Reprinted from the NJEA Reporter, December 2003
(Fourth of a Series)
Under vouchers, it's private schools and not parents - that do the "choosing," thanks to an uneven playing field.
Voucher supporters understand the power of key words and phrases.
They routinely say that all parents should have the power of "choice" over their children's education, and that the "public school monopoly" can only improve when it faces "competition" from private and religious schools under vouchers.
But the reality is that it's the private and religious schools - not the parents - who do the "choosing," and when it comes to "competition" between public and private school, the playing field is totally uneven, with two entirely different sets of rules.
Discrimination vs. open admissions
Private and religious schools enjoy almost complete autonomy over who they teach, what they teach, how they teach, and how, if at all, they disclose student achievement and finances. They routinely discriminate in their admissions on the basis of academic ability, family background, test scores, disciplinary history, interviews with applicants and their parents, athletic ability, gender, and religion.
And, when their enrollment is "filled," they stop accepting students.
Public schools, of course, take all comers, regardless of ability, disability, family background, or special needs.
In fact, parents of special needs students can forget about vouchers, since only one in four private schools even provides special needs services. A government study found that of the 26 percent of Catholic schools that offered special education services, only four percent of their students received such services - far below the percentage in public schools.
Public expectations vs. reality
The Newark-based "Excellent Education for Everyone" (E3) is organizing urban parents to support vouchers in New Jersey. Thanks to $500,000 in annual support from Wal-Mart heir John Walton, E3 flies many parents to Milwaukee for carefully scripted tours of voucher schools. What E3 doesn?t tell them is that every year, a third of Milwaukee's voucher students " more than 3,000 a year " are sent back to the public schools. Not surprisingly, they tend to be the most difficult to educate.
In fact, the public's expectations for private schools that might receive vouchers are in direct conflict with reality, particularly among minority parents who are being courted by E3 and the national voucher movement.
EXPECTATION: A nationwide poll of African-Americans conducted for the National School Boards Association by Zogby International found that 87 percent expect private schools "to admit all students, regardless of academic or physical abilities." FACT: Only one in four private schools would accept students with special needs such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement, according to the U.S. Department of Education (see sidebar).
EXPECTATION: The same poll found that 93 percent of African-Americans expect private schools to give their students the same tests as public school students. FACT: Up to two-thirds of private schools would not accept voucher students if they had to administer those tests. Milwaukee?s accountability problems
Milwaukee's voucher program" in existence since 1990 " is the centerpiece of E3's sales pitch to New Jerseyans, but a close look at the program's history proves that voucher schools are not providing meaningful "competition" for public schools.
In 1995, after five successive state evaluations failed to show that voucher students were outperforming public school students, the Wisconsin Legislature eliminated all funding for data collection and evaluation in voucher schools. A state audit in 2000 found that because voucher schools do not have to administer or report test results, it is not possible to gauge academic achievement in those schools.
That audit also found that 10 percent of Milwaukee voucher schools ?had no accreditation, were not seeking accreditation, and administered no standardized tests.? During the 2000-2001 school year, the state Department of Public Instruction withheld funds from 13 voucher schools for failing to document that they were providing the minimum required hours of instruction under the state voucher law.
And between 1999 and 2002, the Wisconsin Legislature blocked attempts to require voucher schools to adopt academic standards, administer state tests, comply with open meeting and public records laws, and to comply with statutes barring discrimination based on race, gender, disability, religion, national origin, and more.
When it comes to public vs. private schools, "competition" is simply out of the question.
NEXT MONTH: ? Vouchers and Student Achievement - what the research shows, and doesn?t show, about vouchers as a legitimate vehicle for education reform.