tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/school-vouchers-9333/articlesSchool vouchers – The Conversation2023-03-08T13:41:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1962612023-03-08T13:41:29Z2023-03-08T13:41:29ZSchool choice proposals rarely go before voters – and typically fail when they do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511488/original/file-20230221-28-x0c9n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C38%2C8523%2C5652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds speaks to supporters before signing a bill that creates education savings accounts in January 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PrivateSchoolsStateFunding/ab75378b2d084cfeb077faa3cae7b3d7/photo">AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arizona lawmakers decided in late 2022 that the <a href="https://news.azpm.org/p/news-splash/2022/12/10/214078-not-quite-universal-but-families-flocked-to-universal-voucher-program/">state will pay tuition, related education expenses or both</a> for children at any school parents select, including private and religious schools.</p>
<p>It’s the latest step in an effort to provide public funds for private schools that in Arizona began in 2011. And that step was taken along what I have discovered to be a familiar route.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KLVtdQYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education policy researcher</a>, I wanted to understand why these voucher programs are becoming more common despite evidence they <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-vouchers-expand-despite-evidence-of-negative-effects-117370">do not improve, and may even impede, students’ educational achievement</a>. Rather than put the question of whether to use public money for private schools before voters, advocates for choice almost always want state legislatures to make the decision instead. That may be because a careful look at the efforts suggests that if it were up to voters, school choice proposals would rarely succeed.</p>
<p>Lawmakers in <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/iowa-lawmakers-approves-public-money-for-private-school-students">Iowa</a>, <a href="https://alec.org/article/victory-for-west-virginia-families-historic-education-opportunity-program-declared-constitutional/">West Virginia</a> and <a href="https://www.education.nh.gov/news/second-year-education-freedom-accounts-prospering">New Hampshire</a> all recently passed plans similar to Arizona’s. In 2022, <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/betsy-devos-let-mi-kids-learn-scholarship-plan-submit-signatures">Michigan advocates – led by former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos</a> – chose to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/10/let-mi-kids-learn-signatures-devos/10285200002/">petition legislators</a> to approve <a href="https://www.letmikidslearn.com/">such a plan</a> for over a million children, rather than seeking a public referendum on the issue.</p>
<p>Private and religious schools have traditionally been prohibited from receiving taxpayer dollars. But since <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice-in-america-dashboard-scia/">private school-choice programs</a> began in the 1990s, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted 76 school voucher or voucherlike programs that allow families to send their children to private schools at public expense, according to the pro-voucher group <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice-in-america-dashboard-scia/">EdChoice</a>. Additionally, <a href="https://charterschoolcenter.ed.gov/charter-schools-usa">45 states and Washington, D.C.</a>, have charter school programs, which are publicly funded but privately managed.</p>
<p>But of those 121 programs, only two have been approved by voters. The issue has been brought to referendum in various states 16 times since Michigan first voted on it in 1978 and has been rejected 14 times. In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/education/future-of-georgias-charter-schools-on-ballot.html">2012</a>, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia_Charter_Schools,_Amendment_1_(2012)">Georgia voters</a> enabled state lawmakers to authorize charter schools, and Washington state voters <a href="https://dev.ballotpedia.org/Washington_Charter_School_Initiative,_Initiative_1240_(2012)">barely passed</a> a charter school initiative they <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/big-money-pushing-for-wash-charter-schools-gates-out-in-front/">had rejected twice before</a>.</p>
<h2>Parents’ interest growing</h2>
<p>Parents are taking advantage of those opportunities. There are <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/education-statistics-facts-about-american-schools/2019/01">50 million public school students</a> in grades K-12 in the U.S., of whom 3.4 million attend charter schools. About 5.5 million students are in private schools. The numbers are proportionately small, but growing.</p>
<p>For instance, from 2000 to 2016, the U.S. Department of Education reported the number of students in charter schools <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019106.pdf">increased more than fivefold</a>.</p>
<h2>Pressure on public schools</h2>
<p>Advocates for public schools argue that when public money is spent on private schools, it “<a href="https://networkforpubliceducation.org/privatization-toolkit/">[siphons] off students, resources and funding</a>” from public schools.</p>
<p>But supporters say voucher programs <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/here-are-10-reasons-school-choice-winning">usefully pressure public schools to improve</a> under threat of losing enrollment and funding.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/6540">still others</a> emphasize distinctions between <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/interactive-guide-to-school-choice.aspx">different types</a> of choice programs, <a href="https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/for-profit-charter-schools-evaluation-spending-outcomes">regulations and funding schemes</a>. For instance, some people support publicly funded charter schools as options within the public school system, but do not support vouchers allowing families to take tax dollars to help pay for private schools.</p>
<h2>Referendums failed</h2>
<p>The process by which these programs have become law started <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan_Education_Funds_Amendment,_Proposal_H_(1978)">in 1978 in Michigan</a> with petitions and referendums, but they largely failed. That 1978 proposal sought a statewide referendum to create vouchers and got on the ballot but was <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan_Education_Funds_Amendment,_Proposal_H_(1978)">rejected by a 3-to-1 margin</a>. A very similar Michigan petition drive in 2000 failed by a <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/3208">similarly large margin</a>. Referendum efforts in 2000 in California, and one in Utah in 2007, <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2008/04/01/an-idea-whose-time-has-gone/">also failed</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, more recent efforts aim to go through the legislature – even if laws that have passed have also been overturned by referendums later.</p>
<p>For instance, a 2017 Arizona law would have allowed students to <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/04/07/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-signs-school-voucher-expansion/100159192/">use taxpayer dollars at private schools</a>. But before it could take effect, a petition drive gave voters a chance to <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/06/arizona-prop-305-results-voters-decide-school-vouchers/1809291002/">overturn the law</a>, which they did in 2018, by a <a href="https://www.abc15.com/news/state/arizona-proposition-305-fails-reducing-school-vouchers-available-to-families">two-thirds majority</a>. </p>
<p>In 2022, state lawmakers passed an almost identical bill, and as he had in 2017, Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2022/07/07/ariz-governor-signs-universal-school-voucher-law-advocates-vow-fight/7827019001/">signed it into law on July 7, 2022</a>. A second petition drive to reverse it <a href="https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2022/09/30/petition-to-block-voucher-law-falls-short-application-deadline-extended/">failed to round up nearly 120,000 signatures</a> before the legal deadline, and the law took effect.</p>
<h2>A new effort in Michigan</h2>
<p>But in 2022, a new petition drive arose, backed by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a Michigan native and former state Republican Party chair. Instead of asking voters to approve the idea, however, it used a <a href="https://crcmich.org/michigans-citizen-initiative-petition-process-in-2022-a-lot-of-ballot-proposals">provision of Michigan law</a> that meant the petition <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/betsy-devos-let-mi-kids-learn-scholarship-plan-submit-signatures">positioned legislators to pass the law themselves</a>. </p>
<p>That process sought to preempt another referendum on school choice, as well as a <a href="https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2021/11/1/22758182/michigan-voucher-proponents-plan-petition-to-circumvent-veto">likely veto</a> from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.</p>
<p>When voters flipped control of the Michigan Legislature from Republican to Democratic in November 2022, <a href="https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2023/1/9/23547548/michigan-devos-school-choice-private-schools-petitions-withdrawn-let-mi-kids-learn">DeVos’ group withdrew its petition</a>, effectively killing the proposal.</p>
<p>The next time a school choice program is put before lawmakers, it’s worth asking whether the program would pass if it were put before voters. History shows the answer is usually a resounding “no.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Lubienski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most school-choice programs in the US have been approved by lawmakers. But when asked for their views, voters have overwhelmingly rejected them.Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1655812021-09-27T12:53:22Z2021-09-27T12:53:22ZHow civil rights activist Howard Fuller became a devout champion of school choice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417270/original/file-20210820-17-1cgcw33.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5193%2C3466&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Education reformer Howard Fuller has worked with GOP leaders in support of school vouchers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dr-howard-fuller-author-of-the-new-book-no-struggle-no-news-photo/455118800?adppopup=true">Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a longtime civil rights activist and education reformer, Howard Fuller has seen his support for school choice spark both <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/howard-fuller-a-civil-rights-warrior-or-billionares-tool/2014/09/09/3aedeff4-37c1-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html">controversy and confusion</a>. That’s because it aligns him with polarizing Republican figures that include <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/502961-trump-calls-school-choice-the-civil-rights-issue-of-the-decade">Donald Trump</a> and Trump’s former secretary of education, <a href="https://theconversation.com/through-her-divisive-rhetoric-education-secretary-devos-leaves-a-troubled-legacy-of-her-own-152914">Betsy DeVos</a>. </p>
<p>But unlike those figures, Fuller’s support for school choice is not rooted in a conservative agenda to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/20/school-privatization-movement-marches-on-during-pandemic/">privatize public schools</a>. Rather, it is grounded in his <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/we-are-an-african-people-9780199861477?cc=us&lang=en&">ongoing quest</a> to provide Black students a quality education by any means necessary. </p>
<p>I write about Fuller in my new book “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/The-Choice-We-Face-P1635.aspx">The Choice We Face</a>,” which traces the history of school choice as well as demands for radical education reform by Black activists. Unlike most other school choice advocates I interviewed, Fuller’s activism predates the current debate and has firm footing in the Black Power movement.</p>
<p>Now 80, Fuller <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/19/national-school-choice-advocate-howard-fuller-retire-marquette/3223241001/">retired in June 2020</a> from Marquette University, where he was a longtime education professor and founded the <a href="https://www.marquette.edu/education/centers-and-clinics/institute-for-the-transformation-of-learning.php">Institute for the Transformation of Learning</a> to improve education options for low-income students in Milwaukee. During the 1990s he served as superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools.</p>
<p>Here are five aspects from Fuller’s career that suggest a nuanced lens into the school choice movement. </p>
<h2>1. Advocated for Black Power in the 1960s</h2>
<p>Fuller first became involved in the civil rights movement when he joined the <a href="https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/MOM-Oral%20History/Fuller_Howard_oral_transcript%5B1%5D.pdf">Congress of Racial Equality</a> in 1964 as a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. </p>
<p>In Cleveland, Malcolm X delivered a version of the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-020-09484-5">Ballot or the Bullet</a>” speech <a href="https://www.marquette.edu/mupress/Fuller.shtml">in April 1964</a>. Days later, Rev. Bruce Klunder, a 27-year-old white Presbyterian minister, was accidentally <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/rev-bruce-klunder">crushed to death</a> by a bulldozer as he and several other activists protested the construction of a new, all-Black school. The school was the city’s attempt to avoid <a href="https://case.edu/ech/articles/k/klunder-bruce-w">desegregation</a>. </p>
<p>Fuller later helped establish and lead Malcolm X Liberation University in Raleigh, North Carolina. The independent Black-run school, which operated from 1969 to 1973, offered a unique African and African American studies curriculum as well as technical training for students to work as activists in the freedom struggle. </p>
<p>Controlling and safeguarding a school for one’s own community became a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/we-are-an-african-people-9780199861477?cc=us&lang=en&">defining principle</a> of the Black Power movement. For Fuller and others, education was liberation for Black communities. As <a href="https://www.marquette.edu/mupress/Fuller.shtml">Fuller described</a> it, the mission of the university was to educate students “totally committed to the liberation of all African people.” </p>
<h2>2. Proposed an all-Black school district in the 1980s</h2>
<p>In 1978, Fuller was embroiled in a struggle in Milwaukee to save his alma mater, North Division High School, <a href="https://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=etd">from closing</a>. That year, Derrick Bell, who is regarded as the “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-godfather-of-critical-race-theory-11624627522">godfather</a>” of <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">critical race theory</a>, delivered an address in Milwaukee titled “Desegregation: A New Form of Discrimination.”</p>
<p>In his speech, Bell criticized education reforms that were more concerned with balancing racial demographics in schools than with improving Black education. He argued that building programs that did not always accept local Black students but made space for white students who lived outside the neighborhood <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1340546">hurt Black students</a>. Much like Fuller’s North Division High School, Black students were not guaranteed admission to the school closest to their home if those schools were designed to attract white students. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of a man wearing a suit walking with a group of students, each one carrying a book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3067%2C2023&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417268/original/file-20210820-13-1dnivi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil rights leader Derrick Bell fought for equitable education for Black students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/harvard-law-school-professor-derrick-bell-walking-w-a-group-news-photo/50591767?adppopup=true">Steve Liss/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Several years later, Howard Fuller drafted the “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-09-29-8703130605-story.html">Manifesto for New Directions in the Education of Black Children</a>.” The treatise proposed carving out an all-Black school district within the Milwaukee public school district to serve over <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351313841-13/case-separate-black-school-system-derrick-bell">6,000 students</a>. The district was to be controlled by and geared toward families of color. The plan was a response to a call made in 1935 by W.E.B. DuBois, who argued that Black educators and activists should <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2291871">invest more in building Black schools</a> than integrating hostile white schools. </p>
<h2>3. Supports school vouchers today</h2>
<p>Fuller’s proposal for an all-Black school district <a href="https://www.marquette.edu/mupress/Fuller.shtml">gained traction</a>, but Wisconsin legislators opted instead for a voucher plan in 1989 – the <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/informational_papers/january_2003/0029_milwaukee_parental_choice_program_informational_paper_29.pdf">Milwaukee Parental Choice Program</a>. The program covered the tuition of students who wanted to enroll in private schools. </p>
<p>The Republican Party seized on the new voucher plan and pushed it through the state legislature. Ever since the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483">Brown v. Board of Education</a> decision in 1954, when the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional, the Republican Party has increasingly aligned itself with school privatization efforts through <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2017/07/12/435629/racist-origins-private-school-vouchers/">vouchers</a> and “<a href="https://southernspaces.org/2019/segregationists-libertarians-and-modern-school-choice-movement/">freedom of choice</a>” plans. </p>
<p>Fuller also supported the Milwaukee voucher plan, as did some other Black activists, despite criticism from academics and organizations, <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/origins-milwaukee-parental-choice-program-no-struggle-no-progress-fuller/">including the NAACP</a>. </p>
<p>“If you’re drowning and a hand is extended to you, you don’t ask if the hand is attached to a Democrat or a Republican,” <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED531260">noted Wisconsin State Rep. Annette “Polly” Williams</a>, a Black Democrat who worked with Fuller to propose the legislation for a <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/for-maverick-polly-williams-the-mother-of-school-choice-the-point-was-always-to-empower-parents-and-improve-education-for-black-children/">separate school district</a> and also supported school vouchers.</p>
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<h2>4. Helped build the school choice movement</h2>
<p>Howard Fuller helped build the foundation for civil rights activists who are interested in school choice. As he told me during our interview in 2019, “I’ve always seen school choice from a social justice framework as opposed to a free market framework.”</p>
<p>Many activists saw it the same way.</p>
<p>For example, Wyatt Tee Walker, one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s trusted strategists, <a href="https://www.sisuluwalker.org/history">opened a charter school</a> in New York City in 1999. James Forman Jr., a civil rights lawyer, scholar, author and son of the prominent Black Panther Party organizer, opened a charter school in Washington, D.C. in 1997. Both leaders argued that failed desegregation attempts placed a <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/3146/">burden on Black families</a> by catering to white families without promising quality education for Black students. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, education activist Geoffrey Canada was <a href="https://www.wreg.com/news/2013-freedom-award-winners-named/">awarded the National Freedom Award</a> in 2013 for his charter school network, the <a href="https://hcz.org/our-purpose/our-history-zone-map/">Harlem Children’s Zone</a>. And in 2016, Martin Luther King III led one of the largest school choice rallies in the nation. “This is about freedom,” King told the crowd gathered in Florida, “the freedom to choose for your family and your child.” </p>
<p>Support for choice is not limited to a small cadre of activists. A <a href="https://www.federationforchildren.org/national-school-choice-poll-shows-67-of-voters-support-school-choice-2019/">2019 poll</a> by the American Federation for Children estimated that 73% of Latinos and 67% of African Americans support school choice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mother, father and two small children hold hands while walking down street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423182/original/file-20210924-24-glshmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polling data shows a majority of African Americans support school choice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-myers-family-takes-a-walk-near-their-home-in-ne-news-photo/1208289093">Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>5. Drew scorn for working with Republicans</h2>
<p>Fuller allied with prominent Republicans on school choice. He <a href="https://archive.jsonline.com/news/opinion/howard-fuller-still-a-warrior-for-children-b99338584z1-273253071.html/">met with George W. Bush</a> in 1999 while Bush was running for president. A year earlier, he debated then-Sen. Barack Obama on the issue of vouchers. His school reform work in New Orleans in the 2000s led him to collaborate with Betsy DeVos, who at that time was a <a href="https://www.nola.com/news/education/article_e8dbd575-e6e4-5b1e-b4c3-02596e539cbb.html">GOP financier and charter school advocate</a>. He also later <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYg7jn1KQo8">supported DeVos’ contested nomination</a> for secretary of education. </p>
<p>Fuller drew <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/howard-fuller-a-civil-rights-warrior-or-billionares-tool/2014/09/09/3aedeff4-37c1-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html">strong criticism</a> from the press and some education reformers for his connections with the GOP, who earned a tarnished reputation on <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/emerging-republican-majority/595504/">civil rights</a>, and for embracing what many defined as a conservative agenda.</p>
<p>In his own defense, he noted in our interview that while he agrees with some Republicans on school choice, he strongly disagrees with them “on voter ID, on drug testing for people getting public assistance. I support the minimum wage. I support Obamacare.”</p>
<p>Though his position on school choice did not curry favors with <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807863466/more-than-one-struggle/">progressive education reformers</a>, Fuller demonstrated that not all demands for school choice are the same. For instance, he believes <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/segregated-schools-are-still-the-norm-howard-fuller-is-fine-with-that/">“mom and pop” charter schools</a> are more emblematic of the long history of the Black freedom struggle than schools proposed by national charter school networks, as these grassroots schools are more often driven by the demands of historically marginalized communities. </p>
<p>“You’re going to be fighting for something for entirely different reasons than some of the people out there who are your allies,” Fuller said in our interview. I believe this difference is imperative to understanding the nuance of school choice today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Hale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Howard Fuller’s support for school choice is connected to the Black Power movement and a pursuit to provide Black students a quality education by any means necessary.Jon Hale, Associate Professor of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499022021-02-01T19:45:31Z2021-02-01T19:45:31Z‘School choice’ policies are associated with increased separation of students by social class<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380309/original/file-20210123-19-qtl924.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C5%2C3898%2C2191&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Advocates of 'school choice' are often talking about wanting public funding for models like charter schools, but specialized programs should also be considered part of school choice debates. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-school-choice-is-a-better-way-than-the-public-school-pandemic-panic">Some commentators believe the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated</a> the need for parents to have more “school choice,” while others <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/stem-charter-school-in-calgary-approved-by-education-minister-1.5873575">say the pandemic shows the urgency of new schooling models</a> developed under <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/events/school-choice-in-a-time-of-transition/">school choice</a> policies.</p>
<p>But what is school choice? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-betsy-devos-and-school-choice-eight-essential-reads-62800">Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos and school choice: Eight essential reads</a>
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<p>The language of school choice supports the idea that education funding should follow students to the schools they believe best fit their learning needs. Education is then managed according to the free-market dynamics of consumer choice.</p>
<p>What this means is parents can choose among a variety of models that receive both state funds and financial support from personal and/or corporate sponsors. In the United States, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8TZIhpIV6c">and more recently</a> <a href="https://www.edcan.ca/articles/the-alberta-public-charter-school-system/">in Canada</a>, when people talk about “<a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/david-staples-people-power-takes-another-step-forward-in-alberta-schools">school choice</a>” they’re often talking about how parents can or should be able to access funded or semi-funded school models like <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/4/30/18076968/charter-schools">charter schools</a>, <a href="https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/your-childs-rights/basics-about-childs-rights/school-vouchers-what-you-need-to-know">school vouchers</a>, home schooling or private schools. </p>
<p>In England, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/03/choice-inequality-education-system-social-segregation">academy schools, enabled</a> under <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/21/contents">Tony Blair’s New Labour government</a>, and more traditional <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/education-34538222">grammar schools</a> are selective schools that enable school choice. Both are a <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2018/may/governments-grammar-school-funding-wont-improve-childrens-outcomes-say-experts">source of debate</a> in terms of how effective they are for student outcomes and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/30/coalition-education-reform-academies-fuelling-inequality">students’ social mobility</a>.</p>
<p>School choice alternatives position parents as consumers, and in many cases divert students and funding away from <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Comprehensive_school">comprehensive public schools</a>. This has been a noticeable trend in virtually all western industrialized democracies for more than 25 years. </p>
<h2>Reform agendas</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brian Mulroney and Margaret Thatcher." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380311/original/file-20210123-13-1d8pidi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Brian Mulroney welcomes Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to the Economic Summit at Toronto City Hall, June 1988.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand</span></span>
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<p>We should be concerned about advocacy for school choice models, because recent cross-national research shows <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811398629">increased school choice is associated with increased social stratification in terms of social class</a>. School choice and competition tend to be associated with <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/fairness_pb2019_educational_inequalities.pdf">larger gaps between high and low socio-economic status student groups and lower student achievement outcomes nationally</a>. </p>
<p>The rise of school choice advocacy has coincided with and followed neo-liberal school reforms in industrialized countries since the 1980s. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot">Margaret Thatcher’s British government</a> of the late 1980s is largely credited with the close <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400740945">coupling of curriculum requirements with standardized testing</a> that popularized the adoption of market logic to the realm of public institutions and schools. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
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<p>A key assumption is that choice and competition, like private sector companies, leads to a better product — in this case, better student outcomes and more effective schools and systems that are in the best interests of students. </p>
<p>School choice options such as charter schools are not as prominent in Canada as in other countries such as the U.S. and England: <a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-what-you-need-to-know-about-their-anticipated-growth-in-alberta-141434">Only Alberta now has charter schools</a>.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/charter-schools-largely-ignored-in-canada">think tanks like the Fraser Institute</a> in Canada <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/six-reasons-to-support-school-choice-in-canada">continue to call for greater options for schooling outside of traditional publicly funded settings</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-what-you-need-to-know-about-their-anticipated-growth-in-alberta-141434">Charter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta</a>
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<h2>Beyond the neighbourhood</h2>
<p>When students can enrol in schools beyond their local neighbourhood, this is a sign that school choice is increasing. <a href="https://bc.ctvnews.ca/students-in-choice-programs-out-of-catchment-schools-face-dilemma-if-homeschooled-this-fall-1.5066854">French immersion</a>, arts-based schools and other specialized schools must therefore be considered part of the school choice debate since some parents may be more adept at seeking out and securing spots in these programs. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/publications/balancing-school-choice-and-equity-2592c974-en.htm">vast majority of education systems in developed countries around the world</a>, students are assigned to schools within their catchment area based on their home address. However, examples abound of how middle- and upper-class families have been able to use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2014.968245">strategies such as choosing rare curricular options to avoid attending assigned schools</a> — thereby further contributing to social segregation between schools.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/how-are-school-choice-policies-related-to-social-diversity-in-schools_2d448c77-en">one analysis conducted by the OECD between 2000 and 2015</a>, the share of 15-year-old students who were admitted to school based on their home address shrank by 20 per cent or more in Denmark, Hong Kong (China), Iceland, Japan, Sweden and the U.S., and by six per cent on average across <a href="https://www.oecd.org/">28 OECD countries</a> with comparable data. In Canada, more than 60 per cent of students attend schools that use residence-based criteria. These findings reflect a global and national trend of the availability of greater school-choice options for families.</p>
<h2>Impact of school choice</h2>
<p>It is difficult to make general statements about the impact of school choice and increased school competition that is applicable to all provinces or countries. Nevertheless, research does suggest some general patterns — many of which have remained fairly stable over time.</p>
<p>One analysis of <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisainfocus/pisa-in-focus-n42-(eng)-final.pdf">65 countries</a> suggested that education systems where parents chose schools, and schools competed for enrolment, are often more socially segregated — often in relation to socio-economic differences. </p>
<p>The process of segregation is driven not only by parental preferences, but also by institutional factors. For example, schooling that promotes market-like dynamics are more likely to accentuate the separation of students based on socio-economic background. </p>
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<img alt="Student on a city bus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380312/original/file-20210123-17-1pfj0tl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An OECD analysis correlated a rising number of students attending school outside their neighbourhoods with rising school choice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Some of the factors that may aggravate socio-economic segregation in school-choice settings are the participation of for-profit providers, the use of school fees or tuition add-ons and allowing student selection. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fun-fair-and-all-school-fundraising-may-carry-hidden-costs-to-society-118883">The fun fair, and all school fundraising, may carry hidden costs to society</a>
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<p>These institutional features may be an important reason why socio-economic segregation has not <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-019-09437-3">significantly decreased in recent decades</a>.</p>
<p>Not only has for-profit participation been shown to be related to greater segregation, but it raises concerns about equity and the use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-big-winners-from-swedens-for-profit-free-schools-are-companies-not-pupils-29929">public funding</a>. Reports of discriminatory practices towards <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2020.1744239">socio-economically disadvantaged students and those deemed “low achievers” are frequently reported in market-driven educational systems that allow academic selection</a>. </p>
<h2>System effectiveness and selectivity</h2>
<p>Countries (or in Canada, provinces) that demonstrate high student achievement outcomes and smaller achievement gaps between groups of students (high- versus low-socio-economic status, boys versus girls, non-immigrants versus immigrants) are generally lauded internationally. Other regions seek to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-PISA-Effect-on-Global-Educational-Governance/Volante/p/book/9780367884529">emulate their success and they become known as “reference societies</a>.”</p>
<p>Over the past two decades, countries such as <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-PISA-Effect-on-Global-Educational-Governance/Volante/p/book/9781138217416">Finland and Singapore, and education authorities in Canada (particularly Alberta), to name a few, have traditionally been viewed as effective systems</a> for simultaneously possessing high achievement and equity when judged against their international counterparts.</p>
<p>These countries differ substantially based on a variety of key dimensions such as cultural context, size of their student population and homogeneity, teacher training and compensation, to name but a few. Schools in these places are also less likely to select students, which reduces the prospect of social stratification. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen in Alberta how recent <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7000587/alberta-government-ucp-charter-schools-home-schooling-education-may/">charter school legislation</a> will affect equitable learning opportunities and outcomes. </p>
<h2>Education and evidence-based policy</h2>
<p>Although collaboration and co-operation are often at odds with private sector companies competing for market share, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13632430701379354">research suggests</a> these attributes are critically important for raising the prospects of all students within education systems. </p>
<p>Ultimately, policymakers need to continually interrogate research findings, free from political interference. They need to carefully consider both the positive and negative effects of a shift away from comprehensive public education systems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Volante receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Wyse has research funding from the Helen Hamlyn Trust, The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), and The Nuffield Foundation. He is the President of the British Education Research Association (BERA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel Gutiérrez receives funding from CONICYT PIA CJE grant number CIE160007 and the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/T008911/1). </span></em></p>Letting parents choose which school their child attends positions parents as consumers, and often diverts students and funding away from public schools.Louis Volante, Professor of Education, Brock UniversityDominic Wyse, Professor of Education, UCLGabriel Gutiérrez, Postdoctoral research fellow, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476202020-10-27T14:09:02Z2020-10-27T14:09:02ZHow teachers’ union activism helped shift the U.S. election debate on education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365111/original/file-20201022-23-155av65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C104%2C5334%2C3011&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teacher activism in the U.S. has helped pushed the Democratic party towards renewed investment in public education. Children listen as former president Barack Obama campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Oct. 21, 2020, in Philadelphia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/ Matt Slocum)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the fight for the U.S. presidency, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has positioned protecting students, educators and getting schools open safely with smaller classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?475377-1/joe-biden-remarks-reopening-schools-covid-19">a national emergency</a>.” On Sept. 2, he praised educators for their “grit,” and recognized their concerns for students.</p>
<p>Biden’s praise reflects his kindergarten to Grade 12 education plan, which calls on the federal government to “<a href="https://joebiden.com/education/">provide educators the support and respect they need and deserve” to and “start investing in our children at birth</a>.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden’s education plan.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In both tone and content, Biden’s plan <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-18/trump-biden-education-policy-election">represents an evolution in the focus of American education policy</a> and a departure from recent commitments of Democratic and Republican parties emphasizing school accountability through testing and expanding publicly funded, privately operated charter schools. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-what-you-need-to-know-about-their-anticipated-growth-in-alberta-141434">Charter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta</a>
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<p>In Canada, the challenges of reopening schools during COVID-19 have prompted suggestions that it’s time to think <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-school-choice-is-a-better-way-than-the-public-school-pandemic-panic">about “school choice”</a> through charter schools or <a href="https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/agar-its-time-to-talk-about-school-choice-in-canada">through school voucher</a> programs. Voucher programs provide parents with government grants, normally taken out of the general public school budget, that they can use for tuition at a private school. </p>
<p><a href="https://behindthenumbers.ca/2014/06/04/public-education-reform-lessons-from-the-united-states-on-what-not-to-do/">As I have argued</a>, Canadians should not ignore American experiences of expanding such kinds of schooling. </p>
<h2>Heavier federal role</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365356/original/file-20201025-20-1udahd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks at the Phoenix International Academy, a charter school, in Phoenix, Oct. 15, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matt York)</span></span>
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<p>In the U.S., states are primarily responsible for education policy. But the federal secretary of education establishes <a href="https://www.ed.gov/">policies on federal financial aid for education and distributes and monitors related funds, as well as collecting data, disseminating research</a> and ensuring <a href="https://www.waldenu.edu/online-doctoral-programs/doctor-of-education/resource/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-role-of-us-secretary-of-education#:%7E:text=The%20Secretary%20of%20Education%20Is,Department%20of%20Education%20in%201980">schools from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate institutions “comply with federal … laws governing funding and discrimination</a>.” The federal government began to play a role in kindergarten to Grade 12 education with the passage of the <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/education/elementary-and-secondary-education-act-of-1965/">Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>The act provided federal funding to states to support school districts with concentrations of poor students. The ESEA has to be reauthorized every five years, and subsequent presidents have expanded its scope through changes: for instance, to provide resources for educating students with disabilities or to address perceived challenges like gaps in student achievement.</p>
<p>In the late 1980s, concerns over student achievement led to the <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/diane-ravitch/the-death-and-life-of-the-great-american-school-system/9780465097999/">emergence of an education reform movement</a>. This movement emphasized standardized testing to hold schools accountable when students didn’t make adequate academic progress and the expansion of school choice through publicly funded, privately operated charter schools. </p>
<h2>Fractures in U.S. ‘education reform’</h2>
<p>Support for education reform was bipartisan in the U.S. Beginning in 1988, presidents used reauthorizations of the ESEA to emphasize greater accountability. Presidents <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html">George W. Bush</a> and <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">Barack Obama</a> went farthest to <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/the-nations-main-k-12-law-a-timeline.html">mandate testing and support charter schools</a>. </p>
<p>Since the late ‘80s, presidents have been careful not to explicitly attack the teaching profession. But some state and local politicians (particularly Republicans) were quick to place the blame for so-called failing schools on <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/christie-teachers-union-deserves-punch-in-the-face-120913">teachers’ unions</a>. Some media then followed suit, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/03/three-time-covers-show-how-american-attitudes-about-teachers-have-changed">focusing coverage</a> on “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20081208,00.html">bad teachers</a>.” This dismissal of professional educators’ expertise, combined with cuts to education budgets, <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/the-prize/9780544810907">created openings for philanthropists to influence policy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People carrying placards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365373/original/file-20201025-16-12p69tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teachers, parents and students line up to protest for higher school funding and teacher pay in April 2018 in Phoenix before a teacher strike.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)</span></span>
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<p>In the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden and other candidates distanced themselves from education reform priorities and called for renewed investment in public education after decades of austerity. </p>
<p>My research into their platforms shows explicit support for <a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/reinvest-in-public-education/">raising teachers’ salaries</a>, <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/public-education">collective bargaining</a> and <a href="https://issues.juliancastro.com/people-first-education/">equitable educational opportunities for all students</a>. </p>
<p>Biden and many Democratic candidates have close personal connections to public education: Jill Biden, for example, has a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/19/jill-biden-plans-to-return-to-her-day-job-even-if-she-becomes-first-lady.html">doctorate in education and teaches at a community college</a>. But the shift among Democrats is also a response to the rise of education activism in the U.S. over the past decade, led by a more militant teachers’ union movement. It’s had some success refocusing public attention on what students and teachers need to succeed.</p>
<h2>A decade of education activism</h2>
<p>The Chicago Teachers’ Union’s (CTU) three-week strike in 2012 was a watershed moment. The CTU developed a bargaining platform, “<a href="https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/Chicago%20Teachers%20Union%20report_0.pdf">The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve</a>,” focused on student needs for a well-rounded curriculum, support services and fully funded schools. </p>
<p>To generate support for the platform and a possible strike, <a href="https://labornotes.org/store/jump-start-your-union">CTU leadership organized members and built relationships with parents, neighbourhood organizations and faith groups</a>. Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.3726/978-1-4539-1564-6">teachers’ unions adopted CTU’s method of focusing demands on how schools ought to care for the whole student</a>.</p>
<p>After the CTU strike, <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/618-more-than-a-score">the movement against high-stakes standardized testing</a> gained momentum. Critics drew attention to instructional time lost to testing, how testing narrowed the academic curriculum and problems using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools.</p>
<h2>Moratorium on expanding charter schools</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a suit at a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365354/original/file-20201025-13-9v2xid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a moratorium on expanding charter schools in 2016. Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, at a Boston news conference, Dec. 12, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Steven Senne)</span></span>
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<p>In 2016, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for <a href="https://www.naacp.org/latest/statement-regarding-naacps-resolution-moratorium-charter-schools/">a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools</a> until they were subject to the same regulations as traditional public schools. Despite criticism for this stance voiced by some <a href="https://educationpost.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-naacps-stance-on-charter-schools/">education advocates in Black communities</a>, the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-07-27/naacp-again-calls-for-moratorium-on-charter-schools">NAACP renewed this call in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Teachers’ activism reached a high point in 2018, when over <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/red-for-ed-movement-teachers-unions-covid-19">375,000 educators took part in work stoppages</a>. Teachers went on strike in <a href="https://beltpublishing.com/products/55-strong-inside-the-west-virginia-teachers-strike">West Virginia</a>, <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2955-red-state-revolt">Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona</a>, Colorado and North Carolina. </p>
<p>With broad public support, they demanded restoring funding to reverse declining wages and student resources and cuts to curriculum. When United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) went on strike in 2019 for “<a href="https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/UTLA_SLASDFINAL.pdf">The Schools L.A. Children Deserve</a>,” a major concern was the impact of charter schools on funding for traditional public school schools. </p>
<p>Among UTLA’s supporters were Senators Kamala Harris, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/berniesanders/posts/i-stand-in-solidarity-with-utla-teachers-in-los-angeles-who-went-on-strike-today/2093366217385038/">Bernie Sanders</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1084852094794907650">Elizabeth Warren</a> — all eventual contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.</p>
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<h2>Why Canadians should care</h2>
<p>Expanding charter schools and school vouchers, along with pressuring schools to accelerate standardized testing haven’t been a silver bullet for fixing problems in American public schools. </p>
<p>Rather, they contributed to the rise of a robust movement of educators, teachers’ unions and community and political allies who support a well-resourced public school system that both meets the needs of diverse students and values educators as professionals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/school-funding-is-needed-for-student-well-being-not-only-coronavirus-safety-rules-140818">School funding is needed for student well-being, not only coronavirus safety rules</a>
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<p>Canada has a long history of teachers’ union activism. Teachers in <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/1534959/b-c-teachers-strike-the-timeline/">British Columbia</a>, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/teachers-work-to-rule-job-action-contract-dispute-union-nstu-1.3870651">Nova Scotia</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6420752/ontario-4-teachers-unions-job-action/">Ontario</a> have engaged in job actions since 2014. </p>
<p>As COVID-19 pressures provinces to re-think schooling, and as teachers’ unions continue to underscore the <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/08/31/news/ontario-teachers-unions-file-health-and-safety-complaint">perils of underfunding for both teacher and student health</a> and wellness, we should watch to see if the activism of Canadian educators and allies becomes even more dynamic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel K. Brickner has received funding from the Harrison-McCain Foundation. She has been a member of Educators for Social Justice-Nova Scotia and is currently the Chair of Democrats Abroad-Atlantic Provinces. </span></em></p>The push to expand charter schools in the U.S. contributed to a robust movement of teachers’ unions and allies demanding a well-resourced public school system.Rachel K. Brickner, Professor of Politics, Acadia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1414342020-07-07T19:54:09Z2020-07-07T19:54:09ZCharter schools: What you need to know about their anticipated growth in Alberta<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345384/original/file-20200702-111269-3z5ji8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C251%2C2658%2C1396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beginning in September in Alberta, an individual can apply directly to the provincial government when seeking to establish a new charter school. Here, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, March 20, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Alberta, the once-radical idea of charter schools, placed largely on the back burner for the past two decades, has been brought back to the fore under Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP). The party’s <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/assets/documents/educ-choice-in-education-act-what-is-changing.pdf">Choice in Education Act</a> will come <a href="https://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_status&selectbill=015&legl=30&session=2">into force Sept. 1, after the government passed it June 24</a>. </p>
<p>Under the new act, individuals will be able to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7000587/alberta-government-ucp-charter-schools-home-schooling-education-may/">bypass the local school board</a> and apply directly to the provincial government to seek to establish a charter school. This follows a move last fall by the newly elected UCP to <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/parents-educators-worry-ucps-amended-education-act-creates-inequity-in-public-system">remove the cap</a> (previously 15) on the number of <a href="http://www.taapcs.ca">charter schools in the province</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.taapcs.ca/members-2/">In Alberta</a>, there are now <a href="https://education.alberta.ca/alberta-education/school-authority-index/everyone/school-authority-information-reports/">13 charter school authorities operating more than 20 schools or campuses</a> — for instance, the province lists seven Calgary schools run by the <a href="https://www.ffca-calgary.com/">Foundations for the Future Charter Academy</a>. </p>
<p>These recent developments provide the opportunity to better understand what charter schools are, how they’ve been taken up by advocates of educational reform and how their re-emergence and promotion under the UCP reflects the influence of neoconservative and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">neoliberal ideologies</a> in education. </p>
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<h2>Roots of charter schools</h2>
<p>Charter schools emerged largely from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-school-of-economics">Chicago School of Economics</a>, inspired by the ideas of prominent thinkers like <a href="https://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEFriedmanRoleOfGovttable.pdf">Milton Friedman</a>. Friedman argued state “monopoly” over public education was problematic, and thus education should be instead subject to consumer choices and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/politics-markets-and-americas-schools/">dynamics of the free market</a>.</p>
<p>While differing based on country and context, charter schools can be understood as a hybrid type of school — both public and private. Individuals or groups may seek <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/charter-schools.aspx">to establish a school</a> under a particular educational philosophy or approach. This charter then guides the administration and organization of the school. </p>
<p>To date, Alberta’s charter schools include a schools for children who are “<a href="https://www.newhorizons.ca/about/">academically gifted</a>,” <a href="https://indspire.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MECCS-Final.pdf">an Indigenous school</a> and a school <a href="http://esl-almadina.com/about/about-us/">for children learning English</a>.</p>
<p>As public institutions, however, charter schools must still abide by the <a href="https://education.alberta.ca/media/3227599/charter-schools-handbook-september-2015.pdf">policies, rules and regulations</a> set out by the government. In this way, these schools can be seen as offering students and parents choice different from the local public school.</p>
<p>With funding is typically determined on a per-pupil basis, if parents decide not to choose a particular charter school, it may then close. Charter schools are also subject to competitive market pressures and often have to raise capital funding for expenses such as the school building or transportation themselves. That means charter schools may turn to fundraising from <a href="https://www.thecaafoundation.com/about1">community-based</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRYAHyplko">corporate</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/enbridge/enbridge-helps-mother-earth-childrens-charter-school-find-new-home/400919133287752/">sources</a>. In the U.S., for instance, some charter schools can be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I">run as for-profit</a> entities.</p>
<h2>Entry into Alberta</h2>
<p>Charter schools, once hailed as a solution to <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=PjqcqVl98zQC&source=gbs_navlinks_s">the numerous apparent failures</a> of the public education system, arrived in <a href="https://www.edcan.ca/articles/the-alberta-public-charter-school-system/">Alberta with the first school opening in 1994</a>, just two years after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/charter-school">first charter school opened in the United States</a>. </p>
<p>Up until recently, discussion around their future or promise in Alberta has been somewhat ambiguous. But <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/bill-8-gsas-school-fees-power-of-boards-to-be-tweaked-under-education-amendment-act">since the UCP</a> was elected last year, the provincial government has sought to revive charter schools as part of broader educational and public sector reforms. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jason-kenneys-common-sense-education-platform-gets-it-wrong-119069">Why Jason Kenney’s 'common sense' education platform gets it wrong</a>
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<h2>‘School choice’</h2>
<p>As the UCP government’s <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/speech-from-the-throne-to-kick-off-11-week-session">throne speech</a> outlined, the party stresses expanding school choice. For instance, new legislation makes it easier for parents to home-school since they will <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bill-15-choice-in-education-act-introduced-1.5587398">no longer need Alberta school board supervision to do so</a>.</p>
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<p>Last fall, the UCP also <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/public-alberta-school-boards-1.5275561">removed the word “public”</a> from Alberta’s public schools boards, a move that can be critically viewed as <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/kenney-government-orders-alberta-public-schools-to-remove-the-word-public-from-their-name/">an attempt to obfuscate</a> the demarcation between public and private schools. </p>
<p>Kenney, himself a <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jason-kenney">product of elite private schooling</a>, appears focused on the expansion of more privatized forms of education. </p>
<p>Charter advocates contend that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/431184?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">as schools of choice</a>, they offer students more specialized and meaningful educational experiences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2017/12/Blasetti%3ASilva.pdf">Critics often respond</a> that choice is already available in public school systems and that charters don’t demonstrate any significant improvements in performance, and may in fact <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19879714">further segregate</a> students, leading to greater educational inequalities.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20news/Vol53/Number-11/Pages/Q-and-A-Charter-education-is-not-public-education.aspx">Educational labour unions remain unsupportive</a> as well, as charters often seek to hire <a href="https://slate.com/business/2016/09/the-lengths-that-charter-schools-go-to-when-their-teachers-try-to-form-unions.html">non-unionized</a> teachers. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the evidence <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED526353.pdf">remains mixed</a> as to whether charters provide any significant improvements to student achievement. The research and policy landscape is often contentious and heavily influenced by competing <a href="https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research/selected-publications/the-institutional-landscape-of-interest-group-politics-and-school-choice">interest groups</a>.</p>
<h2>Privatization</h2>
<p>In Canada, charter schools only exist in Alberta — a province with a <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-politics-of-educational-reform-in-alberta-2">history of school choice policies</a>. As I discussed in my research into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2015.991162">the development of Alberta’s charter schools</a>, their existence can be largely attributed to political ideas rather than educational developments in the province. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345925/original/file-20200707-27867-6cggty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Charter schools were first introduced in Alberta under former premier Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservative Party in 1994. Here, Klein in front of a campaign poster in February 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
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<p>In 1994, when charters were first introduced in Alberta, it was under a <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ralph-klein">provincial government focused largely on values of individualism, consumerism, privatization, commercialization and deficit reduction</a>. Charter schools emerged as they fit in under this particular political and economic ideology. </p>
<p>Today we see many of the <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/united-conservative-party-mla-the-idea-of-public-education-is-inanity-and-absolutely-backwards">same values</a> once again on the rise in Alberta at the same time as charters and “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/charter-school-cap-removal-criticized-1.5164989">school choice” ideas are being amplified</a>.</p>
<p>Neoconservative and neoliberal advocates of educational reform in particular continue to push them forward — <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/21624">as witnessed in the United States</a> under <a href="https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/grant-frost-will-trumps-war-on-public-schools-cross-into-canada-410788/">President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-cyber-charter-schools-are-and-why-their-growth-should-worry-us-68471">What cyber charter schools are and why their growth should worry us</a>
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<h2>Educational reforms and democracy</h2>
<p>While educational reforms can and must occur in response to a changing world, <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/public-school-and-political-ideas-1">public schools are meant to be resistant</a> to political changes because they represent our core democratic values and are meant to develop to serve the needs of a diverse society.</p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly then, the debate over charter schools points to the fundamental political nature of public education. </p>
<p>Recent pre-pandemic educational reforms proposed in Ontario for mandatory online courses were seen by many educators, parents and students not as learning improvements, but rather as reforms motivated by a Conservative government with similar neoliberal <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2020/01/13/secret-document-shows-ford-government-changed-its-mind-before-making-online-course-mandatory-for-high-schoolers.html">politics, ideas and value systems</a>. </p>
<p>Ontario also touted its <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/edu/en/2019/11/ontario-brings-learning-into-the-digital-age.html">“enhanced” (mandatory) online learning as offering “more choice.”</a> Those advocating <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8TZIhpIV6c">school vouchers</a> and the <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/matthew-lau-after-doug-ford-maybe-ontarios-liberals-will-finally-embrace-school-choice">expansion of charter schools</a> in Ontario have used the same rhetoric. </p>
<h2>Education as industry?</h2>
<p>With Alberta’s charter schools set now to expand, as I asserted in 2015, it is worth noting that to date, the rest of Canada has continued to largely — <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/42892">though not entirely</a> — resist calls for “school choice” that imply forms of privatization. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, across Canada, chronic public underfunding of education has forced school boards to seek <a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-high-schools-are-underfunded-and-turning-to-international-tuition-to-help-127753">tuition revenue</a> and promote <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/secret-document-exposes-doug-fords-plan-to-replace-human-teachers-with-cheap-computers/">for-profit curriculums</a>.</p>
<p>The presence of privatization looms large and when education is defined as an industry, there will always be those who seek to <a href="https://progressive.org/public-school-shakedown/edtech-industry-profit-from-covid-19-lahm-200323/">profit from it</a>. </p>
<p>As Canadians, the rejection of charter schools demonstrates our collective commitment to the some of the most important core principles of public education, including access, quality and equity. The idea of charter schools allows us to think deeply about our core values surrounding public education and the many promises which it’s asked to uphold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mindzak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>First, the United Conservative Party lifted the cap on charter schools, and now new legislation has cut school boards out of the process to establish a charter school.Michael Mindzak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1417652020-07-07T12:15:22Z2020-07-07T12:15:22ZSupreme Court hands victory to school voucher lobby – will religious minorities, nonbelievers and state autonomy lose out?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345866/original/file-20200706-25-14z3se3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4025%2C3017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters gather as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visits a school in Maryland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/large-group-of-protesters-gather-after-devos-enters-the-news-photo/657150080?adppopup=true">Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf">recent decision</a> that Montana cannot exclude donations that go to religious schools from a small tax credit program could have consequences felt far beyond the state.</p>
<p>The 5-4 ruling in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf">Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue</a>, which came down June 30, follows on from recent cases that have expanded what counts as <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf">discrimination against religion under the U.S. Constitution</a>, making it harder for states to deny grants to faith-based institutions.</p>
<p>From my perspective as <a href="https://www.law.msu.edu/faculty_staff/profile.php?prof=238">a scholar of law and religion</a>, this latest ruling could massively limit states’ ability to exclude religious schools from all sorts of funding, including <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/05/12/520111511/the-promise-and-peril-of-school-vouchers">controversial voucher programs</a> which allow state funds to be used by parents to send children to a private school. And rather than preventing religious discrimination, the court’s decision may actually support a system that discriminates against religious minorities and those of no faith.</p>
<h2>A win for voucher advocates</h2>
<p>The Espinoza decision was quickly <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/30/21308198/supreme-court-espinoza-montana-case-vouchers-victory-devos">hailed as a major win by supporters of school vouchers</a>, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. It isn’t the first time they have cheered the court.</p>
<p>In 2002, the Supreme Court, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, ruled in favor of a voucher program in Ohio which <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/00-1751">overwhelmingly benefited religious schools</a>. The court held that the program did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause">Establishment Clause</a> which limits government support for, and promotion of, religion.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345867/original/file-20200706-4013-13y0bkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A school voucher rally take place outside the Supreme Court in 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-Columbi-/576c9ba366e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/42/0">AP Photo/Rick Bowmer</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>That decision broke with <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=facpubs">a long line of previous cases</a>, which held that government could not use taxpayer dollars to fund religious education. </p>
<p>In the years following the Zelman decision, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/school-choice-gaining-popularity/568063/">public support for school voucher programs has grown</a>. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/12/07/504451460/school-choice-101-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-does-it-work">election of President Donald Trump</a> and appointment of DeVos as education secretary gave the pro-voucher lobby powerful advocates in the administration. The White House has made <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED586964.pdf">vouchers a central plank of their schools policy</a>, with Trump likening “school choice” – a term that includes the use of vouchers – as the “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/wesleywhistle/2020/06/16/trump-school-choice-is-the-civil-rights-statement-of-the-year/#1044dbe03f46">civil rights statement</a>” of the decade.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has paved the way for religious schools to benefit from vouchers through a series of rulings.</p>
<p>In addition to Zelman, and as a precursor to Espinoza, the justices ruled in 2017 that a Missouri program that provided free playground chips for resurfacing, could not deny access to a religious school seeking to resurface its playground. In that case, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf">Trinity Lutheran v. Comer</a>, the justices held that refusing the grant contravened the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause, which prohibits discrimination against religion, among other things.</p>
<p>Until then, the doctrine had been limited to situations in which a government discriminated against a religion through <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1992/91-948">hostility toward that faith</a>, such as when the City of Hialeah, Florida, created a series of ordinances to <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1992/91-948">discriminate against the practice of Santeria</a>. </p>
<p>In a footnote in the Trinity Lutheran case, the justices specifically noted that the decision was limited and did “not address religious uses of funding” such as for attendance at religious schools. But in Espinoza, the Supreme Court has essentially ignored that narrower reading. Instead, the court held that exclusion of donations to religious schools from the state tax credit program <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=facpubs#page=10">discriminates against religion</a>.</p>
<h2>Siphoning funds</h2>
<p>This has significant implications for school vouchers. It could force states to include religious schools in any program that is open to private nonreligious schools. </p>
<p>So if a state allows for parents to use vouchers to take a child out of the public school system, then religious schools must be allowed to benefit from those funds.</p>
<p>But rather than <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=facpubs">preventing religious discrimination</a>, the expansion of voucher plans, in my view, may actually encourage it.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp">majority of private schools are religious</a> – and in some areas with voucher programs, religious schools make up more than 90% of private schools.</p>
<p>In most districts, religious schools that can afford to take voucher students represent only a few larger denominations that are able to highly subsidize religious education. For example, in the Cleveland School District involved in the Zelman case, 96% of voucher recipients went to religious schools <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/00-1751">representing just one or two denominations</a>. </p>
<p>But vouchers <a href="https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2017/1/9/21102953/trump-s-voucher-plan-would-strip-funding-from-over-1-200-schools-in-new-york-city-union-analysis-sho">strip money from public education</a> – every voucher going to a private school means a loss of per student funding for public schools.</p>
<p>This would force the parents of religious minorities, agnostics and atheists to choose between sending their children to a school that may provide religious teaching that goes against their wishes or leave their children in public schools that will be further <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=facpubs">drained of funding and students</a>.</p>
<p>The Espinoza ruling did leave the door ajar a little when it comes to limiting vouchers to religious private schools. The court draws a tightrope-like line between discrimination based on religious status – the fact that a school is religious – and situations where the denial of funding is based on concerns the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf#page=10">funds will support religious functions</a>.</p>
<p>But precedent suggests walking this tightrope might be difficult for states and school districts. The Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman upheld vouchers for religious schools <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/00-1751">including those which proselytize</a>. It is hard to imagine how a state might prevent funds from going to a faith-based school without it being seen as denying funding based on that school’s religious status. </p>
<p>Of course, states can simply not have voucher or tax credit programs for private schools – the Espinoza decision <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf#page=23">makes it clear that this is acceptable</a>. And some states already do this. For example, Michigan explicitly <a href="http://www.legislature.mi.gov/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-Article-VIII-2">prevents taxpayer money going to private schools regardless of whether those schools are religious or not</a>.</p>
<p>But even these bans on taxpayer funding for private education are <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/gov-whitmer-gop-clash-michigan-ban-public-funds-private-schools#:%7E:text=The%20ban%20applies%20to%20all,as%20U.S.%20secretary%20of%20education.">increasingly being challenged</a> by school voucher enthusiasts and religious groups. </p>
<h2>Put on notice</h2>
<p>In Espinoza, the Supreme Court has put states and school districts on notice that if they have voucher programs they can not prevent taxpayer money from being used at religious private schools. That could leave some parents with an uncomfortable choice between sending a child to a public school that is losing funding as a result of vouchers or a religious private school that may proselytize their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank S. Ravitch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Expansion of voucher programs may leave parents with a choice between sending children to religious schools or public schools stripped of funding.Frank S. Ravitch, Professor of Law & Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1173702019-06-07T12:59:50Z2019-06-07T12:59:50ZSchool vouchers expand despite evidence of negative effects<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277465/original/file-20190601-69071-1qyi2gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, signs a bill that creates a new voucher program for thousands of students to attend private schools using taxpayer dollars.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Florida-Vouchers/4da58066057e460abfcd2219144bb557/1/0">Lynne Sladky/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past couple of decades, proponents of vouchers for private schools have been pushing the idea that vouchers <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/FMM1999-40">work</a>.</p>
<p>They assert there is a <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/the-surprising-consensus-on-school-choice">consensus</a> among researchers that voucher programs lead to <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/school-vouchers-raise-african-american-test-scores">learning gains</a> for students – in some cases bigger gains than with other reforms and approaches, such as <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/vouchers-and-test-scores">class-size reduction</a>.</p>
<p>They have <a href="https://jaypgreene.com/2008/08/21/voucher-effects-on-participants/">highlighted</a> studies that show the <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/school-vouchers-in-dc-produce-gains-in-both-test-scores-and-graduation-rates/">positive impact</a> of vouchers on <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/school-vouchers-raise-african-american-test-scores">various populations</a>. At the very least, they argue, vouchers <a href="https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/voucher-challenge-2426.html">do no harm</a>.</p>
<p>As researchers who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KLVtdQYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">school choice</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jcvEv4AAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education policy</a>, we see a new consensus emerging — including in pro-voucher advocates’ own studies — that vouchers are having mostly <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">no effects or negative effects</a> on student learning. As a result, we see a shift in how voucher proponents are redefining what voucher success represents. They are using a new set of non-academic gains that were not the primary argument to promote vouchers.</p>
<p>How success is defined is particularly important now in light of the fact that <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0510/In-Florida-vouchers-win-ground-but-courts-may-have-ultimate-say">Florida</a> and <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/05/24/tennessee-governor-signs-school-voucher-bill_ap.html">Tennessee</a> – which are both <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State_government_trifectas#Trifecta_status_by_state">controlled by Republicans</a> – have created new publicly funded voucher programs in May 2019. </p>
<p>In April, <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">a large-scale study</a> — conducted by <a href="https://www.federationforchildren.org/fuller-wolf-discuss-vouchers/">voucher advocates</a> — found substantial <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/23/do-voucher-scores-bounce-back-new-research-says-no/">negative impacts</a> for students using vouchers to attend private schools.</p>
<p>Certainly, other studies show a different kind of positive effect on the likelihood of a student <a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/effects-florida-tax-credit-scholarship-program-college-enrollment-and-graduation">enrolling and persisting in college</a>. Other studies also show that vouchers have <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf">positive effects on perceptions of school safety</a>, and on <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">avoidance of crime</a> and <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">out-of-wedlock births</a>. But these goals were not what was used to advance vouchers.</p>
<h2>Vouchers being pursued politically</h2>
<p>In addition to states, Republicans are pursuing vouchers at the federal level as well. For instance, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos – along with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and eight of his fellow Republican senators – are pushing for a voucher-like plan to establish what they refer to as <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/trump-administration-unveils-plan-historic-investment-americas-students-through-education-freedom-scholarships">Education Freedom Scholarships</a>. The US$5 billion proposal would enable individual taxpayers and businesses to get dollar-for-dollar tax credits for contributions to “scholarship” organizations. Those organizations would then pass the money to families to use for private schools or other education related expenses for their children.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277467/original/file-20190601-69071-i9zt6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos talks with students in Nashville, Tenn., in April, as lawmakers voted to expand school vouchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DeVos-Tennessee/46a62ee95f464c8f8828d9c79e43f5e3/2/0">Mark Humphrey/AP</a></span>
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<p>There is a largely partisan divide in Congress concerning the District of Columbia school voucher program – a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/chairmen-norton-request-documents-from-secretary-devos-on-dc-school-voucher">federally funded school voucher program</a> created <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/howvoucherscametodc/">under President George W. Bush</a>.</p>
<p>The program, which is authorized under the Scholarships for Opportunities and Results Act, has gotten more than <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/2019-03-29.EEC%20Scott%20Norton%20to%20DeVos-DoEd%20re%20SOAR%20Act.pdf">$200 million from Congress and served more than 10,000 children</a> since it began in 2004. It is set to expire in September.</p>
<p>House Democrats are <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/2019-03-29.EEC%20Scott%20Norton%20to%20DeVos-DoEd%20re%20SOAR%20Act.pdf">looking for problems</a> with the D.C. voucher program. In response, Republicans are <a href="https://republicans-oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-05-30-JDJ-MM-to-DeVos-Dept.-of-Ed-re-SOAR-Act.pdf">seeking additional information</a> to back up the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.ncpecoalition.org/trump-voucher-plan">proposal to double its funding</a>, from $15 million to $30 million, even though a <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/">2017 evaluation</a> of the program showed “<a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/">negative impacts on student achievement</a>.”</p>
<h2>The voucher advocacy movement</h2>
<p>Given all the political interest in vouchers, it pays to revisit how there came to be such as disconnect between what the research shows about the negative impacts of vouchers and their popularity with policymakers.</p>
<p>Starting in the early 1990s, a <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1090254">voucher-advocacy movement</a> emerged to promote the idea that vouchers help students learn. Funded largely by pro-voucher philanthropies such as the <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/walton-family-foundation-pledges-6-million-for-private-school-vouchers">Walton Family Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/expanding-education-choices-vouchers-and-tax-credits-savings-accounts">think tanks</a>, such as Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation, and advocacy <a href="https://ij.org/report/bulletproofing-school-choice/">organizations</a>, such as EdChoice, made concerted efforts to promote <a href="https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/school-choice-myths-and-realities-2nd-PRINTING-FINAL.pdf">proof</a> of the <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/research/the-abcs-of-school-choice/">effectiveness</a> of vouchers. The proof came in the form of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0895904808328532">a small set of studies</a> of voucher programs for poor children in a select set of cities. The studies were conducted by a <a href="https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/10118-market-forces/PetersonDots.d9ec33ad83b24dd0bd0560d9dfb2b636.pdf">group</a> of pro-voucher scholars often funded by those same philanthropies.</p>
<p>For example, a Harvard center funded by <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/sponsors_affiliates.htm">pro-voucher organizations</a>, disputed the official state evaluations of voucher programs in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013124599031002005">Milwaukee</a> and <a href="https://sites.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/newclvex.pdf">Cleveland</a> to argue that there were small but discernible achievement gains for voucher students.</p>
<p>More recently, teams from the University of Arkansas have been <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2019/05/30/education-reformers-our-work-here-is-done/">claiming</a> that their studies show that vouchers almost always lead to learning <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/coreydeangelis/2018/01/30/untitled-n2441717">gains</a> for at least some students, do little if any <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/coreydeangelis/2018/01/30/untitled-n2441717">harm</a> to students, and provide all sorts of <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/private-school-choice-helps-students-avoid-prison-unplanned-pregnancies/">other benefits</a>. Among other things, they say that vouchers <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/46318/researchers-report-link-between-school-voucher-program-and-reduced-crime-paternity-disputes">reduce crime</a> and lead parents to become <a href="https://news.uark.edu/articles/24938/new-book-describes-how-school-vouchers-empowered-urban-families">more involved in civic life</a>. The media then <a href="https://www.albanyherald.com/news/cal-thomas-the-abc-s-of-school-choice/article_0da91e01-dba1-5e7d-9578-224d6419cea1.html">pick up these studies</a>.</p>
<p>But the latest research about vouchers calls into question the original, primary claims about their effectiveness.</p>
<h2>New evidence emerges</h2>
<p>Rigorous research on state-wide programs in <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_online%20edition.pdf">Ohio</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.22086">Indiana</a> and <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">Louisiana</a>, as well as in <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184010/pdf/20184010.pdf">Washington, D.C.</a>, shows large, negative impacts on academic achievement of students using vouchers compared to their peers who stayed in public schools. </p>
<p>Initial <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/26/533192616/school-vouchers-get-a-new-report-card?t=1559252451019">hopes</a> by some researchers and voucher advocates that these <a href="https://www.catholicleague.org/wall-street-journal-scores-on-school-choice/">losses would disappear</a> over time have <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/04/23/do-voucher-scores-bounce-back-new-research-says-no/">evaporated</a> as more recent follow-up studies show that the harm is <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/LSP4-Policy-Brief-SCDP.pdf">significant and sustained</a>.</p>
<p>Now that there is evidence that vouchers harm student learning, voucher advocates have changed their argument. They say <a href="http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Do-Impacts-on-Test-Scores-Even-Matter.pdf">test scores</a> are not that important. Instead, they say policymakers should focus on other measures such as “attainment,” which entails things like the rate at which voucher students <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/04/24/louisiana-vouchers-have-led-to-big-drops-in-test-scores-but-they-also-might-boost-college-enrollment/">enroll in college</a>.</p>
<p>However, some of the most recent research finds that vouchers <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/Erickson-Mills-Wolf-LSP-Attainment_041719-final.pdf">don’t really lead to better college enrollment</a>, either.</p>
<h2>Bad choices</h2>
<p>While some advocates downplay the importance of test scores, others, such as <a href="https://www.hoosiertimes.com/herald_times_online/news/local/lighthouse-christian-academy-responds-to-concerns-over-its-admissions-policy/article_0677fbb4-93b8-5346-ac21-59aa56ce1285.html">DeVos</a> make the argument that vouchers are worthy simply because they give students and families expanded choice.</p>
<p>We believe student learning, the original reason vouchers were promoted, should remain the measure of success. While imperfect, few measures are as readily available to policymakers as test scores in evaluating education reforms. Moreover, advocates should be accountable for the <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-school-choice-work">results they said would occur</a> regarding learning gains. But instead, it appears they want to “<a href="https://nepc.info/newsletter/2018/05/review-goalposts">move the goalposts</a>” they themselves had set up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research over the past few years has shown vouchers for private schools set back student learning. So why are advocates still pushing so hard to expand them?Christopher Lubienski, Professor, Indiana UniversityJoel R Malin, Assistant Professor, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1080182018-12-03T11:37:21Z2018-12-03T11:37:21ZGeorge H.W. Bush laid the foundation for education reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248483/original/file-20181203-194932-1ri33m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President George H.W. Bush in 1990.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-usa-1990-president-george-718857319?src=M0-3E8Z8HAlcSliupLb0VQ-1-1">Mark Reinstein/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>George H.W. Bush fulfilled his desire – articulated late in his 1988 campaign for president – to be <a href="https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/negp/reports/negp30.pdf">“the education president</a>.” It just took three decades.</p>
<p>It’s true that Bush passed no education bills during his one term as president.</p>
<p>His next three successors, by contrast, all produced signature education legislation: <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html">Goals 2000</a> for Bill Clinton, <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml">No Child Left Behind</a> for George W. Bush and both <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html">Race to the Top</a> and the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/essa">Every Student Succeeds Act</a> for Barack Obama. All, however, followed a plan drawn up by George H.W. Bush. He was – in my view as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d-pest4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education historian</a> – the architect of sweeping change.</p>
<p>The cornerstone of the Bush education blueprint was an elite bipartisan consensus. Like his predecessor in the White House – Ronald Reagan – Bush was sympathetic to the free market. But unlike Reagan, Bush was a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2014/05/16/george-h-w-bushs-profile-in-pragmatism/#3516f4181a3d">pragmatist</a>, and as vice president had watched Reagan fail in his push for tuition vouchers. But Bush was also a consummate Washington insider, less intent on dismantling government than on improving it. In the long wake of the alarmist <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html">A Nation at Risk</a> report, which suggested that American students were falling behind their international peers, Bush offered a new vision for federal involvement in education. Rather than choosing between the unregulated market and the heavy hand of government to fix schools, Bush offered a third way, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?22949-1/america-2000-education-initiatives">making the case</a> that entrepreneurial activity in education should be encouraged and carefully monitored by the state. That vision, which shaped an entire generation of education reformers, remains the foundation of an enduring consensus among liberals and conservatives alike.</p>
<h2>Federal government as catalyst</h2>
<p>Beyond establishing a vision, Bush threw his energies into school reform projects large and small. In keeping with his belief that the federal government could <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1991-book1/html/PPP-1991-book1-doc-pg395-2.htm">“serve as a catalyst”</a> in promoting change, he was an early advocate for charter schools, which he successfully <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED327985.pdf">framed</a> as a bipartisan marriage of entrepreneurism and government, and which he pitched not as devices of the free market, but as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/28/opinion/school-choice-without-harm.html">an experimentation</a> against inequality. Through the <a href="https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/npo-spotlight/new-american-schools">New American Schools Development Corporation</a>, for instance, Bush funded the Community Learning Centers of Minnesota project – the first endeavor <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED371513.pdf">“based on the charter school concept, a variation of the school choice approach</a>.” In so doing, he created a model that would be replicated a thousand times over.</p>
<p>Perhaps most significantly, Bush laid the foundation for <a href="https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/negp/reports/negp30.pdf">standards-based accountability</a>. Before he took office, the federal government had little involvement in the governance of public schools. President Lyndon Johnson had increased Washington’s reach through the <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/the-nations-main-k-12-law-a-timeline.html">Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965</a>, which channeled vast new sums to schools. But Johnson and his successors – including Jimmy Carter, who <a href="https://education.laws.com/department-of-education">elevated</a> the Department of Education to the Cabinet – had done little to position the federal government as a kind of executive suite in public education. Bush changed that, and sought to do so by developing top-down accountability through curricular standards and aligned tests.</p>
<p>Less than a year after taking office, the Bush administration worked with the National Governors’ Association to organize the <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/09/24/05summit.h34.html">1989 Charlottesville education summit</a> – a meeting at which then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton distinguished himself as an ally. A few short months later, in his <a href="https://www.infoplease.com/homework-help/us-documents/state-union-address-george-hw-bush-january-31-1990">1990 State of the Union address</a>, Bush proposed his <a href="http://www.capenet.org/pdf/Outlook171.pdf">America 2000</a> legislation, which called for standardized tests that would “tell parents and educators, politicians, and employers just how well our schools are doing.”</p>
<h2>Enduring influence</h2>
<p>At the time he was defeated in his bid for reelection, Bush had little to show for his plans. The charter sector in the early 1990s remained minuscule. Congress sank America 2000 shortly after it was proposed.</p>
<p>Over time, however, Bush’s grand design was gradually realized. Rechristening Bush’s failed America 2000 legislation as Goals 2000, Bill Clinton gave incentives to states to create curricular standards and aligned tests, and he doled out millions of dollars in grants to charter school developers. George W. Bush advanced his father’s work through No Child Left Behind, as well as through strong support for the charter sector, which doubled in size under his administration. Barack Obama offered continued support to the charter sector, while also ensuring the future of accountability testing through <a href="https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn">Every Student Succeeds Act</a>. In short, the Bush paradigm has had remarkable endurance across time and across different administrations.</p>
<p>This is not to say that federal policy has had a positive effect on schools over the past quarter-century. No Child Left Behind is today viewed by policy experts, educators and even many of its original backers as a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pam.21978">failure</a>. And charter schools, despite receiving generally positive press, have produced <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112340">mixed results</a> while largely <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/24/we-must-diversify-charter-school-options.html">failing to produce real innovation</a>.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the endurance of these efforts reveals Bush’s particular genius for working within complex democratic bureaucracies to build lasting power. The Department of Education, once a sleepy backwater, today exercises tremendous influence. And in wielding that influence, Bush’s successors – both Republicans and Democrats – have also advanced his administrative agenda. Phrases like “standards and accountability” and “school choice,” once deployed only by policy wonks, are now common terms in the national education dialogue.</p>
<p>George H.W. Bush’s ideas persisted well after he left office. That’s because they were rooted in compromise between elites on both sides of the aisle and because they were patiently developed through bureaucratic institutions and the law. For good or ill, it seems, true power lies not in the issuance of ideological proclamations or executive orders – it lies in statecraft. Leaders, after all, may come and go. But their policies can continue to shape the world long after they leave office.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Schneider does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though his education initiative staggered while he was in office, the late former President George H.W. Bush had an influence that continues to shape education policy, an education historian says.Jack Schneider, Assistant Professor of Education, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1077662018-11-29T11:38:13Z2018-11-29T11:38:13ZBetsy DeVos has little to show after 2 years in office<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247812/original/file-20181128-32180-577m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' policy proposals have failed.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DeVos-For-Profits/8e85a766b31a4a3289c9cb3b1f356851/22/0">Matt Rourke/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/betsy-devos-and-the-wrong-way-to-fix-schools.html?_r=0">widespread fear</a> that U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would dismantle the public system of education, she has failed to accomplish much of what she set out to do.</p>
<p>That is my assessment as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vK7qfnkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">educational policy researcher</a> who has followed <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-betsy-devos-70843">Secretary DeVos</a> since she took the helm of the U.S. Department of Education in February 2017.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/devos-speech-shows-contempt-for-the-agency-she-heads-90424">DeVos’ objective</a> has been similar to that of her boss, President Donald Trump – and that is to rescind policies of the Obama administration.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/betsy-devos-6-month-report-card-more-undoing-than-doing-81793">While in office</a>, DeVos has endeavored to <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/02/trump_school_choice_initiative_who_can_apply.html">expand school choice initiatives</a> at the federal level, propose <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/12/devos-seeks-massive-cuts-from-education-department-to-support-school-choice/?utm_term=.e1c14757bd0c">major cuts</a> to the department that she oversees, and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/education-department-is-failing-to-provide-public-service-loan-forgive.html">restrict access to public service loan forgiveness</a>. She has also sought to change the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-proposed-title-ix-rule-provides-clarity-schools-support-survivors-and-due-process-rights-all">standard of evidence</a> in sexual cases at institutions of higher education, and <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/07/31/2018-15823/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-perkins-loan-program-federal-family-education-loan">limit oversight</a> of for-profit colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Let’s take a closer look at what DeVos has sought to accomplish during her nearly two years as education secretary.</p>
<h2>School choice</h2>
<p>Betsy DeVos has long been an advocate for school choice in K-12 education. As education secretary, she has proposed that the federal government <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/02/trump_school_choice_initiative_who_can_apply.html">support school choice with federal money</a>. DeVos has advocated for legislation that redirects federal funds to school choice programs in which the funds would follow each individual child, rather than be directly distributed to school districts and states. She has also called for a new federal program that would give states money to give <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/03/betsy_devos_fights_democrats_on_vouchers_safety_civil_rights_in_budget_hearing.html">individual students grants</a> to attend private schools of their choice. Neither of these proposals were included in the budget passed in 2018. Although DeVos did not secure the US$500 million she had sought for school choice, she did secure a fraction of that amount – an additional <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2018/09/14/inside-the-spending-deal-that-will-fund-the-education-department-340453">$58 million</a> for charter schools.</p>
<p>DeVos has also sought to push for school choice through <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/02/betsy_devos_education_savings_accounts_school_choice_military_families.html">education savings accounts for military families</a>. Education savings accounts have gained momentum in several states in the last five years. DeVos’ proposal would allow children of military families to take money that would have been given to a school where they were stationed, and choose a school where they prefer to send their children. Some military groups have <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/383807-devos-pushes-for-school-vouchers-for-military-families-despite-opposition">opposed this idea</a>, arguing that it would take away funding from other educational programs. Congress has not yet taken up this issue.</p>
<p>During her tenure, the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-12-15/tax-bill-could-hand-devos-first-major-school-choice-victory">tax code was changed</a> so that rich families can use college savings plans known as 529s to pay for private schools at the K-12 level.</p>
<h2>Cuts to the Education Department</h2>
<p>In her first year in office, Secretary DeVos proposed a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptNTqF5zIxE">$9 billion or 13 percent cut</a> to the Education Department. She also proposed that $1 billion be redirected from other programs to promote private and charter schools. Some of the programs that she proposed cutting included: after-school programs for low-income students, funding for mental health services and college assistance for needy students. </p>
<p>Ultimately this plan was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/03/21/congress-rejects-much-of-betsy-devoss-agenda-in-spending-bill/?utm_term=.0ad6c739609e">largely ignored by Congress</a> with none of the proposed reforms enacted. In August, Congress actually <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/10/donald-trump-education-spending-increase-second-straight-year.html">increased the federal education budget by $581 million</a>. </p>
<h2>Public service loan forgiveness</h2>
<p>DeVos’ administration has been <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/25/education-department-is-failing-to-provide-public-service-loan-forgive.html">reluctant to honor the public service loan forgiveness</a> program. The public service loan forgiveness program was created to encourage graduates to take on public service jobs, such as a teacher, police officer or firefighter. After a public servant pays their loans for 10 years, the remaining portion is forgiven. Although the <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service">program</a> was enacted by Congress and signed by the President George W. Bush, the U.S. Department of Education has denied over 99 percent of those who have applied in the last two years. Most of the denials were over <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-student-loan-whistleblower">technicalities</a> as a result of poor management by third party loan managers. Loan forgiveness may become part of the agenda of the new Democratically controlled house, as was foreshadowed <a href="https://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-10-16%20Bicameral%20Oversight%20Letter%20to%20Ed%20Dept%20on%20PSLF%20Implementation.pdf">in a letter</a> signed by 150 Democratic House member asking DeVos for an explanation in October 2018.</p>
<h2>Borrower defense to repayment</h2>
<p>In June 2018, DeVos <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/07/31/2018-15823/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-perkins-loan-program-federal-family-education-loan">tried to start a process</a> to undo Obama-era rules meant to hold for-profit colleges accountable for making false promises to students about their chances for graduation and gainful employment. The Obama administration <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-path-debt-relief-students-91-additional-corinthian-campuses">outlined a plan</a> that students who were defrauded by these deceptive schemes would have their federal debt forgiven. </p>
<p>DeVos proclaimed the process as <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-rules-against-education-secretary-betsy-devos-in-for-profit-college-case/">“muddled” and “unfair”</a> and proposed changes that would make it more difficult to place blame on the for-profit colleges, which would have left many students with debt and little to show for their for-profit education. However, the proposed rule never materialized, and a federal judge <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-rules-against-education-secretary-betsy-devos-in-for-profit-college-case/">ordered DeVos</a> to comply with the Obama-era borrower protection rules. </p>
<h2>Campus sexual assault</h2>
<p>DeVos has made changing the way in which colleges and universities adjudicate sexual assault a top issue of her tenure. During the Obama administration, the Department of Education suggested that universities <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-09-26/new-title-ix-guidance-gives-schools-choice-in-sexual-misconduct-cases">change the standard of proof</a> when taking disciplinary action on students accused of sexual assault to a preponderance of evidence. The new rules <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-proposed-title-ix-rule-provides-clarity-schools-support-survivors-and-due-process-rights-all">proposed by DeVos</a> would require that all accused students be granted presumed innocence, due process provisions, and the right to question the accuser in a hearing. The new rules would also restrict the circumstances under which the preponderance of evidence standard could be used.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/31/devos-sexual-assault-investigation-changes/1157376002/">Critics claim</a> that this will create an atmosphere that is conducive to rape culture, keeping victims of sexual assault from seeking justice. DeVos argues that this will bring about a fair and uniform standard by which all colleges and universities will operate. <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/secretary-devos-proposed-title-ix-rule-provides-clarity-schools-support-survivors-and-due-process-rights-all">A draft </a> of this proposal was released on Nov. 16, 2018, but has not yet been acted upon. Public comment is expected to be sought on the proposed rules.</p>
<h2>Resistance to agenda</h2>
<p>Other than the power of persuasion, the cabinet office of Secretary of Education has little power outside of carrying out federal law. When Betsy DeVos was confirmed in the cabinet post, <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/how_betsy_devos_could_and_coul.html">some questioned</a> the degree to which she would be able to execute her agenda and persuade legislators.</p>
<p>Looking retrospectively at DeVos’ first two years in office, it appears that few of her major policy aims have been implemented. Considering the importance of Congress in approving federal provisions, it seems unlikely that DeVos will accomplish much more in the next two years, especially with control of the House of Representatives shifting to a Democratic majority during the midterm elections of 2018.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dustin Hornbeck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although many feared that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would destroy public education, a review of the past two years shows that much of her policy agenda has failed.Dustin Hornbeck, Ph.D. Candidate in Educational Leadership and Policy, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/953952018-04-24T10:52:13Z2018-04-24T10:52:13ZStates are favoring school choice at a steep cost to public education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216023/original/file-20180423-94157-bxe6lr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Colorado teachers rally outside the state Capitol April 16 to demand more funding for schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Teacher-Protest-Colorado/20bd909fdad647d58518aa1cd816f6e9/22/0">Colleen Slevin/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teacher strikes are generating a healthy focus on how far public education funding has <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-punishing-decade-for-school-funding">fallen</a> over the past decade. The full explanation, however, goes beyond basic funding cuts. It involves <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3058266">systematic advantages</a> in terms of funding, students and teachers for charter schools and voucher programs as compared to traditional public schools. Increasing public teacher salaries may end the current protests, but speaking as an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eVP-tTgAAAAJ&hl=en">expert in education law and policy</a>, I believe it won’t touch the new normal in which public education is no longer many states’ first priority. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3058266">forthcoming research</a> shows that, from funding and management practices to teacher and student policies, states are giving charter schools and private schools a <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/article/20150909/NEWS/309099728">better deal</a> than public schools. These better deals have fueled enormous growth in <a href="https://www.publiccharters.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-03/FINAL%20Estimated%20Public%20Charter%20School%20Enrollment%2C%202017-18.pdf">charter schools</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/07/518352548/trump-s-favorite-school-choice-program-allows-wealthy-donors-to-turn-a-profit">voucher programs</a> that is now nearly impossible to unwind. </p>
<p>The most basic shift occurred between 2008 and 2012. Florida and North Carolina illustrate the nationwide trend. Each cut public education funding by <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxtYmwryVI00cVZueUhhYlBsdE0/view">20 percent</a> or more in three years. During the same period, North Carolina lifted its <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article178022436.html">cap</a> on new charter schools and quickly <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2745915">doubled</a> its charter school spending. Florida similarly changed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/18/florida-moves-toward-school-voucher-expansion-but-with-no-accountability/?utm_term=.e722a1d5400b">rules</a> for its voucher program and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3058266">quadrupled</a> its size. </p>
<h2>Favorable funding practices</h2>
<p>States also passed laws to offer charters and private schools more money for each student they took. Florida <a href="http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/15230/urlt/FTC_Sept_2017_1.pdf">increased</a> the value of each voucher by roughly US$2,000. Nevada went even further, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/02/can-a-universal-voucher-program-succeed/515436/">passing</a> legislation that would convert every single public education dollar into a voucher dollar. While the state Supreme Court later declared the program unconstitutional, it has not stopped other states like <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/04/07/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-signs-school-voucher-expansion/100159192/">Arizona</a> from pursuing similar programs. </p>
<p>Several states also began lifting income <a href="https://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2016/08/19/years-indianas-voucher-program-functions-differently/">eligibility limits</a>. Previously, states had provided vouchers only for low-income students. But new voucher programs made them available to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/02/can-a-universal-voucher-program-succeed/515436/">wealthy students</a> as well, even those who already had access to excellent public schools. </p>
<p>Charter schools benefited from similar advantages in some states. Ohio and New Jersey funneled charter school funding through school districts, but the states’ antiquated funding formulas and charter reimbursement rates force districts to send charter schools <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3058266">more per pupil</a> than they receive from the state. </p>
<p>Pennsylvania has a similar <a href="http://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Charter%20Schools/Pages/Charter-School-Funding.aspx">scheme</a>, but it has proven so lopsided that it expanded deficits in <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/exploring-the-consequences-of-charter-school-expansion-in-u-s-cities/">Philadelphia</a> and nearly bankrupted the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/education/pennsylvania-schools-funding-fight-pits-district-against-charter.html">Chester School District</a>. Chester was paying the local charter school roughly <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20150823_Battle_brews_over_charter_school_compensation_for_special_education_students.html">$40,000 per special education student</a>, including for those students with relatively low-cost needs. Arizona took a simpler route. It <a href="https://ade.az.gov/schoolfinance/faqs/Funding/Funding%20of%20Districts%20vs%20Charters.pdf">shielded charter schools</a> from the budget cuts it was imposing on traditional public schools.</p>
<h2>Less oversight</h2>
<p>Once they receive the money, charter schools and private schools receiving vouchers can spend it almost any way they want. Private schools <a href="https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/11/15/there-is-no-oversight-private-school-vouchers-can.html">operate</a> just as they had before. And charter schools – though technically public schools – are exempt from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/10/05/education-department-slammed-for-charter-school-oversight-by-its-own-watchdog-office/?utm_term=.7dcd050dd82c">typical financial oversight</a>. </p>
<p>Laws require public schools to award contracts through a transparent process and prohibit public schools from entering contracts that pose conflicts of interest. Charters can award contracts to almost <a href="https://educationlaw.org/images/annual-conference/2017/2017Papers/J4-2-Green.pdf">anyone they like</a> – and on any terms they like. This includes awarding contracts to companies that have close financial ties with the charter. A person can start a purportedly nonprofit charter school and then have that charter purchase all of its services and supplies from a company owned by that same person. As a result, the person can turn a <a href="http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol93/iss6/4/">profit</a> on staffing, facilities, technology and supplies. <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article178438001.html">National Heritage Academies</a> runs this exact type of business model in North Carolina and continues to grow its campuses.</p>
<p>The same activity could constitute fraud or criminality in a public school. Yet, state law permits it for charters. As Thomas Kelley’s <a href="http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol93/iss6/4/">analysis</a> reveals, many of the charter schools that state law calls nonprofits would not qualify for that same label under federal law. </p>
<h2>No checks on profiteering</h2>
<p>Even well-meaning charter schools have been unable to stop this profit-taking. The Ohio Supreme Court, for instance, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/16/ohio-supreme-court-sides-with-for-profit-company-over-charter-schools/?utm_term=.8e5a67f29123">found</a> that state law dictates that everything a private charter school company purchases with public dollars – from desks to computers – belongs to the private company, not the public. The same is true of buildings that charter schools lease. Charter school operators reap their largest profits through unreasonably high <a href="http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol93/iss6/4/">lease payments</a> on buildings that the public will never own.</p>
<p>States also allow private schools and charters to treat students differently. While public schools must provide disadvantaged students with a host of special services, private schools take vouchers with almost no strings attached. And they are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/05/12/520111511/the-promise-and-peril-of-school-vouchers">increasingly</a> taking high-achieving middle-income and nondisabled students who cost less to educate and typically do not demand specialized services.</p>
<p>Charter schools’ advantages come in their ability to recruit students and cap enrollment. Public schools must serve everyone in their community. The clearest proof that charters don’t is in the data. For instance, Newark charter schools enroll less than half the percentage of <a href="http://www.saveourschoolsnj.org/save/corefiles/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/NJ-Charter-School-Report_10.29.2014.pdf">special education students and English language learners</a> as the Newark public schools. Newark charters also enroll significantly fewer low-income students. In North Carolina, charter schools are increasingly enrolling white students, while public schools increasingly <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21078.pdf">enroll</a> students of color. In Minneapolis, <a href="http://www.startribune.com/lawsuit-claims-minnesota-fails-to-educate-poor-minority-students-in-mpls-st-paul/340843751/">80 percent of charters</a> are racially isolated by race, socioeconomic status or both. </p>
<p>The most obvious advantage, however, is with teachers. Most <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3058266">states exempt</a> charter schools from teacher certification requirements. Half exempt charters from complying with high-stakes teacher evaluation systems. More than three-quarters exempt charters from the teacher salary and collective bargaining rules. In short, states permit charters to hire teachers that would be deemed unqualified in a public school and pay them less. </p>
<h2>The need for a structural shift</h2>
<p>The current debate over school funding must move beyond teacher salaries and whether the <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/reader-center/us-public-schools-conditions.html?utm_campaign=newsletter_subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nuzzel">books in public schools are tattered</a>. Those conversations ignore the systematic policies that disadvantage public schools. Increasing public school teachers’ salaries alone won’t fix the problem. The public school teaching force <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/02/14/why-americas-teacher-shortage-is-going-to-get-worse/">has already shrunk</a>. Class sizes have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/too-many-kids/397451/">already risen</a>. And the rules that advantage charter and private schools remain firmly in place. </p>
<p>Long-term solutions require a reexamination of these preferences. As a state constitutional matter, the law requires that states make public education their first priority. It is not enough to make education one of several competing priorities. And as a practical matter, states cannot continue to ask public schools to work with whatever is left over and then criticize them for doing a poor job. This cycle creates a circular justification for dismantling public education when states should be repairing it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek W. Black does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Traditional public schools suffer as states create favorable funding schemes for charter schools and school vouchers.Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/805882017-07-09T23:46:34Z2017-07-09T23:46:34ZThe Supreme Court, religion and the future of school choice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177157/original/file-20170706-10491-1qzlnvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=588%2C109%2C4472%2C3110&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supreme Court's decision in the Trinity Lutheran case is blurring the lines between church and state.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chiangmai-thailand-march-222015-two-boys-262562096?src=V_7R_iqvQZsrSIcdYp1ZIA-1-3">aradaphotography/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court <a href="https://apnews.com/a494b90c0244404183483df6a8618a66">recently decided</a> that Trinity Lutheran Church should be eligible for a Missouri state grant covering the cost of recycled playground surfaces. Though the state originally rejected the church’s application on grounds of separation of church and state, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-577">the Supreme Court ruled</a> that this rejection was, in fact, religious discrimination.</p>
<p>The case’s impact will probably reach well beyond playgrounds.</p>
<p>As a scholar of education law, I’ve been following the Trinity Lutheran case and what it could mean for the hottest issue in education: school choice. Where in the past states have decided for themselves whether religious schools are eligible for <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/voucher-law-comparison.aspx">school vouchers</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/tax-credits-school-choice-and-neovouchers-what-you-need-to-know-74808">scholarship tax credits</a>, the Trinity Lutheran decision likely signals that the Supreme Court will soon require states to include religious private schools in their programs.</p>
<p>This would be a huge win for school choice advocates and would complete a revolution in the Supreme Court’s understanding of the law on government funding of religious institutions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177159/original/file-20170706-10491-10ce14v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Activist group Concerned Women for America shows support for Trinity Luthern Church in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Of church playgrounds and discrimination</h2>
<p>In 1995, Missouri established <a href="https://dnr.mo.gov/env/swmp/tires/tirefinassistance.htm">a program offering reimbursement grants</a> to qualifying nonprofits that installed playground surfaces made from recycled tires. Trinity Lutheran Church, which runs a preschool and daycare center, applied for a grant in 2012, but the state rejected the church’s application. Why? The <a href="http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/ConstArticles/Art01.html">Missouri Constitution</a> states that “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion.”</p>
<p>Trinity Lutheran challenged the state’s decision as a violation of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause">the Free Exercise Clause</a>, and in June the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-577/opinion3.html">agreed</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177217/original/file-20170706-23390-q29erx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Scrap Tire Surface Material Grant was awarded to two applicants in the 2017 fiscal year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ssedro/384644450/in/photolist-5afdGE-aMshTP-6bUGGs-7qgcDn-6cdYdp-68FByJ-kFYcYp-6ci7wL-kFYe6z-6uUeDY-kGZtwT-6uUeFo-kFYeti-7Yn2fJ-6uUeFY-6uUeRu-6uUeZo-6uQ4w2-6uQ4r2-kFZMmq-6uQ4gv-6uUeN5-6uQ4qF-6uUeKE-6uUeYu-zZpoS-6uQ4k4-6uUeUW">ssedro</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This result will strike many as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/26/opinions/religious-liberty-battle-shapiro-opinion/index.html">intuitively correct</a>. A playground is a playground whether or not it’s run by a church, so the threat to separation of church and state seems slim, and the cry of religious discrimination seems plausible.</p>
<p>The case’s reasoning, however, may signal a significant shift in how the law views the separation of church and state. To understand why, we need to review some history.</p>
<h2>1784: Three pence to religious education</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177225/original/file-20170706-18401-1n6qfpn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1785, James Madison wrote his ‘Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,’ asserting that religion should be kept separate from government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/96522271/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1784, <a href="https://classroom.monticello.org/media-item/a-bill-establishing-a-provision-for-teachers-of-the-christian-religion/">Patrick Henry proposed a bill</a> in the Virginia legislature that would have levied a tax to support “teachers of the Christian religion” (i.e., ministers). James Madison, however, <a href="https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/memorial-and-remonstrance/">successfully opposed the bill</a>.</p>
<p>On the question of funding religion with tax money, Madison asked: “Who does not see that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”</p>
<p>More than 150 years later, in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/330us1">Everson v. Board of Education</a> (1947), this controversy played a prominent role in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/first-amendment-and-religion">the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177151/original/file-20170706-26461-13r9rs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Justice Hugo Black in 1937.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b00098/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In applying the Establishment Clause to states for the first time, the justices in the Everson case emphasized Madison’s objections to the Virginia tax in concluding that the framers of the Constitution had intended to establish “a wall of separation between Church and State.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/330/1/case.html">the Everson decision</a>, Justice Hugo Black interpreted this “wall” to mean:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The Supreme Court changes its tune</h2>
<p>Until the mid-1980s, the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1335&context=ijgls#page=20">mostly adhered</a> to the no-funding mantra announced in the Everson case. Gradually, however, the court’s commitment to such hard-line separation waned.</p>
<p>Much of this came down to a shift in perception: The 21st century is very different from the world of the 1780s, where government was small and taxes relatively rare. Today, government is pervasive, and government money flows to a wide range of institutions. Increasingly, the Supreme Court recognized that allowing some money to flow to religious institutions via general government grant programs was <a href="http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1335&context=ijgls#page=19">quite different</a> from the Virginia tax Madison had opposed.</p>
<p>By <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/00-1751">2002</a>, the court had settled on its current approach to the Establishment Clause – an approach <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2009/05/14/shifting-boundaries-the-establishment-clause-and-government-funding-of-religious-schools-and-other-faith-based-organizations/">much more permissive</a> than what was laid out in the 1947 Everson case.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to 2017, and seven justices agreed that giving Trinity Lutheran Church its playground grant would not violate the federal Establishment Clause. (Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-577/dissent7.html">dissented</a> on this point.)</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177179/original/file-20170706-18989-16xcvlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ralph Reed, chairman, Faith & Freedom Coalition, pictured at an event in 2014, has spoken in favor of Trinity Lutheran Church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Molly Riley</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>State bans on funding religion</h2>
<p>So, the Supreme Court now holds a more forgiving position when it comes to separation of church and state. But what about individual states?</p>
<p>Nearly every state has provisions in its constitution that address state support for religion, and many of these provisions (like Missouri’s) are more stringently worded than the federal Establishment Clause. Such a provision is exactly why students in <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/vt-supreme-court/1396322.html">Vermont</a> can’t use state funds to attend religious schools. It’s also, perhaps, why some states have not yet adopted voucher policies: Voucher advocates tend to want religious schools to be eligible, but <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2017/01/why_michigan_doesnt_have_school_vouchers_and_probably_never_will.html">state constitutions often stand in the way</a>.</p>
<p>So, what happens if state constitutional law is more separationist than the Supreme Court’s current reading of the Establishment Clause?</p>
<p>The Supreme Court faced this question once before in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-1315">Locke v. Davey</a> (2004). The state of Washington offered “Promise Scholarships” to students meeting certain academic and income criteria, and college student Joshua Davey met those criteria. He lost the scholarship, however, when he declared a major in “pastoral ministries” because Washington understood its state constitution to ban the use of public money to support the pursuit of any degree in “devotional theology.” In other words, Washington was taking a stringent view on separation of church and state.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177165/original/file-20170706-13395-1qn3hn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joshua Davey speaks to reporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Dennis Cook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Davey argued that excluding ministry students from the scholarship opportunity was a kind of religious discrimination, violating his right to freely exercise his religion. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 against Davey. <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/540/712/opinion.html">Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained</a> that in a federal system, states should have the right to insist on greater separation of church and state than the federal Establishment Clause requires.</p>
<p>While federal law would not prevent Washington from giving Davey a scholarship, the state could also choose to uphold its stricter separation – without violating the Free Exercise Clause. In other words, just because Washington could fund Davey didn’t mean that it had to.</p>
<h2>Does separationism equal discrimination?</h2>
<p>Since 2004, lower courts have generally interpreted Locke v. Davey to say that states <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1459164.html">may choose</a> to exclude religious applicants from public funding programs. Trinity Lutheran will change that.</p>
<p>At least six justices agreed that Missouri’s exclusion of the church from its grant program was religious discrimination, pure and simple – and that this trumps the state’s desire to enforce a strict separation of church and state. <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-577/opinion3.html">Justice Roberts</a> determined that the judgment in Locke did not apply here, as the discrimination alleged in the two cases was different. Justices <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-577/concur4.html">Thomas</a> and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/582/15-577/concur5.html">Gorsuch</a> suggested that there was improper religious discrimination in both cases. </p>
<p>Despite their different views of Locke, these justices agreed that the court was required to analyze Missouri’s grant denial under “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny">strict scrutiny</a>.” This is the same level of review the court would give to, for instance, an express ban on Muslims entering the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177166/original/file-20170706-26461-1j76yqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his opinion in the case, Justice Roberts stressed the differences between Locke v. Davey and Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Stephan Savoia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is remarkable. Though Joshua Davey had asked the court to review Washington’s scholarship policy under strict scrutiny, the court declined to do so. In that decision, the justices determined that separation of church and state and religious discrimination were horses of a different color. The Trinity Lutheran decision suggests that, at least in the context of general funding programs, the court will now view separation of church and state – a position the court once wholeheartedly embraced – as a kind of religious discrimination.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>Standing against this reading of the Trinity Lutheran decision is… well, a footnote. Footnote 3 in Justice Roberts’ opinion reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing. We do not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The footnote suggests that the implications of the decision are narrow and shouldn’t be applied to, say, school vouchers. But it’s hard to reconcile the footnote with the seemingly widespread ramifications of the opinion’s text.</p>
<p>Indeed, the day after deciding the Trinity Lutheran case, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/062717zr_6537.pdf">vacated</a> four lower court decisions in <a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court...Court/Opinions/.../13SC233.pdf">Colorado</a> and <a href="http://www.nmcompcomm.us/nmcases/nmsc/slips/SC34,974.pdf">New Mexico</a> that allowed the exclusion of religious schools from general aid programs. The state courts had based their rulings on separationist language in their state constitutions, but the Supreme Court asked the states to reexamine those decisions in light of Trinity Lutheran. Given the Supreme Court’s treatment of these cases, Footnote 3 may not be much of a limitation after all.</p>
<p>The Colorado and New Mexico courts will have the first shot at deciding what Trinity Lutheran means for school choice. In my view, though, the Trinity Lutheran case signals that the Supreme Court will now generally treat separationist exclusions of religious institutions from government funding as religious discrimination.</p>
<p>If that’s right, we’ll soon have completely flipped the law on government funding of religious schools. Where it had once seemed fairly clear that government money could not be used to support religious instruction at all, it may be only a matter of time before the Supreme Court requires voucher programs to treat religious schools the same as their secular peers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John E. Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Trinity Lutheran case signals the Supreme Court’s willingness to interpret separation of church and state as religious discrimination. What will this mean for the future of vouchers and school choice?John E. Taylor, Professor of Law, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780712017-05-23T21:08:04Z2017-05-23T21:08:04ZTrump budget would abandon public education for private choice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170383/original/file-20170522-7364-1mvj6o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump participate in a round-table discussion during a visit to Saint Andrew Catholic School in Miami. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Trump administration has announced its plan to transform education funding as we know it. The new <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/budget.pdf">budget proposal</a> takes aim at a host of elementary, secondary and higher education programs that serve needy students, redirecting those funds toward K-12 school choice in the form of vouchers, tax credits and charter schools.</p>
<p>Public schools that enroll a large percentage of low-income students stand to lose significant chunks of their budget, as well as a number of specialized federal programs for their students. At the same time, the Trump budget will incentivize families to leave not only these schools, but public schools in general.</p>
<p>As a scholar of education law and policy, I note that my recent <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2745915">research</a> on state voucher and charter programs shows that the loss of both money and core constituents proposed by this new budget could throw public education into a downward spiral.</p>
<h2>The proposed changes in federal funding</h2>
<p>Through Title I of the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn">Elementary and Secondary Education Act</a>, the federal government currently sends US$16 billion a year to public schools to provide extra resources for low-income students. While Title I is the single largest federal grant, the federal government spends <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016301.pdf">more than twice that amount</a> through a multitude of other programs. School systems like those in Miami, Milwaukee, Houston, San Antonio and Detroit get anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of their funding from the federal government.</p>
<p>The new budget proposes about <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/520379061/read-president-trumps-budget-blueprint">$4 billion</a> in cuts to programs like literacy for students with disabilities and limited English proficiency, class-size reduction, and after-school and summer programs.</p>
<p>The Trump administration promises the money is not really gone; it’s just coming back under different <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/2018_blueprint.pdf">policies</a>. The administration plans to add $1 billion to Title I, but the additional money comes with a big catch: States must spend that money on school choice. To access the new money, states and districts would have to adopt student enrollment policies that allow families to choose their own schools and take public money with them. </p>
<p>This would fundamentally change the way states have funded schools and assigned students for the past century. While choice policies have significantly grown in recent years, the vast majority of districts continue to assign students to a public school <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010004.pdf">based on where they live</a>. If families choose to leave the district to attend another school (i.e., a charter school), local school funds remain with the district. A substantial chunk, if not all, of state and federal dollars typically stay with the district as well. </p>
<p>Trump’s proposal would have all of the local, state and federal dollars follow the child, regardless of the school the student attends. Choice advocates argue that this gets the government out of the driver’s seat and brings market forces to bear on public schools. Competition, they reason, will <a href="http://educationnext.org/does-competition-improve-public-schools/">improve public schools</a> and, thus, benefit everyone. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170379/original/file-20170522-7329-541bh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In January, Georgia Charter Schools Association and GeorgiaCAN sponsored a school choice town hall to discuss school choice implications for minority families in Georgia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Branden Camp/AP Images for Georgia Charter Schools Association</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The threat to low-income schools</h2>
<p>Studies have shown that while decreased student enrollment does reduce some public school costs, <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Err2165/pdfs/nycharterfiscal.pdf">other costs remain fixed</a>. School buses drive the same routes. Air conditioners run just as much. And, quite often, the school still needs the same number of teachers. When states fail to account for these realities, they can <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/02/06/146482651/penn-school-district-goes-broke">drive school districts into bankruptcy</a>. </p>
<p>Under Trump’s proposal, when a student enrolls in a charter school, that student will take not only federal funding with them, but all of the state and local funding that previously supported the local school. This would effectively reduce the funding for the local school without reducing its costs. </p>
<p>The effect on high-poverty districts could be catastrophic. On average, school districts serving predominantly low-income students already receive significantly less <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxtYmwryVI00VDhjRGlDOUh3VE0/view">state and local funding</a> than others. In Nevada, for instance, predominantly middle-income schools spend $10,400 per pupil, whereas schools serving just a moderate number of low-income students spend only $6,100 per pupil. Taking more money away from needy schools would likely widen these gaps. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170362/original/file-20170522-25082-19509hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arne Duncan gives a speech at Seaton Elementary School in Washington, D.C. in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofed/16263354861/in/photolist-qM8WN2-6zavLU-quJ5H1-fppnTQ-qMdWWu-pQi7wq-qM8RJz-qM8TjP-qMibFD-7jtyH4-mv7J98-dyTETy-fCSqyF-br76gk-sKTxfn-fzAsnr-quSBbP-mv8fhT-quSAjZ-9TustP-dcdTw3-qK1mV3-quJWus-qMidwn-quRo4F-quJ59A-quSA1T-quSyR8-brEVKS-8LWRhy-8QDXNV-mwVv6J-9EEeF3-eHRg2n-oS9rk4-7bgeuu-hgatbR-pQibcm-qM8UGi-quJ6Mq-cWMyYJ-8QDXKK-qK1qqE-cWMzFE-qMigtV-pE4eyL-dyTEAQ-mbdiRH-fpahqa-8QDXHt">US Department of Education/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>States, of course, can stick with the traditional rules for spending federal Title I money, but if they want additional money from Trump, they have to agree to his choice proposal. History has shown that states are typically willing to do anything to get new federal education money, even when it’s a bad idea. In 2009, Secretary Arne Duncan offered even less money for states to adopt controversial <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2485407">teacher evaluation systems and the Common Core</a>. While those policies <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2848415">imploded within a few years</a>, more than 40 states were initially quick to take the deal.</p>
<h2>The threat to public schools in general</h2>
<p>The administration plans to go beyond the education budget alone. Although it is holding back the details <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/23/devos-school-choice-should-expand-but-not-washington-d-c/338413001/">for now</a>, the administration is close to proposing an entire <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/18/sources-devos-to-unveil-school-choice-plans-in-policy-speech-238544">new tax scheme</a> to fund private education. This new program would give individuals and businesses <a href="https://theconversation.com/tax-credits-school-choice-and-neovouchers-what-you-need-to-know-74808">tax credits</a> for “donating” to organizations that pay for students’ tuition at private schools. </p>
<p>In the past, states have experimented with traditional school voucher programs, which are typically limited to small numbers of low-income students. The new tax credit system, by contrast, could be used by states to fund wealthier students – and could be opened up to enrollment at religious schools as well. </p>
<p>As a result, enrollment in these programs has risen dramatically in comparison to traditional vouchers. In states like Florida and Indiana, the size of these programs <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2745915">quadrupled</a> in just a few years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170377/original/file-20170522-7384-upiyxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Secretary DeVos visits SLAM Charter School in Miami.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofed/33152025944/in/album-72157682413273936/">US Department of Education/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A wolf in school choice clothing</h2>
<p>On the surface, these policies are just about moving money around – freeing up traditional public school funding to spur growth in charter and private schools. Below the surface, however, I believe the new budget undermines confidence in public education.</p>
<p>North Carolina offers a cautionary tale. A few years ago, North Carolina slashed its traditional education budget by 20 percent, while doubling its expenditures on charter schools. Since then, North Carolina’s public schools have fallen from being among the finest in the nation to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/07/north-carolinas-step-by-step-war-on-public-education/?utm_term=.eadd3edef376">some of the worst</a>.</p>
<p>Policies like these misunderstand why we have public education in the first place. Our government institutions have long funded public schools because they produce <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2277371">benefits for society as a whole</a>: productive citizens, social values, shared experiences and an effective workforce. Individuals surely benefit, but the pursuit of these societal goals is the reason that our states provide education.</p>
<p>Trump’s effort to reshape school financing reflects a vision of education that is not public at all. This new vision is all about individuals, ignoring what may happen to our societal values, public schools and the neediest students who will be left behind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek W. Black does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Trump administration’s new education budget cuts money from traditional schools and funnels it toward school choice. Is it a nail in the coffin for public education?Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748082017-04-14T13:56:25Z2017-04-14T13:56:25ZTax credits, school choice and ‘neovouchers’: What you need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165293/original/image-20170413-25898-14wcw52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should taxpayer dollars fund private education?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/elementary-school-pupils-running-playground-284501777?src=-7i_gVOjcgfbUP4mAhpK9Q-1-1">Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Republican lawmakers craft a <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20170325/trump-gop-turn-to-tax-overhaul">tax reform bill</a>, there’s <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_TAXES">speculation</a> on the import taxes, value-added taxes and tax cuts it may usher in. Meanwhile, it’s likely that the bill will also include a major education policy initiative from the Trump administration: a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-schools-tax-credit-public-private-235228">tax credit designed to fund private school vouchers</a>.</p>
<p>A decade ago I started researching this <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?282880-1/tuition-tax-credits">new kind of voucher</a> – funded through a somewhat convoluted tax credit mechanism – that appears to have particular appeal to <a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Experts-Talk-Education-Under-Trump-DeVos--416373583.html">President Trump and other Republicans</a>.</p>
<p>These new vouchers (or “neovouchers”) are similar to conventional vouchers in many ways, but there are some important differences. It’s those differences that neovoucher advocates most care about and that everyone should understand.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165292/original/image-20170413-25898-1dhmkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tour Saint Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conventional vouchers</h2>
<p>What exactly is a school voucher? Typically, a voucher is direct financial support that helps families pay for the cost of private K-12 schooling. Proponents see vouchers as a way to <a href="https://www.federationforchildren.org/school-choice-america/programs-qualifications/">help children attend nonpublic schools</a>. Detractors see vouchers as <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-school-vouchers-improve-results-it-depends-on-what-we-ask-55003">undermining funding and support needed by public education</a>.</p>
<p>All vouchers subsidize tuition with tax dollars. This can be accomplished in many ways, and the nuances matter.</p>
<p>Conventional voucher policies use the relatively straightforward method of allocating state money to give vouchers directly to eligible parents. The parents, in turn, give the vouchers to a private school of their choice. These schools are sometimes secular, but are <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp">usually religious</a>.</p>
<p>The private schools then redeem these vouchers to obtain money from the state. In the <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/school-choice-in-america/">16 states</a> where conventional voucher policies exist, they produce about 175,000 vouchers annually. This amounts to 3.3 percent of the nation’s private school population.</p>
<p>Yet, these direct vouchering programs present four major problems for school choice advocates.</p>
<p>First, they’re typically available only to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737024002145">lower-income families</a>; wealthier families are usually not eligible.</p>
<p>Second, when governments directly provide voucher money, participating schools are generally required to comply with <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/20130129-School-Choice-Regulations-Red-Tape-or-Red-Herring-FINAL_7.pdf">a variety of guidelines</a>, such as accreditation requirements, anti-discrimination regulation, minimum teacher qualifications, financial reporting and/or the administration of a standardized test to students receiving the voucher.</p>
<p>Third, vouchers are <a href="http://www.shankerinstitute.org/sites/shanker/files/pdkpoll47_2015.pdf#page=18">simply not politically popular</a> – which is why the more palatable term “<a href="http://schoolsites.schoolworld.com/schools/Cheltenham/webpages/rwilman/files/article-lemann-the%20word%20lab.pdf">opportunity scholarships</a>” (courtesy of messaging guru <a href="http://www.luntzglobal.com/team/frank-luntz/">Frank Luntz</a>) has become increasingly popular.</p>
<p>Finally – and importantly – <a href="https://comm.ncsl.org/productfiles/82733543/Session_Powerpoint.pdf">state constitutions</a> often prohibit the channeling of state money to religious institutions. In many states, this means that conventional voucher programs cannot exist if the program includes religious schools. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/536/639/case.html">vouchers don’t violate federal law</a>, state constitutions can create <a href="http://law.justia.com/constitution/colorado/cnart9.html">legal obstacles</a> that are more formidable than those under the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165299/original/image-20170413-25886-1qah0et.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St. Joseph Academy, a Catholic school in Cleveland, is one of the top three schools to benefit from Ohio voucher dollars. Ohio’s conventional vouchers can be applied to secular and nonsecular schools alike, but 97 percent go to religious schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Joseph_Academy_Campus.jpg">Oarbogast / Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Vouchers on steroids</h2>
<p>To sidestep these issues, many state lawmakers have embraced a new kind of voucher policy that gets essentially the same result but changes the state’s role from paying for vouchers to issuing tax credits.</p>
<p>This approach was first adopted in Arizona, in 1997, where the legislature <a href="https://www.azleg.gov/ars/43/01089.htm">passed a law</a> setting up a system in which any taxpayer could “donate” money to a special, private nonprofit corporation. That corporation then issues vouchers to parents, who use them to pay for private school tuition. The taxpayers then get the money back from the state in the form of a tax credit.</p>
<p><a href="http://law.justia.com/constitution/arizona/2/12.htm">Arizona’s constitution</a> – typical of language in state constitutions – requires that “No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise, or instruction, or to the support of any religious establishment.” But Arizona’s elaborate mechanism keeps the specific dollars out of state coffers. Consequently, state funding only indirectly supports religious institutions. The <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v8n36.2000">Arizona Supreme Court</a> found this distinction sufficient, ruling that the tax credits did not violate the state’s constitutional prohibition against spending public money for religious support.</p>
<p>Beyond this legal advantage, advocates favor this sort of tax-credit-voucher method because it appears <a href="https://www.cato.org/education-wiki/scholarship-tax-credits-vouchers">less likely to be regulated</a>. It’s also likely to be open to a wider range of parents – not just lower-income or special needs families. And the complexity of the neovoucher approach <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/09/03/02welner.h28.html">obscures the fact that it’s really a voucher program</a>, making it less of a political lightning rod.</p>
<p>Some wealthy taxpayers can even receive tax benefits exceeding the <a href="http://itep.org/itep_reports/2016/10/state-tax-subsidies-for-private-k-12-education.php#.WM1mZUffuOw">value of their donations</a>. This baffling outcome is because of a loophole tied to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), an extra tax imposed on some wealthier taxpayers to ensure that they pay their fair share. The AMT limits certain tax breaks, such as the ability to deduct state tax payments from federal taxes. However – and here’s the twist – these AMT taxpayers can deduct charitable contributions. And so, these wealthier taxpayers can shift their state tax payment into a “charitable” contribution and instantly transform the payment into a federal deduction. In the six states that give a full tax credit for voucher donations, those taxpayers can get back the full value of their voucher plus a deduction for the donation.</p>
<p>A decade ago when I wrote a book explaining these tax credit policies and labeling them “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742540804">neovouchers</a>,” they existed in only six states and generated about 100,000 vouchers. Today, <a href="https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/school-choice-in-america/">17 states</a> have tax-credit policies similar to Arizona’s on their books, generating a quarter-million vouchers and growing every year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165287/original/image-20170413-10077-jto263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students at The King’s Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida. Florida is one of the states that issues tax-credit-style vouchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_King%27s_Academy_Campus_-.jpg_M._Nelson_Loveland.jpg">Randal Martin / Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>These new vouchers aren’t likely to help kids</h2>
<p>Do these vouchers improve student achievement? The research suggests that we shouldn’t expect children’s learning to be affected.</p>
<p>An <a href="http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/pdf/FTC_Research_2012-13_report.pdf">evaluation of Florida’s neovoucher law</a> – which <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-devos-florida-school-choice-20170409-story.html">the Trump administration appears to be using as its model</a> – found that students receiving these neovouchers had a nonsignificant (-0.7 percentile points) loss in math and nonsignificant (+0.1 percentile points) gain in reading on standardized test scores. </p>
<p>Similarly, research focused on conventional vouchers has tended to reach this <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/school-vouchers-are-not-a-proven-strategy-for-improving-student-achievement">same conclusion</a>, finding no significant change in student test scores. More recent studies, looking at conventional vouchers in <a href="http://migrationcluster.ucdavis.edu/events/past-events/events_2015-2016/conf_assets/aclec/papers_and_slides/paper_walters.pdf">Louisiana</a>, <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_online%20edition.pdf">Ohio</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/">Indiana</a> actually find that test scores have declined – in some cases, by surprisingly large margins.</p>
<h2>What to expect</h2>
<p>While, thus far, neovoucher policies have existed only on the state level, proposals are now appearing at a federal level.</p>
<p>In February of 2017, Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana and three Republican colleagues introduced a bill (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/895">H.B. 895</a>) that sets forth the basic structure for a federal neovoucher policy.</p>
<p>But the particulars of the neovoucher policy that ultimately emerges in the Republicans’ tax reform bill are up for grabs. Based on the wide variety of existing state neovoucher policies, it is possible that the federal proposal will provide a full 100 percent credit (as does H.B. 895) or a credit of only 50 or 65 percent. It might limit eligibility to children in families at the poverty level, or it might have expanded or even universal eligibility.</p>
<p>It also remains to be seen whether federal neovouchers would be allocated only in states with existing programs or might be distributed in all states, including those with no such laws.</p>
<p>Interestingly, some of the staunchest advocates of state-level neovouchers have expressed <a href="http://www.heritage.org/education/event/school-choice-and-national-education-policy-options-advancing-education-choice">concern and even opposition</a> to a federal initiative. Beyond general conservative resistance to federal overreach in education policy, they voice <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-03-24/liberals-conservatives-agree-big-mistake-for-white-house-to-push-private-school-choice">familiar concerns</a> about the likelihood of regulations following money, particularly from future Democratic leadership in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>And, of course, a federal neovoucher program would face significant fiscal obstacles as well. Absent large cuts elsewhere, these policies would strain the federal budget, requiring some creative work on the part of lawmakers – particularly since the tax reform bill will have to be <a href="http://www.tpctax.com/washington-tax-insight-february-2017/">revenue neutral</a>. The cost of vouchers for even a fraction of the nation’s 57 million K-12 students could easily cost tens of billions.</p>
<p>This daunting price tag, however, probably won’t deter President Trump or Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who have stated their opposition to the “public” part of public schools, with Trump even denigrating them as socialistic “<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/trump-betsy-devos-overton-window">government schools</a>” that are part of the “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/american-carnage-a-close-reading-of-president-trumps-first-speech">American carnage</a>” that “leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”</p>
<p>It seems unlikely that they will forego their chance to give tax dollars to private education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Research for Kevin Welner's "NeoVouchers" book received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, through its Bellagio Center Residency Program.</span></em></p>As school choice advocates attempt to garner more widespread support for vouchers, a new kind of voucher system is growing: one that uses tax credits to subsidize private education.Kevin Welner, Professor, Education Policy & Law; Director, National Education Policy Center, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684712016-12-01T01:55:50Z2016-12-01T01:55:50ZWhat cyber charter schools are and why their growth should worry us<p>What President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican sweep of government will mean for K-12 education priorities over the next four years is not entirely clear yet. However, <a href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/education">policy statements</a> and administration selections so far indicate “school choice” will top the agenda.</p>
<p>Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, has been known to be an advocate of <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2016/11/betsy_devos_education_secretary_five_things_to_know.html">school choice initiatives</a>: DeVos has supported voucher programs that allow families to use taxpayer money to enroll in private and religious schools. She also promoted charter school legislation that offers students choices outside of traditional public schools. </p>
<p>Vice President-elect Mike Pence too has a history as governor of Indiana of promoting school choice policy. Indiana not only is ranked as having the most favorable policy provisions for charter schools by a <a href="http://www.publiccharters.org/get-the-facts/law-database/states/in/">prominent charter schooling advocacy group</a>, but it is among the 25 states employing a type of charter school unfamiliar to many folks across the United States: the cyber charter school.</p>
<p>Unlike the usual charter school, the cyber version is typically delivered to students online wherever they may live, so long as they are residents of the state in which the cyber charter school operates. Cyber charter schools have been growing in states that have school choice policy.</p>
<p>Our research, along with a body of academic work, suggests that the public should be concerned about an expansion of the cyber charter schooling model.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<h2>What is a cyber charter school?</h2>
<p>Charter schools are privately managed K-12 schools that utilize public money. The funds for charter schools are removed from regular public schooling budgets and paid to various private firms and organizations (and sometimes other parts of a state’s education system) to provide a wider choice of schools.</p>
<p>In the cyber version of the charter school, instruction is typically delivered to the students online wherever they may live, so long as they are residents of the state in which the cyber charter school operates. The <a href="http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=15986">model of these schools could vary</a> – some use a hybrid delivery model (online and in person), although most are entirely online. Students receive course material, lessons and tests on their computer at home (usually the computer is also provided with state funds). </p>
<p>As with traditional charter schools, the general idea behind cyber charter schools is to allow families and students to have a choice other than their local public school.</p>
<p>A 2015 annual report prepared by a consulting group that tracks online school practice and is often cited by scholars to describe cyber charter school enrollment shows that in 2014-2015 there were <a href="http://www.kpk12.com/wp-content/uploads/Evergreen_KeepingPace_2015.pdf">275,000 students in cyber charter</a> schools across 25 states. In some states, tens of thousands of students enroll in cyber charter schools. In Pennsylvania, for example, more than 36,000 students enrolled in cyber charter schools during 2014-2015. </p>
<h2>Where do the students come from?</h2>
<p>One of the goals of recent scholarship has been to understand who are the students who enroll in these schools and why do they do so. </p>
<p>The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) conducts an analysis of cyber charter school students every year. The most recent report shows that in 2013-2014, cyber charter schools, compared to the national average, <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/publications/RB-Miron%20Virtual%20Schools.pdf">had higher percentages</a> of white students and lower percentages of free and reduced lunch students. </p>
<p>However, since these numbers are nationally aggregated and not every state has a cyber charter school, we believe comparing national cyber charter school averages to all students nationally may be problematic. Our research at Penn State on cyber charter schools has examined enrollments within Pennsylvania and shows that the picture is more complicated.</p>
<p>In our study of enrollments in Pennsylvania, we found that the majority of students in cyber charter schools are indeed white, but they <a href="http://epx.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/25/0895904815604112.abstract">match the racial demographics</a> of the state. Similar results <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/%2808.02%29%20Enrollment%20and%20Achievement%20in%20Ohio%27s%20Virtual%20Charter%20Schools.pdf">have been seen in Ohio</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, in a another study in Pennsylvania we found that it was the economically disadvantaged students who were <a href="http://epubs.library.msstate.edu/index.php/ruraleducator/article/view/368">more likely</a> to enroll in a cyber charter school. </p>
<p>An obvious question to ask is whether parents would have homeschooled their children had the cyber charter school option not existed. The best estimate comes from an internal report of one of the largest national providers of cyber charter schools: The report found that a small percent – <a href="http://my.info.k12.com/rs/k12/images/K12%20Academic%20Report%20-%202013.pdf">13.6 percent of cyber school students in those schools</a> – were previously homeschooled.</p>
<p>So, what motivates a majority of parents to enroll their children in these schools? </p>
<p>Penn State researchers who interviewed parents who enrolled their children into cyber charter schools found that parents thought these schools were <a href="http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/846/art%253A10.1007%252Fs11528-009-0303-9.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Farticle%2F10.1007%2Fs11528-009-0303-9&token2=exp=1479154189%7Eacl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F846%2Fart%25253A10.1007%25252Fs11528-009-0303-9.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Farticle%252F10.1007%252Fs11528-009-0303-9*%7Ehmac=549c62df4f5c1595bcae11e524a24dc3888dc71f12682d9ff8129125736864de">better customized</a> to their children’s needs, carried little financial risk and were possibly the last hope for their child to succeed in school. </p>
<h2>Concerns about cyber charters</h2>
<p>Despite the hope that many parents hold out for this new educational option, the performance of cyber charter schools has consistently, and often drastically, lagged behind the performance of their brick-and-mortar school counterparts. </p>
<p>Research about cyber charter school performance outcomes paints a dismal picture linked to test-based outcomes. For example, <a href="https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/OnlineCharterStudyFinal2015.pdf">a recent report</a> from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), a policy analysis center based in Stanford University, used a technique to match cyber students to an academic and demographic “twin.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148150/original/image-20161130-17000-1unr6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers have been concerned about the learning in cyber charter schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/6578121699/in/photolist-qo984v-b2hApn-69ZT48-pd92Gn-69ZSZV-69ZT2v-6a53DG">Wesley Fryer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They did this matching twice, once to compare individual gains of cyber charter students to their statistical twin in brick-and-mortar charter schools and once to compare them to their statistical twin in a brick-and-mortar district school.</p>
<p>Across all racial and poverty status groups of students in the study, the majority of cyber charter school students showed poor learning growth when compared to their matched twin. This was true in both math and reading when students were compared to charter and traditional students. </p>
<p>Researchers found these trends across almost all states that they studied: They found lower learning growth in reading in 14 out of the 17 states, and 17 out of 17 states in math. In their report they noted that improved academic outcomes for a student in a cyber charter school was <a href="https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/OnlineCharterStudyFinal2015.pdf">“the exception rather than the rule.”</a></p>
<p>This research is consistent with others that examine the academic outcomes of cyber charter schools. Studies have looked at cyber charter school outcomes in <a href="http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/PA%20State%20Report_20110404_FINAL.pdf">Pennsylvania</a> and in <a href="https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/publication/pdfs/%2808.02%29%20Enrollment%20and%20Achievement%20in%20Ohio%27s%20Virtual%20Charter%20Schools.pdf">Ohio</a>. These studies provide similar results about extremely lower learning growth in cyber charter schools in these state contexts when compared to other schools. </p>
<p>What is of further concern as one legal scholar, <a href="https://www.law.temple.edu/contact/susan-l-dejarnatt/">Susan DeJarnatt</a>, has shown is that cyber charter schools <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2370125">may not have all the safeguards</a> needed to protect the sector from fraud. Already federal authorities have indicted two of the five “mega-cyber” providers (a school that enrolls more than 2,000 students) in Pennsylvania of fraud.</p>
<p>Outside of the scholarship conducted about fraud in Pennsylvania, a review of hundreds of news stories <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/cyber-charters-widespread-reports-of-trouble.html">revealed dozens of state audits across 20-plus states</a>. These news stories repeatedly and overwhelmingly raise concerns about funding and academic accountability across all state contexts, matching the concerns that have emerged in the academic literature.</p>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>Following such reports of poor academic outcomes and questionable ethical practices, our research team at Penn State has decided to continue to study the cyber charter school movement in Pennsylvania to find out more.</p>
<p>Our current research examines how cyber charter schools have influenced the entire education system in Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>However, based on the body of academic work that is currently available, we believe while it may be logical to allow online learning in certain circumstances, the cyber charter model is not the appropriate model. And the new education secretary Betsy DeVos might want to exercise caution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The study mentioned in this article, titled "Schooling in Cyberia: Analyzing the Contexts and Effects of Cyber Charter Schools and Online Learning in Pennsylvania Public Schools" received grant funding from Penn State's College of Education.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What Betsy DeVos, an advocate of school-choice initiatives and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, as well as the rest of us need to know about cyber charter schools.Bryan Mann, Ph.D. Candidate, Penn StateDavid Baker, Professor of Sociology, Education, Demography, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/550032016-03-02T11:21:04Z2016-03-02T11:21:04ZDo school vouchers improve results? It depends on what we ask<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113435/original/image-20160301-31065-f9my4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do school voucher programs help improve educational outcomes?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lowercolumbiacollege/5755864338/in/photolist-9LCiWj-qR1H7R-9pzp2X-r8hGfM-yWXCg7-w6YyLS-pjGSzi-aAKe51-dKgYjW-arEJLr-53HuwY-7FHDGn-eM3NqQ-53D9Ga-88bgji-s5zJsf-eM3NAU-iNbub-7FHsWX-eLRpV2-6v61Qc-bcjPwv-5GddGm-b4yyLc-fCVgbz-eLRqbe-fD6E49-fCVg4c-fDcPpC-9chSab-fCP6z6-fD6Eey-fDcPwJ-6B3SnV-rQX46P-zbB5Do-ALoMP6-bo8HR8-fDcPsd-6RPdny-o1JDa-bbGQN4-5n1Ern-rbjdre-fD6E99-bebGMP-fCP6tp-fD6CEw-fCVggv-fD6EjJ">Lower Columbia College (LCC)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/how-has-the-louisiana-scholarship-program-affected-students/">set of reports</a> on Louisiana’s statewide school voucher program <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/the-effects-of-the-louisiana-scholarship-program-on-student-achievement-after-two-years/">recently revealed</a> a number of important features of that program’s operation and overall performance. </p>
<p>The most startling of these reports indicated that students who used school vouchers performed much worse on standardized tests than those who remained in traditional public schools. </p>
<p>This result echoes evidence presented last month from a <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21839">separate team</a> of scholars, who found negative impacts after one year of voucher use in Louisiana. The latest study not only confirmed that finding, but showed the pattern persisting – albeit less severely – after two years of voucher use as well. </p>
<p>School vouchers provide publicly funded tuition – typically for low-income families – to attend private schools. And these reports provide the first evidence that participating in such a system may harm kids’ academic achievement, at least in math. </p>
<p>As a researcher who studies both vouchers and other forms of school choice such as charter schools (independently operated public schools) I believe the new Louisiana studies are important to <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_viewpoints_hl_testimony_20030509/">longstanding</a> debates over the extent to which such choice enhances academic outcomes. </p>
<p>It may be tempting to use this news as an argument against vouchers, especially because the evidence is drawn from the most sophisticated research tools available to scholars who study these programs. However, it should be stressed that test scores provide only one indicator of program success or failure. </p>
<h2>Impact of vouchers</h2>
<p>The motivation for school voucher programs dates back to the 1950s, when the economist <a href="http://www.edchoice.org/who-we-are/our-founders/">Milton Friedman</a> began to argue that parents should have opportunities to choose between different providers of education for their children.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113438/original/image-20160301-31053-vdj0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">School vouchers provide publicly funded tuition – typically for low-income families – to attend private schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355327519/in/photolist-aFAHsp-q5DPn9-oZW3YK-fKcz8e-qK5zd3-q5DP7Q-ouRbSr-qPBw1U-qLnACP-oM4pb8-7LWNxp-aFAKZi-qLnABM-pvScdP-6bMfa9-penMYs-op229L-ouQQ2u-ptPWP5-6bMeeQ-r1x1YN-8hDDft-ddtW3K-dV2NxL-o26Dhc-qrtXaj-oKirbj-Egjzr-oMkjfD-J9ECR-penNgb-621BgK-q6PAT5-pemXyx-e545Qs-ykT8sE-gYy3yJ-ouQP4N-6GT2N-oKiqNA-ayZh54-qZncLA-oKiqP7-pemXpp-pAPsGW-qKeyxr-peo25B-cvwN8h-qKeyBV-n2VfM">401(K) 2012</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first school voucher program began in 1990 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over the years since, especially in the last decade, voucher or voucher-like systems have spread to <a href="http://afcgrowthfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/AFC_2014-15_Yearbook.pdf">24 states</a>, all of which differ individually on some key details such as the number of children who will be eligible for participation and the maximum amount of tuition available to these students.</p>
<p>In Louisiana, policymakers introduced <a href="http://www.louisianabelieves.com/schools/louisiana-scholarship-program">vouchers</a> in 2008 in New Orleans as part of a series of reforms following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the city and the city’s school system. In 2012, vouchers became available statewide. </p>
<p>As with many public programs, policymakers turn to researchers to help determine how well school vouchers work. This is true not only in Louisiana, but elsewhere as well. </p>
<p>And part of what makes the Louisiana results so newsworthy – but also why voucher critics should pause before leaning too heavily on the latest reports – is that many of these studies conducted in other locations, such as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2008.00268.x/full">Charlotte</a>, <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w5964">Milwaukee</a>, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.21691/full">Washington, D.C.</a> and <a href="http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/016214503000071">New York City</a>, for example, found the opposite pattern. In these studies, students who used vouchers to attend private school tended to have higher test scores as a result. </p>
<h2>The answers are not that simple</h2>
<p>The question is whether test scores are the only way to judge schools and school performance.</p>
<p>It is true that public schools have to test their students, so using a similar metric is a reasonable, relative comparison between public and private schools. But test scores, while important, do not necessarily provide an absolute appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of voucher programs in a large education system. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113436/original/image-20160301-31059-1fof97x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What is the best way to judge schools’ performance?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3058182308/in/photolist-5EeZ4b-ceUkdo-7nXodu-6eRUN6-ceuZwy-c6sGyJ-ceVt7Y-6EFN2v-eczWwi-ceuk2d-bjXo3Q-ciLznu-ecqRLG-bwCisB-smQZyA-4tvFXF-fw4gVZ-ceukb3-o4gtv6-cQn3PA-mEn4UD-6vTyxW-ndXLhn-r3tiLJ-6p1brf-fecWWw-38UaQg-fdjRDb-fdWmfr-38YJ7q-bcEr1t-6vPmsM-38UbCH-8nEEcG-8QNUZQ-rsJXGW-a6RbUL-bBAeN6-6F8sr-mMQMQp-fxxGz2-fe1qJB-ncqXsF-6vTygy-48uYgr-fnGFqP-koWzDL-fdVsDH-mMKGDy-cjuLNL">woodleywonderworks</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, we know from earlier studies that student attainment levels – high school graduation or enrollment in post-secondary education – may be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272714002461">higher</a> among voucher users even when test score differences between them and their public school counterparts are nonexistent. </p>
<p>Whether this means that private schools are especially good at preparing kids to graduate and attend college or that they simply prioritize such success more than other outcomes is still <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psj.12006/full">unclear</a>. But we see similar patterns in charter schools too: a <a href="https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-fabulous-or-failures-35995">number of studies</a> have shown that charter school students have a higher chance of high school graduation or college enrollment even when their test scores do not differ on average from their traditional public school counterparts.</p>
<p>In the Louisiana context, the researchers also found more nuanced results when they posed a number of other questions.</p>
<p>When researchers examined, for example, whether competition from private schools pressed nearby public schools to improve performance, <a href="http://educationresearchalliancenola.org/publications/the-competitive-effects-of-the-louisiana-scholarship-program-on-public-school-performance">they found</a> that the test scores of students in these competing schools did indeed increase, albeit modestly. </p>
<p>When they asked whether the declines in voucher users’ tests scores were present in noncognitive student outcomes (such as grit, self-esteem, and political tolerance), they found both public and private school students had <a href="http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2016/02/report-2-measure-of-student-non-cognitive-skills-and-political-tolerance-after-two-years-of-the-louisiana-scholarship-program.pdf">similar levels</a> on those indicators. </p>
<p>Each of these questions provides a different way of assessing the overall impact of the voucher program both on students who use them and on students in the surrounding communities as well. </p>
<h2>Weighing other factors</h2>
<p>More generally, it’s important to <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2016/02/it_varies_what_new_research_on_louisianas_voucher_program_reminds_us_about_school_choice.html">remember</a> that voucher programs operate differently in different places. </p>
<p>In Louisiana, for example, one <a href="http://educationnext.org/the-folly-of-overregulating-school-choice/">prominent explanation</a> for the negative test scores is that heavy regulation of private providers keeps the best schools in that sector away from offering seats to voucher users. But in Wisconsin, we know that some regulations, such as <a href="http://epa.sagepub.com/content/36/4/437.short">requiring private schools</a> to publicly report the academic performance of their voucher users, actually increased test scores.</p>
<p>Other <a href="http://www.ecs.org/vouchers-scholarship-tax-credits-and-individual-tax-credits-and-deductions/">state laws</a> determine who’s eligible to use a voucher in the first place. In some states, vouchers exist expressly for kids with special academic needs; in others, low-income families are eligible as well.</p>
<p>Again, this implies that we have to be very careful. It is not as simple as taking evidence from one state and expecting the same results, good or bad, in another. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113439/original/image-20160301-31040-1xxin48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little is known about teachers in schools that accept vouchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthfixteam/14126238704/in/photolist-nwhEBJ-eFk95B-fCENjK-zDUjyc-CN7sUK-7AAX14-uQWRB8-CbHjU6-pjGSzi-rsRnRG-3cxyJE-swXWpU-vKvjws-7ftF5C-3fACaa-62tqP2-9j5Wm3-6AKJBu-6xgrDN-6NDxgW-oWYPXR-kCbeA2-8r7wJD-6Nzkqg-arHoZS-8MNrrm-8VRJvV-7r8NEs-eiVcuu-9owNaf-fE6SqR-cA2sXf-7v5q4c-qbqW6Q-kCd12W-bPcQH4-7GANtt-scna6P-dkZHvw-kCcRwj-qQRt2L-6NDtvQ-pw3sL1-jm5tXf-8VUNk9-8VRJEF-8r7wsM-37Pu4a-2wpccb-qbDd5D">EarthFix</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Apart from differences between states, there are other things to consider about the way voucher programs operate. </p>
<p>We know surprisingly little about teachers in schools that accept vouchers. State oversight of private school teachers is far less – in some places practically nonexistent – than for public school teachers.</p>
<p>Researchers are beginning, for example, to devote considerable effort to <a href="http://educationresearchalliancenola.org/files/publications/ERA-Policy-Brief-Changes-in-the-New-Orleans-Teacher-Workforce.pdf">understanding</a> who teaches in public charter schools. Answering that question in different voucher programs will help explain differences in students’ outcomes between private and public schools, both within and between different states. </p>
<p>Finally, we need to consider not only which students accept and benefit from a voucher, but also the extent to those who do attend private school – or any nontraditional alternative – are actually able to do so over the long term. </p>
<p>The evidence we have from places like <a href="http://epa.sagepub.com/content/35/2/179.short">Milwaukee</a> and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pam.20002/abstract">Washington, D.C.</a> suggests substantial turnover in voucher programs, with minority students and students with the lowest test scores leaving private schools. </p>
<p>All of this is to say that when it comes to educating kids, what we know about school vouchers depends on what we ask. And what we ask should be informed not only by traditional academic outcomes, such as test scores, but also by a new understanding of the many different ways that schools can contribute to student success.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Cowen is a member of the national research advisory team for the Education Research Alliance of New Orleans, which released several of the studies discussed in this posting. He has received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation for research unrelated to the studies discussed here. </span></em></p>A recent study on school vouchers shows that the program may be harming kids’ academic achievement, at least in math. What’s missing here? Are test scores the only way to judge a program?Joshua Cowen, Associate Professor of Educational Policy, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236632014-03-07T14:39:03Z2014-03-07T14:39:03ZBillionaires co-opt minority groups into campaign for education reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43396/original/sh8f7hbm-1394199973.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">On the march against big business. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Light Brigading</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/video/3117956152001/">Bill Gates</a> and the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using venture philanthropy and the political process to press for school reforms in the United States. </p>
<p>The ongoing <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/05/us-usa-teachers-california-idUSBREA2406Z20140305">Vergara law case in California</a> in which nine students are suing the state over teacher tenure laws, is backed by Student Matters, a non-profit that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-27/silicon-valley-backed-students-aim-to-expel-bad-teachers.html">has received donations</a> from the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation, run by the Walton family that founded supermarket chain Wal-Mart. </p>
<p>The driver behind the case is a campaign to loosen labour rules in order to make it easier to fire “bad” teachers, under the argument that their presence discriminates against disadvantaged children. Opponents of the case argue that it is a blatant <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/02/the-vergara-case-the-corporate-reformers-blame-teachers-ignore-social-science/">attempt to change the conversation</a> from the realities of California’s divestment in education — the state is 46th in the nation in spending per student in 2010-11, and 50th in the number of students per teacher.</p>
<p>What these organisations and other others such as the the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/common-core-conservatives-education-101796.html">Koch brothers</a>, <a href="http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/p-is-for-payoff.pdf">Bradley Foundation</a>, <a href="http://dianeravitch.net/2012/09/12/good-news-from-the-heritage-foundation/">Heritage Foundation</a>, <a href="http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/04/01/the-teat-returns-neoliberals-students-first-or-padding-adults-pockets/">Students First</a> and Jeb Bush’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/jeb-bush-with-cash-and-c_n_2195520.html">Foundation for Excellence in Education</a> – all supposedly supporters of school reform – have as a common denominator is a vision of a profit-based market approach to education.</p>
<p>School vouchers are one of the primary education reform policy approaches pressed by the billionaires and the business lobby. Voucher programs, which provide public funding for students to attend private schools, have become more popular in the US in the past several decades. </p>
<p>Most existing school voucher programs in the US have been small-scale and targeted at low-income students, such as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, and the Washington DC program. But there has recently been a push to expand programs to include students from middle income families.</p>
<p>Notably, a small, but vocal cadre of civil rights advocates from US minority groups <a href="http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/11/21/reframing-the-refrain-choice-as-a-civil-rights-issue/">have allied</a> with the billionaires and business lobby via groups such as the <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2013/07/black_parents_want_more_school_choices_says_new_survey.html">Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO),</a> pushing for school vouchers and other neoliberal education reforms. </p>
<p>Have they been hoodwinked or led astray? It is understandable that minority groups are searching for alternatives to the status quo, as the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1523393/Vasquez_Heilig_J._and_Darling-Hammond_L._2008_._Accountability_Texas-style_The_progress_and_learning_of_urban_minority_students_in_a_high-stakes_testing_context._Educational_Evaluation_and_Policy_Analysis._30_2_75-110">US has a history of consistently and puposefully underserving students of colour</a>. In fact, we still do. For example, one wealthy suburban district in Texas <a href="http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id/8323104/allen-texas-high-school-ready-unveils-60m-football-facility">recently spent nearly $120m</a> on a football stadium and performing arts centre, while poorer districts have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/us/for-profit-certification-for-teachers-in-texas-is-booming.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">struggled to afford adequately trained and certified teachers</a>. </p>
<p>School reform advocates in the US are often a motley alliance between civil rights proponents whose primary focus is greater opportunity for historically underserved students of colour, and neo-liberals who desire to reduce the role of the state in public education and shift the education system towards a profit-making enterprise.</p>
<h2>Vouchers aren’t the answer</h2>
<p>In the case of vouchers, the long-term impact on civil rights is already known. A <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21886773/Cloaking%20Inequity/IUPRA%20vouchers%20brief%20proof.pdf">decade of peer-reviewed research in Chile</a> has demonstrated that a voucher market has increased inequality for students living in poverty and closed public schools.</p>
<p>A voucher approach escalates inequality because capital rules the day. Test scores become negotiable capital in addition to hard currency. Students without this capital are denied access to attractive schools because there are other individuals in the market that are more desirable to schools. </p>
<p>School choice <a href="https://soundcloud.com/revolution-radio-network/jeff-santos-dr-julian?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=twitter">becomes exactly that in a voucher system — schools choose</a>. So, if you are a proponent of school “choice” and interested in civil rights and equity —- vouchers will not help you realise your goals. But if you are a neoliberal, you are in business.</p>
<p>How can we conceive choice and education reform differently? If you don’t like the choices that have been forced upon you for decades, then you are going to want access to alternatives. Are vouchers the choice parents should have? Turns out that vouchers show <a href="http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP163.pdf">very little promise in analyses of peer-reviewed research literature</a> for improving student success or equity at large. </p>
<p>However, there are gold standard reforms in the peer-reviewed research literature that show at much more impact on student success than vouchers. These include <a href="http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=15440">full-day pre-kindergarten education</a>. Underserved communities should have access to empirically-supported choices rather than ideological ones. Parents in Milwaukee and elsewhere should also be able to choose schools that are attractive and well-resourced like the private and public schools across the tracks or river or highway. Why don’t US high-poverty communities have these choices?</p>
<h2>Pressure on public school funding</h2>
<p>In Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Texas we have seen billions of dollars in fiscal cuts to schools while school vouchers, Teach For America, and charter schools are <a href="http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/alecs-extensive-plans-for-education-restructuring-in-your-state/">peddled by ALEC</a> and the usual billionaire proponents as an alternative to the restoration of school funding for public schools.</p>
<p>In Texas and elsewhere, legislatures have used politics to force inadequate funding of US public schools while at the same time arguing that the schools are inadequate. The response from coalitions of citizens across the US <a href="http://www.news-journal.com/news/local/texas-school-finance-lawsuit-educators-say-funding-remains-inadequate-inequitable/article_99fc223e-0a85-504d-b5ef-55059c948777.html">has been a slew of lawsuits aimed at states</a> over inadequate public funding to force politicians to respond.</p>
<p>Colin Powell once said, “If you break it you own it.” That’s the end game for these education “reformers” backed by billionaires and corporations. First, they seek to transfer the cost of education from the state budget to the family, household budget. Second, civil rights and equity are not their true priorities. </p>
<p>Instead these special interests are supporting vouchers and other neoliberal reforms contrary to the interests of students of colour. In doing so they will shift the US education system to maximise corporate profits, while limiting <a href="http://www.nsba.org/Advocacy/Key-Issues/SchoolVouchers/NSBA-Issue-Brief-Private-School-Vouchers.pdf">democratic control of public schools</a>. </p>
<p>These same billionaire “reformers” have co-opted the equity discourse by offering a carrot to minority groups. This can sometimes be in the form of millions of dollars as in the case of the <a href="http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/07/28/the-teat-baeo-choice-and-strings-attached/">Black Alliance for Educational Options</a> and <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-big-money-bankrolling-the-school-voucher-movement/Content?oid=3875268">Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina</a>. But all this hides the inequity that profit-based approaches to education foment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Vasquez Heilig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates and the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using…Julian Vasquez Heilig, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.