Author Archive
Charters No Substitute for Private Innovation
I wrote about this private school in South Carolina last year. The Voice for School Choice has a new video highlighting the great work of the Eagle Military Academy, which works with many kids the public schools cannot or will not educate.
There’s a lot of talk lately about the transformative power of some charter schools, and it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that many secular and religious private schools have been saving kids all along with no public funds and little or no recognition from the elite opinion class.
We need to open up choice to these schools as well, not just public charter schools that cannot provide the breadth and depth of experiences offered by private schools.
Public charter schools are no substitute for full school choice through education tax credits.
Less Is More in Education Funding
Spend more money on education, the President says? Actually, we should be looking there for savings . . . here are some of the numbers:
State governments spent 35 percent of their general funds on K–12 education in 2007, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. In contrast, Medicaid — which is continually singled out as a problematic state-budget item, even though most Medicaid funds come from the federal government — accounted for just 17 percent of general-fund expenditures. Combined, state and local governments spend 27 cents of every dollar they collect on public K–12 education system, but only 8 cents on Medicaid.
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Tax and Budget Policy
Fairfax Schools to Get More Money, District Claims Penury
Washington Post ed columnist/reporter Jay Mathews had a great post the other day in response to some WaPo coverage of supposedly catastrophic cuts to the Fairfax County school budget. He rightly notes, “the end-of-the-world reactions from Fairfax County parents in my colleague Petula Dvorak’s latest column are so divorced from reality as to be comical.”
Oh, it is funny, but not ha-ha funny. It’s more a makes-you-want-to-cry kind of funny. Consider:
- Fairfax aims spend 1.4 percent more per-pupil in 2011 according to their Operating Fund total, which includes the vast majority of total spending and core services.*
- Total per-pupil spending increased 20 percent in constant dollars between 2000 and 2010.
- Using Washington Area Boards of Education (WABE) total expenditure figures, Fairfax spent over $15,300 per student in 2010. Per-pupil spending remains higher than in FY 2006.**
It is difficult to see how increasing the per-pupil budget in the midst of an economic crisis and no inflation can be construed by district officials as “dramatic spending reductions,” or “devastating.”
The Fairfax County school superintendent claims that nearly 600 positions will be cut. Why? Why do they need to cut hundreds of positions when their per-pupil budget is increasing? From what baseline is he measuring these cuts?
These facts and statements do not reconcile. I have emails and voicemails in to officials, and I am eager to hear how they explain all of this.
*Their proposed budget document does not seem to contain an identifiable total expenditure figure. The Fund totals cannot be summed because of unnoted double-counting — because, well, who cares how much we’re spending overall, right? A query has been sent to officials, who need additional time to determine if their budget document can be used to calculate total spending for the budget and to provide me with a total spending figure.
**The WABE listed per-pupil figure leaves out some k-12 spending and provides a number that is significantly less than that in more comprehensive state records or that can be compiled from the district budgets, so I’ve divide the total expenditures listed on p.23 by the enrollment to get the real total per-pupil spending.
Head Start EPIC FAIL
Andrew’s earlier post is a great overview of the context for the Head Start findings.
I thought we should also highlight the description of the Head Start Impact Study findings in the report itself (p.215/4-31):
Looking at effects on participants does not change the overall patterns found in the main analysis, which show that Head Start improved children’s language and literacy development during the program year but not later and had only one strongly confirmed impact on math ability in a negative direction. (For the 3-year-old cohort, kindergarten teachers reported poorer math skills for children in the Head Start group than children in the control group.)
This is a devastating report for proponents of government-run early childhood initiatives.
It’s past time we turn to the education reform that has proven itself through multiple random-assignment studies; school choice.
How to Fix County Budget Problems
I’m wrapping up a paper on the real cost of public education, the total price tag per student, not just the stripped down version they typically trot out to show voters. One of the districts is Arlington, VA, which is the one I happen to live in.
Though the district is an unusually big spender, their most recent budget, for fiscal year 2010, contains hand-wringing typical for school districts across the country. “FY 2010 will present unique challenges and hardships for staff, however as stated earlier, these reductions are taken so that there is minimal impact on classroom instruction.”
Arlington is planning to spend over $23,000 per student this year according to the Washington Area Boards of Education (WABE). That’s a 33 percent increase in constant dollars since 2000.*
And yet the county is still talking about tax increases to cover the expected $80-$100 million shortfall the county expects next year.
Here’s a great alternative; fund the schools at 2000 levels and we’re left with an extra $108 million. Voila, no tax increases!
* The WABE listed per-pupil figure leaves out some k-12 spending and provides a number that is significantly less than that in more comprehensive, but older, state records or that can be compiled from district budgets, so I’ve divided the total expenditures listed on p.23 by the enrollment to get real total per-pupil spending.
Dan Gaby, RIP
Dan Gaby, a man I had the pleasure to know in his role as the Executive Director for E3 (New Jersey’s school choice organization Excellent Education for Everyone), passed away last week.
I didn’t know Dan well, but from the first we met when I was a grad student he was extremely generous with his time and knowledge, unfailingly kind and encouraging.
He and E3 have built a remarkably broad and bipartisan movement for school choice in an ossified and union-dominated state, and it is a shame that Dan won’t live to see this work completed. But he left the school choice movement in New Jersey on a solid foundation, with a governor who supports private school choice and great opportunity for change.
I’ll end with my condolences to Dan’s friends and family and this from Peter Denton and E3:
Dan was the best of us. He spent his great life tirelessly working to bring freedom and equality to the downtrodden, the lost, the disenfranchised. Truly he fought for those who had no advocate, and he did so proudly and unapologetically.
Dan gave the final years of his life fighting for the children of this state, and this nation. He believed that the fight for educational equality was a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic party, and our country, which will not prosper or survive if so many of our children continue to suffer the wages of terrible schools.
Education Tax Credits the Choice for Independents in Virginia
My last post focused on the general results of a school choice poll in Virginia. Contra conventional wisdom, education tax credits are significantly more popular and less opposed than are charter schools.
Even more interesting is the stability of support for donation tax credits across party identification. A stunning 64 percent of Democrats support credits, with only 21 percent opposed. Independents support credits 65 percent to 22 percent.
Charters are supposed to be the poster child for policies targeting Independent voters. And yet charters draw 59 percent of support from independents and 23 percent opposition.
That’s a swing from a 43 percent margin of support for credits to a 36 percent margin for charters. And vouchers run even further behind with a 22 percent margin of support from Independent voters.
Smart politicians looking for cost-saving and effective education reform would do well to take note of these numbers.
More to come . . .
What’s the Most Popular Choice Reform in Virginia?
Pop Quiz: What’s the best education policy a moderate politician in Virginia can pursue?
- Vouchers
- Charter Schools
- Education Tax Credits
Conventional wisdom says go with charter schools, because they are a bipartisan, moderate compromise reform that will get you the largest number of Independents and the least opposition. Vouchers are too hot to touch. And what’s an education tax credit . . . oh, right, they’re too controversial as well
Conventional wisdom is WRONG.
The Friedman Foundation has released another in their invaluable series of state education polls, this time for once-purple Virginia. Their findings are consistent with other polls, and the pattern is worth highlighting.
Charter schools draw 59 percent in support and 26 percent in opposition. Vouchers find 57 percent in support and 35 percent in opposition. Personal-use credits get the support of 59 percent and are opposed by 32 percent.
Donation tax credits are supported by 65 percent of voters and opposed by 23 percent.
Charters, vouchers, and personal-use credits, in other words, are equally popular, with credits and vouchers drawing a bit more fire. And donation credits are wildly popular with only a rump of opposition.
History Fun Fact: Ayn Rand Liked Ed Tax Credits
Many thanks to Lisa Snell at Reason for bringing this interesting historical fun fact from 1973 to light: Ayn Rand was a fan of education tax credits:
In the face of such evidence, one would expect the government’s performance in the field of education to be questioned, at the least, [but] the growing failures of the educational establishment are followed by the appropriation of larger and larger sums. There is, however, a practical alternative: tax credits for education.
The essentials of the idea (in my version) are as follows: an individual citizen would be given tax credits for the money he spends on education, whether his own education, his children’s, or any person’s he wants to put through a bona fide school of his own choice (including primary, secondary, and higher education).
Rand’s support for credits is interesting for a number of reasons, not least the fact that she explicitly endorses credits, not vouchers. I’ve had numerous and largely fruitless arguments over which policy is most “free-market” or least distorting. To me it is obvious that credits are the most “free-market” education reform. Now I can skip the arguments and yell, “Ayn Rand!”
Rand’s essay also highlights the fact that education tax credits were, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the most prominent private school policy on the scene. Federal tax credits were a live issue under Nixon and Carter. Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party gave strong and explicit support for education tax credits throughout the 1980’s – with tax credits, but not vouchers, mentioned specifically in the Republican Party platforms of 1980, 1984, and 1988.
The largely forgotten history of education tax credits . . . interesting . . .
Why Is For-Profit Education So Difficult in the U.S.?
Matt Yglesias has a post up looking at the PISA scores, and he seems to imply that for-profit schooling has been tried and found wanting in Sweden and the U.S.:
The big difference is that many Swedish charters are run by for-profit firms. We’ve had some experiments with that in the U.S. and it hasn’t worked very well. Nobody’s really found a great way of making consistent profits running K-12 schools in America.
Of course even he notes that Sweden’s schools are highly regulated by the state.
And in the U.S., the difficulty of succeeding in for-profit education just might have something to do with that government monopoly on k-12 education and the $560 billion or so in tax revenues that fund it. Maybe.
NEA Dues and ACORN
Sabrina Schaeffer (yes, related) over at IWF’s Inkwell wonders when the NEA is going to sever its ties to ACORN, given recent revelations that its employees are willing to help set up a brothel with child prostitutes. Good question. I’m sure a lot of union members would be none too pleased with where their dues money ends up.
From the Examiner:
Teachers unions have contributed over $1.3 million to ACORN and its affiliates, since 2005, according to U.S. Labor Department financial disclosure forms.
Many education reformers would call the NEA criminal in their resistance to effective policy change. But that’s a figure of speech. They do, however, need to be more careful with their money.
The NEA, really any activist group on the Left with a shred of dignity, should publicly end their relationship with this corrupt and criminal organization immediately.
Education Tax Credits Much More Popular Than Vouchers
A recent poll from Education Next deserves a spotlight.
Specifically, it shows once again that there is solid, widespread support for education tax credits. And it once again shows greater support for tax credits than for vouchers.
Unfortunately, the poll does not ask parallel voucher and credit questions; there are no strict apples-to-apples comparisons. So I’ve compared the voucher and credit questions that receive the highest levels of support.
The result: tax credits blow vouchers out of the water.
The graph below shows the percent increase/decrease in support/opposition for tax credits as compared with vouchers.
In the nationally representative sample, support for credits is about 50 percent higher than for vouchers. And opposition to credits is more than 50 percent lower. And among public school teachers, support for credits is almost 120 percent higher than support for vouchers.
As I noted earlier today, an astonishing 57 percent of public school teachers support education tax credits. Only 26 percent support vouchers.
Let this graph burn into your brain a little, and then explain to me why vouchers are ever the first choice when pursuing private school choice.
Even Arianna Huffington Supports Private School Choice
Arianna Huffington — yes that Arianna Huffington — wrote an interesting article this week reiterating her support for private school choice.
I’d just like to say thanks for opening fire from the left on this issue. Unfortunately, Arianna supports a federal, single-payer voucher system, and there are a few problems with that approach.
Let’s start with feasibility. Vouchers are controversial at the state level, and they would be even more so at the federal level. Current funding is mostly through state and local taxes, so — as Huffington notes — a new federal tax would be required. A federal voucher program is, thankfully, extremely improbable.
In fact, even state-level vouchers are less preferable than education tax credits.
Education tax credits are less controversial and more popular than vouchers. A recent poll from Education Next found an astonishing 57 percent of public school teachers support tax credits. Only 26 percent support vouchers.
It’s Not About the Speech to Schoolchildren
The reaction to President Obama’s planned speech to schoolchildren and the lesson plans sent out by the Dept. of Ed have sparked a firestorm of criticism and accusations about indoctrination, etc.
Many, many people just can’t understand what the big deal is. After all, it’s just a pep-talk about doing well in school and working hard. Sure, there was some language promoting Obama and political leaders. But who cares? It’s just a brief speech by the President after all. Just like Bush the Elder gave in gentler times (which got him a Congressional investigation).
Many are asking the same questions about a number of issues these days. Why the outrage over the deficit? Where were the complaints when Bush the Younger ran it up? Why so exercised about the government health option? Don’t we have Medicare and Medicaid?
Of course Cato scholars, libertarians and many conservatives have criticized these things all along. For some, the new sensitivity, the emotion, is the result of the proverbial straw on a camel’s back, the accumulation of dissatisfaction with various aspects of the government over decades. And what has changed for others is the pace and scope of government expansion at the close of the Bush presidency and the dawn of Obama’s.
The furious reaction to the politicized lesson plan and Obama’s speech to schoolchildren cannot be understood without the context of the bailouts, the stimulus, the debt, GM, the attempt to take over health care.
And now, our kids. And not just the speech and lesson plan, but federal expansion into preschool and early childhood initiatives and home visitations (however voluntary and innocuous-seeming in different times).
They . . . the government, the meddlers, the nannies . . . they are coming for our money, our doctors, our guns and our kids. They won’t stop until they control everything.
That’s how it looks to millions of Americans. Fair or not, people are now very sensitive to any actions by the Obama administration.
Just as a lifetime of exposure to an allergen and modest immune reactions can reach some ill-defined tipping point and bloom into full-blown anaphylaxis, many Americans have developed an acute allergy to government intervention and Obama’s grand plans.
In isolation, the reaction to this speech seems wild. Given the context, it’s completely understandable.
Inspired to Serve
Heh, great photoshop work from the folks at the Voice for School Choice in SC.
Captain Louis Renault Award: Politics in Government Schools?!*
As Neal and Andrew have already covered extensively, President Obama is set to address the nation’s school children, and the Secretary of Education has sent out marching orders to government teachers and lesson plans for the kids.
The administration has now backpedaled from a classic political gaffe and cleaned up the most offensive aspects; asking kids to write about how they can help, explain why its important to listen to political leaders, etc.
But I think a couple of points deserve repeating.
From a push for vastly expanding federal involvement in preschool and early education to home visitations in the health care bills, the government remains intent on expanding its dominion (And hot on the heels of President Bush’s massive expansion of federal involvement in schools).
But this problem didn’t begin with Obama and won’t end with him. Politics in the schools is what we get when the government runs our schools.
Don’t want your kids indoctrinated by government bureaucrats, special interests, or the President?
Private school choice is the only remedy, and education tax credits are the increasingly popular and successful way to deliver it.
When will a critical mass of the people realize that it is dangerous and destructive to allow the government to control the education of our children and finally do something about it?
* Captain Louis Renault reference
I Would Rather You Just Said “Thank You, Private Schools,” and Went on Your Way…
Some well-known bloggers are being terrible bullies, beating up on private schools.
Felix Salmon kicks things off by hoping the government tightens the definition of a “charitable” organization and begins taxing private schools who don’t “do a bit more to earn it.” Matt Yglesias agrees that private schools are mooching deadbeats and ups the ante, calling them actively harmful as well. Finally, Conor Clarke at The Atlantic agrees, but makes the other two look like panty-waists by proposing the government radically narrow what is considered a charity in the first place.
Yglesias even has the temerity to indict private schools for the failure of NYC public schools:
And as best one can tell, their main impact on the common weal is negative, drawing parents with resources and social capital out of the public school system and contributing to its neglect. You’d have to believe that New York City’s public schools would be both better funded and free of this kind of nonsense if a larger portion of the city’s elite were sending their kids to them.
Really? Would we have to believe what Yglesias says? No, it’s not “the best one can tell.” According to the evidence, Yglesias’ breezy, offhand accusation is demonstrably wrong. Increased competition from private schools actually improves public school performance.
And the more kids who leave public to go private, the more money the schools have for the kids who remain.
What ingrates. They complain about the lost tax revenue while dismissing out of hand the billions of dollars that parents and donors spend every year to educate children outside the government system. They dismiss the fact that these parents and donors are saving taxpayers in the neighborhood of $60 Billion a year based on current-dollar public school spending and the number of kids in private schools.
Finally, if this is all about rich people getting a free ride, why aren’t these guys screaming about means-testing public schools? Why shouldn’t we charge rich parents tuition to attend public schools? If a charitable deduction for private schools is so bad, why isn’t a free public education even worse?
Is $19,000 Per Student Enough to Run a School?
Time for another “THE SCHOOLS HAVE NO MONEY!” report from the WaPo:
The largest-ever infusion of federal cash is flowing into public school classrooms this year in the form of new programs and thousands of restored jobs. The stimulus package — $100 billion over two years — comes with similarly sized expectations. . .
Even with the extra cash, the survey found, many schools are focused on survival. . .
In Fairfax County, stimulus funding saved about 274 positions, but class size ratios still increased by half a student
Poor schools!
And Fairfax. Desperate, struggling Fairfax only has about $3.3 billion to play with this year. How are they supposed to keep the system running with just $19,000 per student?
Considering the fact that the estimated national median private school tuition is around $4,800 $6,200, maybe they could just let parents and taxpayers keep, say, a third of that money to spend on education themselves.
Voila, no budget problem!
Get Kids Out of the Detroit Public School System
Oh, the hits keep on coming out of Detroit. From the WSJ today:
Five employees of the Detroit public school system were charged Wednesday with multiple felonies as part of an investigation into alleged corruption and the loss of tens of millions of dollars in school funds.
Here’s my take on the depraved crapulence (not a scatological reference 
)
of the Detroit Public school system and its unions and what to do about it
(and an article here).
It’s Dangerous For Pols to be on the Wrong Side of Overwhelming Support
Any City Council members who aren’t vocally supporting the DC voucher program need to take a good long look at these numbers:
Nearly 75 percent of District residents support the city’s federally funded school voucher program, according to a rigorous, independent poll released today. Widespread support for the program crosses party lines—with 74 percent of Democrats, 77 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of Independents backing the program—and extends across each of the District’s eight wards. . .
Two previous polls have demonstrated local support for the program; in 2007, a Greater Washington Urban League poll demonstrated almost 70 percent support for the federal funding creating the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. A 2008 poll by the national nonprofit Education Reform Now demonstrated equally strong support for the voucher initiative, with 63 percent of D.C. residents supporting school vouchers in general and 77 percent voicing supporting for parental choice in education.
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