A Better Alternative on DC School Vouchers

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal editorial pages have teamed up to denounce a provision in the 2009 omnibus spending bill which they say will effectively kill the ongoing Washington D.C. school voucher program that gives public funds to low-income students to attend private and religious schools.  Part of the argument made by The Post and The Journal, is that it would be unfair to dump these voucher students midstream back into the largely dysfunctional Washington D.C. public school system. 

The Journal argued, “Without the vouchers, more than 80% of the 1,700 kids would have to attend public schools that haven’t made ‘adequate yearly progress’ under No Child Left Behind.”  In a second editorial, The Post further suggested the anti-voucher provision reflects "the stranglehold the teachers unions have on the Democratic Party."  Politically, the issue puts President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats in a tricky position, where they look cold-hearted -- and beholden to "special interests" -- if they don’t continue the program.  There is, however, a third alternative beyond private school vouchers and inferior high poverty schools: giving vouchers to a reasonable number of students to attend high performing public schools in Washington’s suburban districts in Maryland and Virginia. 

Currently, wealthy D.C. residents can pay tuition to have their children attend excellent public school systems like Montgomery County, Maryland’s.  Why not give those students currently receiving private school vouchers such an opportunity?

As Amy Stuart Wells of Columbia University and Jennifer Jellison Holme of the University of Texas note in a new study published by The Century Foundation, eight metropolitan areas currently provide low income and minority students the chance to attend better performing suburban public schools.  These programs – in Boston, St. Louis, Hartford, Milwaukee, Rochester, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and East Palo Alto—have led to greater opportunities for the low-income and minority students who have transferred, and they have broad societal benefits as well.

After an initial adjustment period, students generally see large test-score achievement gains in suburban schools. In St. Louis, for example, transfer students not only scored higher, they also were twice as likely to go on to two-year or four-year colleges than graduates of the schools they left behind.  Over the longer term, students in these programs also benefit from the widely established fact that white employers prefer African-American graduates of predominantly white suburban schools over similar graduates of racially segregated inner-city schools.  In all the jurisdictions reviewed, there were substantial waiting lists to participate in transfer programs. In St. Louis, for example, 3,662 black students applied for 1,163 available suburban seats in the 2007–8 school year. In Milwaukee, 2000 students applied for transfers to suburban schools, where there were only 370 slots available in 2006–7. Meanwhile, Boston’s urban-suburban transfer program, known as METCO, has a waiting list of 13,000.

A federally funded DC- Virginia-Maryland interdistrict program could be modeled on the strengths of these other programs, which do not allow receiving districts to reject students for academic reasons; provide centers for information and outreach to transferring students; provide free transportation to students; and provide incentives for suburban districts to participate. Holme and Wells note that outreach programs have been important in St. Louis, Boston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis in helping ease the transition of students from city to suburban schools.  Suburban communities could easily absorb the modest number of students currently using private school vouchers.

One of the key reasons for the political success of these programs is the financial incentives provided to middle-class receiving districts. According to Holme and Wells, programs in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis have provided receiving districts the equivalent of their average per-pupil expenditure for resident students, while in Rochester, the suburban districts receive the city’s per-pupil funding, which is close to or greater than the amount spent per pupil in the suburbs.  The District of Columbia’s generous per pupil expenditure of $14,400 could prove attractive to suburban jurisdictions currently starved for cash.

While there was strong political resistance to many of the existing inter-district transfer programs initially, over time suburban legislators have often come to support continuation of the programs, Holme and Wells report. And new suburban districts have asked to be added to programs in Boston, Minneapolis, and Rochester.  The authors attribute the political success of the programs not only to the financial incentives provided, but also to salutary effects that the programs themselves have on the racial attitudes of students and parents in the suburbs over time.

In order for the program to work, suburban schools school be given a temporary break from the strict accountability provisions under the No Child Left Behind Act.  NCLB currently provides a disincentive to accepting the transfer of low-income students, who on average have lower test scores. Senator Joe Lieberman has proposed legislation under which receiving suburban districts would receive a one-year adequate yearly progress “safe harbor” for transfer students. Holme and Wells argue that transfer student progress should be monitored for five years, after which time they would be merged into the accountability provisions for the school as a whole.  Such a plan could be implemented under a public school voucher program in the District.

A public school transfer program would avoid the church/state and accountability questions raised by private school vouchers.  And the proposal would provide an interesting reversal of the current political posture.  If conservatives opposed the program, they would suddenly become the cold-hearted opponents of giving low income kids a better education.

Comments

[Paul DiPerna]

Richard, I think you bring a valuable perspective to the public debates on K-12 reforms. If anything, please know I obviously respect your point of view (but I disagree) on modeling choice in education. You've written a very interesting post.

My comments are directed toward this quote, which lay out some facts that I think are provocative..

"In all the jurisdictions reviewed, there were substantial waiting lists to participate in transfer programs. In St. Louis, for example, 3,662 black students applied for 1,163 available suburban seats in the 2007–8 school year. In Milwaukee, 2000 students applied for transfers to suburban schools, where there were only 370 slots available in 2006–7. Meanwhile, Boston’s urban-suburban transfer program, known as METCO, has a waiting list of 13,000."

Here is more evidence that school waiting lists are rampant around the country.

They are persistent within inter-district transfer programs, charter school systems (see Chicago), and other school voucher and school choice systems (see DC vouchers, or Children's Scholarship Fund applicant/enrollment figures).

It seems to me nagging waiting lists give important data that a given K-12 system (to whatever degree of school choice) is not meeting the demands and needs of parents and students-- and therefore not adequate enough.

How do we best meet the educational needs, interests, and priorities of students and families?

This isn't lip service, or manufactured populism. The numbers provided by the Jellison Holme-Stuart Wells study should, at a minimum, prompt this kind of big picture question.

Inter-district transfer models cannot meet demand adequately, and I believe this is a consequence (unintended or not) of design. Existing political, bureaucratic, and technocratic chokepoints prevent timely and relevant adjustments, modifications, expansions to a given transfer system.

Inter-district transfer systems are top-heavy in terms of power, communications, and decision-making structures arrangements. My take is that this is a significantly huge problem in system design.

Charter school systems suffer in a similar manner, in terms of power arrangements. There are some additional opportunities and expansion of choice, but the fundamental power structure in the system remains the same. The growing battles about charter school funding is emblematic on this score.

Both transfer and charter school models bring some more opportunity, but remain very limited in relinquishing real power to parents and families.

I'm not saying these choice systems should go away. They are definitely needed today. I guess my main point is that they do not go nearly far enough in fundamentally changing the way we deliver education. Along similar line, voucher systems are weakened because of artificial (i.e. political) constraints to scaling. Of the three system types, I would argue that supply (school seats) have met demand more adequately in most voucher and scholarship granting systems, compared with inter-district transfers and chartering systems.

Neither model provides the kind of system change, and power reallocation, needed for transformation.

Unless we reallocate power (toward families) in a system via vouchers or some other kind of scholarship granting design, the story will always remain the same in the K-12 Universe.

Thanks again for this post today. Very thought-provoking.

Best,

Paul DiPerna

[Let's Choose Schools]

Richard, I'm wondering why you want to bus these kids to suburban schools. I'm not an inner-city minority kid, but I'll bet very few of them want to leave their neighborhood. I'll also bet that most of the WASP kids and their parents are not ready to welcome these kids with open arms.
Why try something new when the DC Voucher program has proven itself? The only people that don't like it are the teacher's unions. It attacks their monopoly schools system that they feed off of.
Bob

[Jake]

We need school vouchers for kids. I wrote a whole article on this I want to share. Thanks for writing this article, it was very helpful.

Check it out at

http://www.americaneducationreform.com/soap_box_pay_twice.htm

and

www.americaneducationreform.com

[Travis Monitor]

"A public school transfer program would avoid the church/state and accountability questions raised by private school vouchers."

Such concerns are phony red herrings and it is lamentable to see them paraded as if they are valid concerns. They are NOT. The DC voucher program rescued children suffering from bad public schools. The Supreme Court has properly upheld voucher programs and as far as accountability - school choice INCREASES the accountability of schools significantly, as the New Zealand experience and many other examples can attest.

The fact that so many children might want inter-district transfers doesnt tell us that this is the best solution, but it does tell us there is a need. The underlying need is for parents and children to escape from bad schools and go to better schools. The fundamental solution to address that need is full school choice: Give parents and children the right to get their education from the school of THEIR choice, not your choice.

Why the fetish on making sure the teacher is a Government worker? Do we have such a fetish for college professors? Do we worry about food stamp recipients only shopping in Govt stores? So why the attachment to a Soviet-model for K-12 education ... when we have seen again and again that private schooling is superior for many kids?

Here in Texas, we have charter schools. Some have not worked out, but most do well, and on average are taking significant numbers of at-risk youth, outperforming the public schools, and doing it at 80% of cost of public school. The Charter schools are limited though. Our attempt to get our own child into Kindergarten failed because there were FOUR TIMES THE NUMBER OF APPLICANTS TO SPACES. and what was limiting those spaces? Texas law, with Teachers unions fighting hard to limit charter schools. It's absurd.

We need to stop with the lie that only some schools (govt schools) deserve funding, or only some kids (only the ones in worst schools) deserve to have choice. EVERY child deserves school choice. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Limiting their choice is limiting their future.

To be pro-school choice is to be pro-school-children.

"If conservatives opposed the program, they would suddenly become the cold-hearted opponents of giving low income kids a better education."

Oh, so this whole essay was about playing politics?!?
Rather than using kids as props to play some partisan trickery,
the better question is why the entire Democrat party seems to be cold-hearted opponents of giving low income kids a better education by opposing school choice in general.