatever I can to assist.”

Teachers and administrators go in completely opposite directions on the salary negotiations:

The sides have been negotiating for months. The district says it must cut $88 million from teachers’ salaries and benefits to help account for a $105-million deficit. The union has asked for 5% pay raises over the next three years.

District officials said they don’t have the money to meet teachers’ demands. But union officials said teachers haven’t had a raise in three years and insist the district has the money but that it’s mismanaged.

Teachers want more than money, too — they are asking for enough resources to make the classrooms places of learning:

“It’s not just the money we’re striking for,” said RaQuel Harris, an English teacher at Central High. “It’s really a matter of how they are spending the money. We don’t have supplies we need to educate the students. I only have one set of novels for my students to read, which means the students cannot check the books out and take them home.”

And the Detroit district is a model for voucher advocates –– it faces stiff competition from alternative methods touted as ways to improve foundering districts like Detroit, and foundering schools like many in Detroit. Charter schools and the ability to transfer students out only rob the district of money it needs to keep going, however, far from sharpening any competitive ability:

District officials had feared that if schools don’t open, even more parents would enroll their children in neighboring school districts or charter schools. Detroit has lost about 50,000 students over the last several years. In Michigan, public school funding is based on enrollment, and the exodus of students has fueled the district’s financial crisis.

Federally-mandated testing accompanied with no funding to fix classroom deficits or increase teacher salaries probably do more damage in this situation than help. Bumper sticker solutions — “give kids a choice;” “students don’t have a prayer;” “what kids need is a moment of science” — don’t even produce a smile in Detroit.

Solutions will take time. Every year sees another 10,000 students sent off without the education everyone says they need to have; this is not the first year of such crises.

What would it take to get you to sign up to teach in Detroit?

Update, September 7: Here’s an example of anti-teacher bias at two or three.net that clarifies my views: The teachers are probably right in demanding more money. A pay range of $36,000 for a college graduate, topping out at $70,000 for a Ph.D. with 30 years of experience, is an insult to humans, to education, and especially to any teacher with the guts to teach in Detroit. It’s a pay scale designed to scare away the best and the brightest. (Those who answer the call are saints.) I hope the school system can figure out a way to get the money to meet the teachers’ demands, and I fear that the anti-public education people are winning the fight to kill Detroit’s schools, and Detroit.

Update, September 14: The Education Wonks have a related post, “Dept. of Ed. retreats on teacher quality. Tip of the scrub brush to the 84th Carnival of Education at Current Events in Education.

13 Comments | Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Charter schools, Education spending, No Child Left Behind Act, Public education, School vouchers, Teacher Pay | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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