Dems kill vouchers in D.C.

[The Brain]

In Sweden everyone gets vouchers.

[derspiess]

Vouchers in general IMO, are a flawed way to address the problem of some kids simply being forced to go to awful schools that will limit their opportunities. They're not great, but they're better than nothing.

Personally, it strikes me as a cop-out.  Instead of thinking hard about making schools work better, we're just letting the best students abandon it, leaving the public system even more gutted.

Gutting a deeply flawed system isn't necessarily a bad thing.  De-funding bad public schools forces them to either compete or wither away.  I don't see what is so sacred about keeping the public school system intact, but then again I'm not in the teacher's union.

On the other hand, I'm not sure it's even a given that we should have a public school system.  Maybe giving vouchers to everyone would be a better idea.  I don't see any compelling non-statist reason why education has to be provided by the government.

Now you're getting it    

I'm okay with publicly-funded education, but I don't see why it has to be publicly-run.

[alfred russel]

I'm okay with publicly-funded education, but I don't see why it has to be publicly-run.

The nightmare senario would be private schools enticing parents that don't care about education with programs focusing on PE. As bad as some public schools are, at least you know they cover the basics and have some standards for teachers.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I'm okay with publicly-funded education, but I don't see why it has to be publicly-run.

The nightmare senario would be private schools enticing parents that don't care about education with programs focusing on PE. As bad as some public schools are, at least you know they cover the basics and have some standards for teachers.

Child suicides we skyrocket as failing gym becomes worse than failing Inglush! 

[sbr]

Here in Oregon most of the school districts are based on the city, though some smaller rural cities will merge into one.  A 1990 ballot measure caused the majority of the funding to come from the state, instead of locally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Ballot_Measure_5_(1990)

Some cherry-picked paragraphs from:

http://www.schoolfunding.info/states/or/lit_or.php3

In the early 1970s, local government provided 78% of Oregon's school funding, primarily from property taxes. School district per-pupil property values varied from about $19,000 to about $203,000 and tax rates varied from about $9 per thousand dollars of value to about $20 per thousand. The resultant per-pupil spending varied from $674 to $1,795 among districts. In 1976 in Olsen v. State, 554 P.2d 139, an "equity" case, the Oregon Supreme Court acknowledged these disparities and the causal link to reduced educational opportunity for students in lower wealth, lower spending districts. The court concluded that the school finance system was not necessarily "desirable" but, nonetheless, was not violating either the equal protection or education clauses of the Oregon Constitution. The court found that the constitution sets a minimal standard, whereby the state is in compliance "if the state requires and provides for a minimum of educational opportunities . . . and permits the districts to exercise local control over what they desire, and can furnish, over the minimum."

Using the initiative and referendum process, voters passed Measure 5 in November 1991. This constitutional amendment greatly limited local property taxes and required the state to "replace from the State's general fund any revenue lost by the public school system because of the limitations." In recent years, the state has provided about 75% of school funding, which is close to 50% of the state's general fund budget. As primary responsibility for school funding shifted from local property taxes to the state, the legislature dramatically improved per-pupil spending equity among school districts.

In a decision issued on January 23, 2009, the Oregon Supreme Court declared that the legislature had failed to fund the public school system at the constitutionally-required level, but nevertheless refused to issue an injunction requiring them to do so, because of the seemingly contradictory language of Art. VIII, sec 8 of the state constitution (added by referendum in 2000) which provides in relevant part that:

The Legislative Assembly shall appropriate in each biennium a sum of money sufficient to ensure that the state's system of public education meets the quality goals established by law, and publish a report that either demonstrates the appropriation is sufficient, or identifies the reasons for the insufficiency, its extent, and its impact on the ability of the state's system of public education to meet those goals.

The Court held that each provision of this inconsistent constitutional clause should be read separately and enforced separately: i.e. the legislature is obligated to appropriate the amount of money that is necessary to meet the quality educational goals, but if it doesn't meet this obligation, it should issue a report that admits to the under funding and explains to the public why it did not meet its obligation and what impact the under funding will have on the state's public education system.

[derspiess]

The nightmare senario would be private schools enticing parents that don't care about education with programs focusing on PE. As bad as some public schools are, at least you know they cover the basics and have some standards for teachers.

A nightmare for fat kids, maybe

Anyway, the state can always suggest or even mandate that certain things be covered-- verify it by standardized tests if you like. 

And the 'standards' for public school teachers are often so useless that you might as well throw them out altogether.  Has teacher quality been an issue for private schools?  I'm not sure I've heard of anything, but that's an honest question.

[Sheilbh]

In Sweden everyone gets vouchers.

We'll have this if the Tories win

[citizen k]

This is an interesting article from San Angelo, TX that covers much of what has been discussed in this thread.

TLC Academy enrollment is surging
But gains are costly for San Angelo district

By Laurel L. Scott

Saturday, October 31, 2009

SAN ANGELO, Texas — TLC Academy, San Angelo's first charter school, has shot ahead of its enrollment goal.

The school, which opened Aug. 24, has 629 students this fall. The school's founders set an enrollment goal of 550 last spring.

"We had so many kindergartners we expanded to five classrooms," TLC Academy Superintendent Walt Landers said. "Our goal, if we maxed our 19:1 (student-teacher) ratio all the way up, is 670 students. We went ahead and expanded with additional modulars (portable buildings)."

The academy's success has come at a big price to San Angelo's public schools. The San Angelo Independent School District, which last year experienced its first uptick in student enrollment in at least a decade, is down by as many as 400 students this fall. The drop, which has affected even successful campuses such as Santa Rita Elementary School, could cost the district close to $2 million in state funding.

"If this charter school decrease hit us even two years ago, it would have hit us harder," said SAISD Superintendent Carol Ann Bonds.

She said demographers hired by the school district and the city about four years ago foresaw an increase in the city's population.

"They predicted we'd turn the corner and we did last year," Bonds said. "We're seeing the kids coming to school from the increased births."

That growth, however, came to an end when TLC opened.

Landers, who is also the pastor of TLC Church, said he led the effort to get approval for a charter school because many parents who wanted to enroll their children in the church's previous private school couldn't afford to.

"It's a lot of extra work but the challenge that was always facing us on being able to hire and pay for quality education for our kids, the amount you'd have to charge a parent was just astronomical," Landers said.

"A lot of parents just could not afford it. A lot of parents felt stuck in the system," he said. "I just ran into parent after parent after parent who wanted to put their kid in our school and they just couldn't afford it. Being able to offer that free tuition, with the private school approach, to me that was a big part of that reason."

In 1995, the Texas Legislature established the charter school program to encourage local initiative. Charter schools receive state funding and cannot charge tuition but are subject to fewer state laws than public school districts, according to the Texas Education Agency.

"The same money is given to each charter school whether you're in San Angelo, Texas, or in Dallas, Texas," Landers said.

Charter schools also do not receive property tax funds that the local public school district receives.

Measuring success

When it comes to accountability and measuring academic success, charter schools are monitored and accredited under the statewide testing and accountability system, the TEA says. The majority of the state's more than 200 charter schools are "open enrollment," which means they cannot discriminate on the basis of gender, race, income or ability. About 113,000 students attend charter schools in Texas.

"With open enrollment, if we have an open slot we take them. If not, they go on the waiting list. If a spot comes open, then it's a lottery," Landers said.

TLC Academy, in common with other charter schools, can reject a student who has a criminal record or a record of discipline problems.

Midland has three charter schools, one of which is Midland Academy Charter School. The school has an enrollment of 540 students in prekindergarten through ninth grade.

"We get a lot of interest from families who are moving into Midland from small schools because we're a Class A district, so we have that small school feel in a big city," Midland Academy Superintendent Jill Lankford said.

The school, which Lankford said has been rated as Recognized by the state for three years in a row, opened in 1999.

"When you're in a community such as Midland and the only options other than attending Midland ISD is some private schools where tuition is a factor — to provide an option that was low cost or in this case no cost was an option that the community thought was a benefit," Lankford said.

Woodrow Bailey, communications director for the 21,000-student Midland Independent School District, said the relationship between the city's public school district and its charter schools is not contentious.

"They provide a service for those parents who feel a charter school education better suits their child's needs," Bailey said. "The charter schools have been here for a while and we also have a large amount of private schools here in Midland; it's really a matter of parental choice."

Odessa also has a charter school, as does Brownwood, but most of the state's charter schools are in large urban areas.

"Most of the charter schools in the urban areas are really to help dropout recovery, are typically high schools, are typically nontraditional, so they can work through to graduation," said David Dunn, executive director of Texas Charter Schools Association, an advocacy organization.

"We think it's important that parents and students have choices in education. For some parents and students, the model there (in San Angelo) fits their needs better," Dunn said. "We don't view it as competition so much as opportunities for parents and children."

Bonds has a different perspective.

"The need for charter schools in our nation is for places where schools are failing," the superintendent said. "Large, inner-city school districts in urban areas. A parent in a neighborhood with multiple years of a failing school needs choice.

"I'm not philosophically opposed to charter schools," she said. "Tom Green County doesn't have failing schools."

The effect on the school district's finances is one of the immediate concerns.

Jeff Bright, SAISD's assistant superintendent for business and support services, said state funding is based on the weighted average daily attendance of students in the district. The San Angelo district gets nearly $5,000 per student, based on that attendance.

"In January, I feel like I can look back at a semester and draw a conclusion. It's still a little bit early. Until last week, we were still adding, enrolling more students each Monday," he said in mid-October. "This needs to be a work in progress as we study the long-term implications."

Landers, on the other hand, sees an economic benefit to the city from the charter school.

According to the academy's records, at least 89 of its students attended a private school last year and 28 were home-schooled. Most of the private school students were from the church's private school, now closed except for prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds.

"San Angelo wasn't receiving any federal or state money from any of these students. That's a big economic impact for San Angelo," Landers said.

At TLC Academy, students wear uniforms and parents are required to sign a contract agreeing to active participation in their child's education, including visiting the child's classroom each semester. The school's goal is to emphasize character and leadership along with education.

The academy is limited to 1,000 students under its state charter.

More than half of TLC Academy's enrollment is in its elementary grades.

The school has three classrooms of each grade for first through fifth grades and four classes of sixth-graders. In the equivalent of middle and high school, there are three classrooms for each of seventh, eighth and ninth grades, two of 10th and 11th grade and one classroom of 12th-graders.

The elementary campus shares facilities with the church and the private prekindergarten at 5687 Melrose Ave. in the Bluffs.

Sixth-graders are housed in a facility across the street from the high school classrooms, which are at 126 S. Jackson St., Landers said.

"The plan is we're adding on to the Melrose campus and this year's fifth-graders will move into brand new classrooms when they're sixth-graders," Landers said. "They'll be on with the elementary school. That's what the parents want."

Landers is also looking ahead to next year's registrations.

"We're looking at building on to the pre-k to bring it to 100," he said. "We're looking at going ahead and growing that because it becomes a natural feeder to the charter school. A lot of those kids are already here, they're used to our system, they wear uniforms similar to our charter school's."

Area enrollment

The academy's enrollment has affected some of SAISD's schools more than others.

Santa Rita Elementary School, which consistently earns the state's highest Exemplary rating, has 11 children who live in its district but attend TLC Academy. This year, 10 SAISD elementary schools were rated as Exemplary.

Bonham Elementary School, which is in the Southland neighborhood, has by far the highest number of elementary students who live in its district but attend TLC with 67. Bonham's rating improved from Recognized to Exemplary for this past year's performance.

The charter school also proved popular for students who might otherwise have attended SAISD's middle schools. Lee Middle School lost the most potential students, with 63 of the academy's students living in its district. Glenn Middle School might have registered an additional 44 and Lincoln Middle School an additional 43, according to the academy's records.

'Whole other culture'

About 31 of TLC's students came from area schools outside the San Angelo district and two are from other countries: Portugal and Colombia.

"One of the things that we found is that our elementary is almost a whole other culture," Landers said. "Our high school, a lot of the kids we got were not in trouble, not a problem, but they weren't being educated. They kind of were falling through the cracks. We have a real challenge, but we chose this battle. We just have to step up to the challenge.

"I'm not sure how that's going to shake out for our rating overall," he said. "We're exempt from counting Year One for or against us. We'll know more as we move along here. I have to have two out of three years acceptable rating to keep the doors open. Of course, our goals are a lot higher than that.

"We're going to go on, we're going to invest in our community and in these kids, do what we have to do. If we're a success and look like we're going to stay around, I think we're going to have our doors knocked down."

Enrollment figures

Enrollment at SAISD schools by years, with the number of students from the school neighborhood who are enrolled in TLC Academy for the 2009-10 school year

School 2007-08 2008-09 Oct. 2009 TLC

Academy

Alta Loma 292 315 316 29

Austin 475 504 467 28

Belaire 369 366 385 5

Bonham 562 562 499 67

Bowie 499 496 452 31

Bradford 445 460 474 16

Crockett 375 365 350 10

Fannin 408 383 404 19

Fort Concho 294 308 304 3

Glenmore 406 446 489 10

Goliad 582 566 573 24

Holiman 297 337 332 20

Lamar 578 592 527 30

McGill 274 291 277 23

Reagan 360 378 381 13

San Jacinto 383 413 408 9

Santa Rita 417 416 393 11

Total elementary 7,016 7,198 7,031 348

Glenn 1,077 1,098 1,158 44

Lee 1,043 1,018 915 63

Lincoln 862 848 882 43

Total middle 2,982 2,964 2,955 150

Central Freshman 752 753 658 31

Central 2,245 2,240 2,140 45

Lake View 1,272 1,231 1,201 24

Total high school 4,269 4,224 3,999 100

District Total 14,267 14,386 13,985 598

Sources: SAISD, TLC Academy

[citizen k]

Has teacher quality been an issue for private schools?  I'm not sure I've heard of anything, but that's an honest question.

Here's a comment from the article I just posted.

smorrow writes:

I worked last year as a fill in for TLC's High School as a Social Studies teacher. I want to state that I realize I along with others am not perfect. I have worked as Police officer, Fire Fighter decided to go into teaching so I have Masters in Education with Gifted and Talented specialization from University of North Texas and I am currently working on PhD in Public Administration at Walden University. Coming in to TLC and the history of being a church school for 34 years I figure discipline, and love would be solid in their foundation. Not only was that not on their agenda but they lacked discipline, tardy policy, books, workbooks, and every other resource that was needed to teach the high school student in social studies. I did not have enough books for all the classes. Today I hope with them signing on to have the Cscope program they bought enough resources for their teachers to teach. Nothing harder than working at a school that does not provide curriculum and resources for their teachers. I heard this was the fact this year at TLCA that text books, and curriculum was not ready when school year began I hope this information was wrong. Landers plan was not to have all certified teachers (to save money) as long as you looked highly qualified he could hire you. Contracts were given to few when I was leaving with no job description and no money amounts attached, but if you wanted to work there you would sign. The numbers in the paper today are the numbers he wanted last school year when putting it together. He told us that 30% of the students leave the new charter schools due to not liking the education that is received there for I believe he let more than the state minimum so he can meet the enrollment numbers. TLC can lose a percentage of the enrollment count and still be ok with state standards. My biggest concern is the community being sold a package deal that is not true. When the commercials were made about the certified teachers and discipline I was one of three that were certified. Landers planned to have one certified kindergarten teacher and the rest aids under that teacher. I believe that not every great teacher has been certified, but you have to be gifted to teach and educate our children. TLCA needs to be held accountable for the promises that they make. There is a great opportunity for TLCA to help students and parents in San Angelo from an honest hard working charter school.

[grumbler]

It's easy to criticize this, but is it easy to come up with something better and implement it system-wide?

I am not sure what "easy" has to do with anything.  People have rejected reform after reform because they were not "easy," even when they were effective.

Time and again, reforms that offered students/parents choice between differentiated schools have been effective, and time and again they have been rescinded, despite their success, because powerful interests were weighed against them (primarily, the teachers' unions and primarily on behalf of teachers who cannot teach and shouldn't be in classrrooms - and aren't, when charter and private schools are used to give parents choices).

It would be far easier to demolish the state monopoly on factory-like education than on factory-like steelmaking or whatnot.  Fund the students via vouchers, allow anyone who is qualified to establish a school and seek students, and provide some measures by which parents can distinguish between schools based on the type of student the school is recruiting.  That isn't "easy" but it is easier than compensating for failures to educate.

[Neil]

Sorry, but why are we getting rid of factory-style education?

[grumbler]

Here's a comment from the article I just posted.

smorrow writes:

I worked last year as a fill in for TLC's High School as a Social Studies teacher. I want to state that I realize I along with others am not perfect. I have worked as Police officer, Fire Fighter decided to go into teaching so I have Masters in Education with Gifted and Talented specialization from University of North Texas and I am currently working on PhD in Public Administration at Walden University. Coming in to TLC and the history of being a church school for 34 years I figure discipline, and love would be solid in their foundation. (snip)

Love those high standards for a masters degree in education and a PhD candidate:  in just three sentences, he has about a dozen errors in writing.  It never gets better, either.

[dps]

Then there's an even better measure to reduce inequality than vouchers, have school districts run at least at a county level, under a general state level. Works for the rest of the Western world.  Inequalities, even without dissapearing completely, are evend out quite nicely.

Nice theory, but that theory does not work in practice.  In Virginia, schools are "run... at a county level, under a general state level." Just like "the rest of the Western world.  "  However, it turns out that "inequalities" are not "evend [sic] out quite nicely," but rather persist in a fashion pretty much indistinguishable from states with city and country school systems.

The problem is not one of funding (although funding adds a lot to the problem).  The problem is due to three factor, IMO:
(1) Highly differential levels of parental and student involvement.  Students whose parents care about their education do much, much better than those whose parents don't, even if attending much less well-funded schools; students who perceive that education is something done for them, rather than to them, stay in school.

Yeah, even in the very worst schools, you can get a decent education if you care about learning;  even in the very best schools, you'll be an ignoramous if you don't care;  and the biggest factor over whether or not  students care about learning is the attitude of their parents towards education.

(2) Highly differentiated levels of teacher preparation, professionalism, and educational leadership.  American education is a highly bureaucratic system, with the highest levels dominated by local politics.  The school systems most in need of excellent leaders are the ones least able to attract them.  The most important position in the American educational system in terms of impact on quality is the school principal; principals are also the people least likely to be highly proficient at their jobs, because their selection is so tainted by politics.

(3) The "factory" model of education wherein students proceed down an 'assembly line" of courses over the years is poorly suited to the needs of modern education, and yet is being reinforced by such things as national educational policies (eg "No Child Left Alive" with its emphasis on the testing for mere recollection of facts).  Most education systems worldwide do this as well, but all that means is that most education systems worldwide do it wrong as well.

I'm not sure that I agree with this part, if for no other reason than that I don't think there are really better alternatives given the number of students in the system.

I went through the WV public school system, and don't really have too many positive things to say about it.  Probably the best thing I can say is that given the limited funding, it probably wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Well, as I posted before, I don't think that the system itself in WV is that bad.  I know it gets a lot of flack, but most of its problems are the problems that you find pretty much everywhere in the US. 

[grumbler]

I'm not sure that I agree with this part, if for no other reason than that I don't think there are really better alternatives given the number of students in the system.

Technology can help here a lot, and we don't teach college (which also have a lot of students) this way. 

What is important is mastery of a topic, not time spent on it.  Every student in every class does not have to get the same instruction at the same pace, if you use technology wisely (and if programs are available in your subject areas).

[dps]

Has teacher quality been an issue for private schools?  I'm not sure I've heard of anything, but that's an honest question.

Here's a comment from the article I just posted.

...30% of the students leave the new charter schools due to not liking the education that is received there...
...TLCA needs to be held accountable for the promises that they make.

Sounds like they are being held accountable, in a way that the public schools aren't.