Re: vouchers strike out again

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

Of course, you love it--it's your line.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Horn, James" <jhorn@monmouth.edu>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 9:01 AM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] vouchers strike out again


I love it, Jerry--"when the going gets tough, the Right gets Peterson."

Here's my take:
Despite the fact that a new ED study on vouchers in D.C .was directed by the 
Walmart-funded Professor and 21st Century Chair in School Choice of an 
academic department devoted to "choice" advocacy, which was bought and built 
by Sam Walton and headed by Jay P. Greene (of Manhattan Institute fame);

and despite the fact that 20% of the students enrolled in the program left 
within the first year (and no researcher asked why);

and despite the fact that student academic performance was no better in the 
private voucher schools;

and despite the fact that there was students felt no more satisfied or safe 
than did public school students;

and despite the fact that there was no evidence found that students were, in 
fact, safer in terms of "actual school experiences with dangerous 
activities";

despite all of this, Sam Dillon chooses a headline, "Voucher Use in 
Washington Wins Praise by Parents," that points to the only positive finding 
that voucher advocates like Spellings and her researchers could dredge up.

For a more balanced account, see Paley's "Voucher Students See Few Gains in 
First Year" in WaPo.

Congressman Miller, I think, sums it up: "This report offers even more proof 
that private school vouchers won't improve student achievement and are 
nothing more than a tired political gimmick."


-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org on behalf of GERALD BRACEY
Sent: Fri 6/22/2007 8:42 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org; LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [arn-l] vouchers strike out again

VOUCHERS STRIKE OUT AGAIN

New York, Dayton, Washington, D. C., Cleveland, Milwaukee, Florida, and now 
Washington again.  Kids who use publicly or privately funded vouchers to 
attend private schools don't do any better in school than matched groups of 
public school children.  You wonder how many at bats these guys are going to 
get.  I guess when the club owners are people like George W. Bush, John 
Boehner, and James Leininger the answer is "infinite" (Leininger spent 
millions trying to influence voting in Texas to stack a legislature that 
would give him the vouchers he's been chasing for 20 years. See Chapter 2, 
James Leininger, Sugar Daddy of the Religious Right in The Anatomy of Power: 
Texas and the Religious Right in 2006.  Put the title in Google).

I guess if the names are George F. Will, Paul Peterson, or Joe Bast 
(Heartland Institute), the answer is also infinite simply due their infinite 
hatred for the National Education Association.  Freud would have a field day 
with these guys.

The latest Washington debacle has to be especially disappointing to voucher 
proponents simply because it's the latest.  You'd think they would have 
learned something from all those earlier tryouts I named earlier.

Maggie Spellings was her usual inelegant self:  "The report's findings are 
in step with rigorous studies of other voucher programs which have not 
typically found impacts on student achievement in the first year.  We know 
that parents are pleased with the success of the program in providing 
effective education alternatives."  And just how might you be defining 
"effective" Ms. Spellings?

Paul, when-the-going-gets-tough-the-Right-gets-Peterson, Peterson echoed 
Spellings "Kids lose ground when they change schools.  Even if they may be 
in a better school, they're not going to adjust right off the bat."  Well, 
Paul, live and learn, I guess.  This is the first time I've heard you or any 
other voucher vulture invoke adjustment as an excuse for the poor showing.

And he and Maggie are wrong.  Peterson's own data show them wrong.  Peterson 
claimed sizeable first year gains in Cleveland.  Of course, he used 
fall-to-spring testing and had no control group so it wasn't exactly a 
randomized field trial.  Later, better studies by Kim Metcalf and a team 
from Indiana University found the public school kids starting out behind and 
catching up even though white students were overrepresented in the voucher 
groups.

In Peterson's studies in Dayton and DC, Peterson got a "significant" effect 
in math-at the .10 level, a level not used by most researchers.  By the 
second year, math had moved up to .05.  Reading never showed any gain and by 
the third year everything had washed out.

Amit Paley's article in the Washington Post says the Bush administration 
will attempt to expend vouchers nationwide in the reauthorization of No 
Child Left Behind.  No doubt.  Bush had them in there to start with, lost 
them to Kennedy, and was unable to get them reinserted despite six old 
college tries by Boehner.

But, hey, in a faith-based administration (see Ron Suskind, "Without a 
Doubt", New York Times Magazine October 17, 2004) what's a little negative 
data among prayer-mates?

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