News-Record.com

Doug, this is old news. Fox News has reported on this extensively, and Glenn Beck has done numerous segments, including with the one of the families being affected, and the principal of a successful Charter type school in D.C.

O'Bummer, defender of the "little guy" like so many of his ilk, is a hypocrite who is OWNED by the unions who steadfastly oppose vouchers, or anything else that actually helps people, and who have done for education what they've done for the American Auto industry!

I understand this isn't recent news, but I found the reason.tv report to be very well done, presenting a good overview and telling the story in part from the perspective of students and their families.

It's not a case of putting politics above education because the program hasn't been particularly effective. There are of course examples of students who benefited, and students who receive them are happier with their schools, but the evidence suggests they don't actually learn more. Students receiving vouchers have not improved math scores and shown only marginal improvements in reading. Basically it's great for customer satisfaction, but not so great at improving education outcomes. It seems to be a misuse of funds.

More importantly, the program was forced on DC against the will of its people by Congress in a tyrannical manner simply to use the DC school system as a guinea pig for conservative ideology. How would you like it if the Canadian parliament forced programs on Guilford County Schools? The District's elected representatives should be in control of the schools.

An interesting twist on this is that Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, spoke very favorably of the voucher program in March.

Here's a Wall Street Journal editorial published yesterday:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124148314511885437.html

Whatever Arne Duncan's personal views, he's acting on behalf of the administration to shut down this voucher program, even before Congress officially acts to kill it.

These "marginal improvements" in reading actually look quite significant. Students who have been in the program since the beginning are now 19 months ahead of their peers in reading. Reading unlocks success in all other subjects.

As for misusing funds, this is $7,500 per student. What about the expenditure of $14,000 per student in D.C. public schools?

A recent Census report puts the figure at $13,446 per student, but that was in 2006:

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html

What about the system's performance for all that money? Just over a year ago, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee reported to Congress:

"As my evaluation of the system has deepened over the past eight months, I have been
shocked by the profound level of dysfunction under which DCPS has been operating."

A key statement:

"According to DC-CAS data, fifty of our schools have proficiency rates below 20% in either reading or math. This means that four out of five kids in those schools do not even meet the most basic level of proficiency. We’re talking about almost 14,000 kids."

http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/RheeTestimony031408.pdf

What's wrong with giving some kids a chance to choose better schools, especially when the cost is much less?

Doug, there you go again, spoiling another mindless liberal rant with those nasty little facts!Fess up Doug, did you drop Andrew on his head when he was very young?

I'll tell you what is a real "Misuse" of funds, spending $14-15 thousand per student, and having fewer than 10 percent performing at grade level, while paying D.C. teachers an average salary of $58,000!

Tony, Andrew does not engage in "mindless liberal rants."

The academic advantages of the D.C. voucher program didn't appear overnight. For a while, the numbers didn't show significant gains. That changed with the most recent Department of Education report, although the new administration gave it very little attention.

What the Department of Education report found was that after three years there was no improvement in math scores and that five of the ten subgroups studied showed improved reading scores while the other subgroups did not.

Your figure for the average cost of students is not the relevant one, and is in fact is a very misleading statistic. The relevant figure is what would be the marginal cost to add those students back into the system. I guarantee it would be a LOT less than $7500 per student. The cost is actually much higher with the voucher program.

DCPS do operate at an incredibly low level, so it the solution is to randomly choose some students who will benefit and funnel funds away from the system, leaving the rest behind? You quote Rhee up there, but she doesn't support vouchers as the solution.

Rhee's job is to fix the D.C. system, not to let kids out of it.

The real issue is what's best for kids. Is it to be trapped in one of those schools with rock-bottom achievement levels or perhaps go to a much better school?

President Obama clearly answered that question where his own kids were concerned. At the same time, he's turning is back on thousands of D.C. families who can't afford to make the same choice.

Yes, it's what's best for kids, but not just what's best for a kid or some kids. The video tells a great anecdote, but that doesn't tell you a thing about how DC kids are doing better overall. You should try to improve the schools, not improve the lot of a few and leave the rest to die on the vine.

Using the Obamas as an example is ridiculous. There are all kinds of concerns such as security and privacy that other students don't deal with. Vouchers wouldn't do much to help get into Sidwell Friends anyway. The tuition there is much higher than the voucher, and they have competitive admissions.

The Obamas sent their kids to private school in Chicago, so this isn't a decision based on presidential status.

He's not unique. Just about every D.C. family that can afford private education chooses that route.

Of course the public system should be improved. How long will it take, and how many poor kids lose their only shot at a decent education in the meantime?

But how long is the process slowed by taking these kids out? You keep coming back to a relatively small number of individuals. Why should we ask other kids to sacrifice for them?

This still misses the bigger point that it's a horrible shame that Congress is the entity that started this program and then ended it. It should have been left up to the District government from the beginning.

I don't see how taking 1,700 poor kids out of the system harms the tens of thousands of poor kids who remain, other than the fact that a lot of them wish they'd won the voucher lottery.

If the D.C. government cared about these kids, it would have done more to fix its schools in the first place.

Congress exercises lots of control over all public schools, primarily through NCLB. That program has been criticized by Democrats, and they may well change it, but whatever they replace it with, I assure you, will not reduce federal control over the nation's public schools.

Here in North Carolina, by the way, the state is set to begin running the Halifax County school system -- without any say-so by the Halifax County school board.

And test scores in Halifax County, though lousy, are not as bad as in D.C.

Halifax County isn't the same at all. Last time I checked, they got to vote for the state legislature, so they did have some say. I'm also pretty sure congressmen from California or Texas or Maine or North Dakota made that decision for them, and even if they had, they would have had their own representative to vote against it.

It harms the school system not just because of the funds, but because the private schools can reject students with behavioral problems. Basically they're leaving a lower proportion of good kids in the system. So that makes it harder to improve the system.

I'm not saying the the voucher system is necessarily wrong It does balance the needs of individuals vs. the needs of the group. Its positive effects are easy to see and in some cases superficial. There are downsides and they are significant, but they are smaller impacts over a large number of students and thus harder to measure. The whole point is that with evidence that vouchers are "working" being as weak as it is, being against it doesn't mean putting politics ahead of education.

As for the DC government, they no doubt could have done better but they are under some pretty heavy constraints since Congress gets to meddle and has to approve their budget.

Again Doug, you can't attempt to use common sense to argue with a damaged mind! Period. Remember the race horse/jackass story! If someone has been convince that a jackass is a race horse, showing them pictures of jackasses and pictures of race horses will not change their minds. I simply suggest they are morons for going through life believing a jackass is a race horse, even after having shown the difference!

Tony, if you can't do better than that, you don't need to be part of the discussion.

Tony, I'm simply pointing out that this isn't a problem with a simple answer. You may like it when arguments are condensed into mindless sound bites for Rush Limbaugh to sputter into his microphone, but in the real world things are more complex than that. The fact that I understand that doesn't mean I have a "damaged mind." I live in Washington and I care about this city, and I want what's best for the kids here. I can't at this point say for sure vouchers aren't what's best for the kids overall, but there sure isn't much evidence that they are. Anecdotes are not evidence. The fact is the pro-voucher argument is easier to make because you can say "look at her! She's better off!" But that doesn't make it the right one.

"...mindless sound bites for Rush Limbaugh to sputter..."

How did I know this would eventually degrade to Andrew launching hate attacks on a conservative??
So typical...*sigh*