JUNEAU — A Senate panel began hearings Friday on the subject of school vouchers, less than two weeks after the committee’s chair adamantly declared on the Senate floor that the issue needs to be thoroughly vetted.
Two resolutions in the Legislature — SJR9, by Sen. Mike Dunleavy, R-Wasilla, and its House counterpart, HJR1, by Rep. Wes Keller, R-Wasilla — propose to amend Alaska’s Constitution to allow the state to appropriate public funds to private or religious educational institutions. Critics argue that it could siphon off funds from a public school system that is already seeking additional money.
Senate Education Committee chairman Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said his panel would take a look at the issue, even though Senate President Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, pulled SJR9 from a Senate Education Committee referral while Stevens was out of town and without advance notice. Senate majority leaders have said SJR9 involves a legal issue and that the measure could be heard by the committee if “significant education issues arise” during the legislative process.
Stevens said he has not encountered a “more momentous education issue” during his 13 years in the Legislature and told his fellow lawmakers that he will evaluate vouchers whether or not SJR9 is placed before his committee.
“By the time we get to a vote, I trust that members of the Senate will clearly understand how vouchers affect Alaska,” he said on the Senate floor. “We owe this to our children and to our grandchildren, to the children of our neighbors and our friends and to the children of Alaskans we don’t even yet know, because they’re all our sons and daughters and they deserve the best education we can provide.”
Three experts were called in to testify before the Senate Education Committee: one advocate, one opponent, and a journalist who extensively covered the country’s first voucher program in Milwaukee but does not take an opinion on vouchers.
Robert Enlow, the president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice — one of the country’s most prominent pro-voucher think tanks — stressed that vouchers are not about saving money but about putting children in schools that are appropriate for them.
Enlow said multiple studies and reports have not found a negative impact on public schools by vouchers. He also cited studies that show an increase in parent satisfaction with their children’s education when vouchers are implemented.
“Children are generally learning more — although modestly, let’s be blunt about that,” Enlow said. “There is no way that school choice in and of itself is a panacea.”
Alan Borsuk, a former reporter and editor for the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said there’s a lot that can be learned from Milwaukee’s experience.
Up until 2005, Milwaukee’s voucher program was highly unregulated. While there where some excellent schools that sprung up after the voucher system was implemented, there were a lot of middling ones and some that were awful — including one run by a convicted rapist, according to Borsuk.
“Frankly, if there’s anything I think we’ve proven in Milwaukee, is that it’s not that simple,” he said.
Milwaukee has since instituted stricter financial and academic oversight for schools that receive voucher funding.
Borsuk did agree with Enlow’s assertion that the voucher program is popular, but he did not agree with him on its success in his hometown.
“Overall, student achievement is very disturbing. It was then (before vouchers), it is now,” Borsuk said. “I don’t think there’s very much evidence that voucher kids are doing any better than MPS (Milwaukee Public School) kids here.”
Dr. Diane Ravitch, a professor at New York University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said vouchers divide schools based on race, religion and class while drawing away tax dollars from the public schools — one of the most “essential intuitions of a democratic society.”
Ravitch staunchly opposed the narrative that the institution of American education is in a crisis; she said test scores and graduation rates for white, black, Asian and Hispanic students are higher than they’ve ever been while dropout rates for the same demographic are at their low point.
By the end of the meeting, only two committee members were left: Stevens and Sen. Berta Gardner, D-Anchorage. Huggins left before Ravitch and Borsuk spoke due to a previous commitment, and Dunleavy, who had an overlapping Senate Finance Committee meeting, left before Ravitch’s testimony. Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, was out of town.
The House Education Committee heard testimony and continued deliberations on HJR1 Friday morning, at the same time the Senate panel was meeting. The measure was held in committee.
___
Online:
HJR1: http://bit.ly/Wtllne
SJR9: http://bit.ly/YPvtof
Comments (39)
Add commentFirst Hand Experience
Private education most certainly was the best choice for my children. While in the public school system they where regularly exposed to alternate lifestyle propaganda veiled in acceptance curriculum. We are not [filtered word]-phobic. We just believe that what goes on in the bedroom belongs in the bedroom. we believe in working and preparing yourself for life and not being dependent on other people; or the government.
Further, we regularly interact with our neighborhood kids and through general conversation we have learned that they believe the government is the solution to all of societies problems telling me it is good that the government is there to help us through life. A view not help by the students at the private school my children attend. They believe in personal responsibility, self reliance, consequences of their actions and think they make the best decisions about their lives and not the government.
I am in favor of vouchers and believe a reduced budget for public school could be better for our community. In fact I'll go further and say a smaller public school system and an expanded private schools could be much healthier for our culture.
Most notable
"By the end of the meeting, only two committee members were left: Stevens and Sen. Berta Gardner, D-Anchorage. Huggins left before Ravitch and Borsuk spoke due to a previous commitment, and Dunleavy, who had an overlapping Senate Finance Committee meeting, left before Ravitch’s testimony."
These guys are absolutely not interested in facts. They have their ideology and they're sticking with it.
Again, Huggins and Keller aren't accountable to Juneauites. But Egan, Kerttula, and Munoz are. Let's watch their votes carefully on this issue.
And AKJustice, thank you for your revealing observations regarding intolerance.
Ah, yes....
Republican government - the government 'by what I believe, of however I can get it passed, for my own personal ideology.'
Nice.
AKjustice - yeah, you and your children "think they make the best decisions about their lives and not the government."............right up until you personally disagree with those decisions - like who to marry, what proceedures they can get at their Drs. office......
Please. A conviction is only a conviction if you apply it equally 100% of the time. Otherwise it's just BS.
No constitutional amendment
The Alaska state constitution says that private school must have oversight by the local board of education. This is a good thing. It assures that all school in a community cover appropriate curriculum and are held to the state standards. They must also take the state mandated tests to assure that the students are recieving a quality education. This is not true of private schools in most of the country, especially places like Milwakee where the voucher system has become entrenched.
Most private schools have untrained teachers and a curriculum set by a group of parents.
Alaska private schools recieve the per pupil funds already, so what is it that they want to amend? School vouchers in most places allow parents to get extra money from local governments to pay the school, so it becomes a taxpayer subsidy for private schools. This is nothing more than a money grab by private school enterprises that do not want to hold to the higher standards that are part of our state constitution. This does not mean that I think any local schools are a part of this. This is a nationwide push by ALEC and for profit private schools to privatize schools.
What was that about being self reliant and not depending on the government? If you chose to pull your children out of public school system, then you can pay any extra. Alaskans current system works well. Leave it alone.
Vouchers
A voucher program will not work in Juneau! First off it is violation of the Constitutions separation of church and state. Secondly the private schools here in Juneau are ALL religion based. Government should NOT be funding schools where religion is taught. Thirdly If a parent want to send their children to a private school, that is their choice and I as tax payer should NOT have to pay for it!
"Policy design is critical.
"Policy design is critical. School choice is constitutional at the federal level and in most states as long as policies and programs are designed properly.
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court answered this constitutional question thoroughly at the federal level. In the landmark Zellman v. Simmons-Harris case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Cleveland’s school voucher program by a 5-4 vote. The justices made it very clear that when an individual uses public funds to make a private choice—in this case when a parent uses a voucher to send his or her child to a private school (including religious schools)—it does not violate the First Amendment.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained in the majority opinion that voucher programs such as Cleveland’s are “neutral in respect to religion (because they) provide assistance directly to a broad class of citizens, who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice.” Hence, if a school choice program allows “true private choice” and it is “religiously neutral”, then it is constitutional."
Private schools are primarily accountable to parents and caregivers, who can pull their children out of a school that fails to serve them. If a public school fails to perform, parents are essentially powerless. They have very little practical means to hold it accountable; they are stuck.
Private schools are not just accountable to families; they are already accountable to the public and government authorities. Private schools in every state comply with a vast array of health and safety regulations, antidiscrimination and civil rights laws, and even rules covering the minimum number of school days.
Private schools that participate in school choice programs are required to be safe, non-discriminatory and fiscally sound and to file regular reports and disclosures.
Private schools in voucher programs are less racially segregated than their public school counterparts. Vouchers break down neighborhood barriers and draw students together, providing a more integrated school experience. The empirical research shows that vouchers put students into less segregated schools."
The Democrats are fearful of losing their stranglehold on America's public school systems and the massive amounts of campaign dollars from teachers' union dues that flow out of these schools which help them to win elections.
How much would it cost? Vouchers fed on by vultures.
Separation of church and state alone is a good reason to keep vouchers out of Alaska, but there are many others. Setting the "I don't want to fund private schools with public money" piece aside, there is another thing to consider; If no child who is currently going to public school was to enroll in a private school, there would still be an enormous cost. WE WOULD NOW BE PAYING FOR EVERY KID WHO IS ALREADY ENROLLED IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL. The Base Student Allocation is still at $5,680/student. This is not including all of the multipliers for location, school size, special education, etc. The formula looks to be quite complex, but the nationaljournal.com (reputable ????) has Alaska spending about $16,000 per kid. Take that number and multiply it by the 6,188 students enrolled in private schools (educationbug), and you end up with a total of $99,800,000. Could be more or could be less. I am not confident in these numbers, but my point is we are talking about a lot of money from a budget that is about to suffer from a huge giveaway. There is big money and big business behind making vouchers happen in Alaska. I think if this passes through the legislature, you will see big dollar advertising attempting to get you to vote it through. The privatizing of education, or the appearance of education, is a multi-billion dollar industry. I applaud senator Stevens and others for helping to slow this thing down. The voucher vultures having been circling above us for some time and many of their friends in the Alaska Legislature have been keeping a thin/thick vale of clouds between us and them. Our governor and his yes men/women are either trying to pull a fast one, are ignorant or both. Alaskans, please pay close attention to this matter.
Are all you anti-voucher tax
Are all you anti-voucher tax payers satisfied with what your ever increasing tax dollars are producing in our public school systems? I'm not.
It's been shown that a voucher program makes the public school systems more competitive. Competition is always a good thing.
I think the anti-voucher crowd is buying into the hyped talking points of the ideological left without doing any research on their own to see just how well vouchers work, for all students. It has become a totally partisan fight between the left and right.
And of course a voucher system is going to take some tweaking to refine it.
Question regarding "competetive" education
Mr./Ms. Calypso,
I wade into the Juneau Empire Blogosphere with great trepidation. This issue has me worried enough to question things. When you type "It's been shown that a voucher program makes the public school systems more competitive. Competition is always a good thing.", I am sure you have some sources for this conclusion. I do not mean this in a smart tone. I would like to read more on this issue. Would you please site a source (reputable), either online or in print that highlights these details? Thank you in advance. I agree that competition CAN be good, but not just for competition's sake. Outcomes of competition are not necessarily favorable. . . I am not a member of the "ideological left", but a card carrying member of the "truth backed up by facts" as you probably are. While I am sure that there are good private schools in the country that are affordable enough for the average student, I do worry that private educational enterprises (large corporations) are worried first about their shareholders, not the product they provide. Also, would/are private schools be(ing) held to any standard of accountability?
Here is a scenario: Private school X actively recruits students who are at-risk / in trouble / special ed / etc., makes sure to keep them enrolled until the October count date (PAY DAY), then either kicks them out for their known behavior issues or fails to educate them because the kid does not get the grades they already knew (hopefully the school is proven wrong) they were going to get. The PUBLIC school gets the kid(s) back, maybe even in late October. School X pockets the money and the public system, who must take all, now must educate the child with ZERO resources. This is an awful scenario, but I can see it being the case. I will try to find (Hope I don't.) a story or two of this very situation and get back to you. Anyone who has already done the research, please chime in. . . Calypso, again I am not throwing darts at you, just playing devil's advocate to what you have written.
@Calypso
How could they be satisfied? Currently we are spending about $16,000 per student per year(according to last years JSD budget) and at the same time the University of Alaska Southeast is warning us that more than half of the JSD graduates who go on to attend college at UAS need a full year of remedial math and a full year of remedial english prior taking any college level classes.
All of that ignores the fact that for the $16,000 a year per student we are spending we are also getting a truly pathetic on time graduation rate.
Found one example.
Here is an example of the abuse by for-profit k-12 education. In particular a virtual school called K12 Inc. Again, I am sure some do a great and honorable job, but I believe that with Alaska's remote nature the big businesses will come swooping in. . . As I do not want to cut and paste a huge article, if one was to Google "k12 inc investigation" you would get the gist of what I mean. There are multiple articles.
I must get back to the real world. Blog you later.
@Hightide..
The market place will cure any problems in short order. How quickly would you have your child out of a school that had a bad track record of getting students graduated from high school and accepted to college? If you had the option of spending your voucher as you wanted and UAS had contacted the school district and pointed out that a very high percentage of students who come from School X are not prepared for entrance into UAS and require extensive remedial classes first would you be looking at School Y instead? How long do you think that this would go on before School X either had no students or had corrected their ways?
How about we structure the vouchers so that a school receives the voucher at the beginning of the year but only gets to cash in %60 at the beginning of the year then at the end of the year they get an additional %20 based on successful completion of the academic year by the student. If they can produce a qualified graduate from a student who has been in the same school more than one year they get the final %20 as a bonus....
It gives the school an incentive to attract students to teach them well and to keep students.
@Hightide...
Planning on sending your kid to K12 Inc.? Of course not. I'll venture an educated guess that they will not be around a whole lot longer....
On the other hand, we are not having a lot of luck getting quality education out of our public schools and currently, we pay for them regardless........
Calypso
You say private schools should have vouchers mainly because private schools are non union. Private schools pay the teachers way below what public schools pay. If a teacher goes to college, gets a degree, and teaches they should get payed for it. After teaching for a period of time a public school must continue with education to better serve the children. Private schools DO NOT demand this!
Forced to call bull on quite
Forced to call bull on quite a few of these assertions, especially the idea that the marketplace will *rapidly* fix any problems.
In order to determine how well a school is doing, you'll need some way of comparing results from people who have gone through that school with those who have not. This by itself means that there will be a significant (would say at least a year plus) lag between the most current comparisons and current practices. This is the absolute ideal: reality will fall short. In addition, anyone who truly wants to try and make these comparisons more valid will have more than adequate grounds to dispute the validity of any such comparison. Private schools are frequently able to be selective: comparing results from a school whose students were top 20% to a public school which must take anyone will always be faulty as well.
For an even better idea of whether vouchers granting more options can do what it needs to, just look at post-secondary education. We do create fairly reliable ranking systems, which lag most current practices. We also have a proliferation of schools who are clearly for-profit degree mills successfully convincing students that their post-degree efforts will be far greater than they will be in actuality... and change names once that reputation catches up with them. Privatization and competition do create opportunities, but all too often we focus exclusively on the possible benefits without weighing probable costs.
(As one example, the K12 Inc. story above is being used both as a cost and as a statement that the system would work: I'd note that the company started in 2000, and these investigations are rather recent... potentially 12 years of operating with these issues.)
@Cynical;
And JSD has been failing to educate for how many years running?
AH Ha - did you miss the point?
Cynical is pointing out (as has been done many times, but doesn't seem to sink in) that comparing private schools to public schools at this juncture is not appropriate. So replying to some good questions about private school accountability with "public schools are failing" - shows a great lack of understanding of the two systems.
If private schools were also required to:
- Take any and all students regardless of parent involvement, diability, academic need
- test students on statewide, standards-based tests
- provide qualified, certified teachers (who've had background checks)
among other things - presumably the results would be very similar.
@Swimmergirl;
I get it. But...
Would you be willing to pay to support K12 Inc. ? They Defraud their customers by not providing an education.
Why would you be willing to pay to support JSD ? They also defraud their customers... They have a very long and storied history of not providing an education for their students.
Something for thought
For those of you who are worried about private schools not having to take special needs students, you are correct, right now they generally don't have a requirement to take them because they are not accepting public funds.
What happens if they accept vouchers?
Guess what....those are public funds and they would probably no longer be exempt from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), certain portions of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
One more reason to support vouchers.
Ah Ha - how do you get.....
...to JSD "not providing" an education? What's your evidence?
you very clearly don't "get it".
I've been in many classrooms in the last few years, and know many teachers, and children in classrooms. I know of no (or very, very few) teachers in the JSD system who sit in their rooms and "don't provide an education" I know many teachers who work hard to provide interesting lessons, who read to students, who provide enrichment activities, and who are very good teachers.
Do you honestly believe that if "little johnny" fails ist grade, or kindergarten, it must then mean that an education has not been provided, and NO other factors are to be considered?
Frankly, the data does not support that conclusion.
Funny thing about
Funny thing about ideologically-based discussions: even when individuals are presented with overwhelming evidence which contradicts their viewpoint, studies have shown that they usually walk away with their viewpoints *reinforced* rather than reconsidered or refuted.
I usually consider it pointless to keep discussing matters once they devolve to that level... but for some reason keep hoping that someone showing that they are willing to discuss issues in depth might help reverse that path. Perhaps I should be a bit more true to my pseudonym.
@Swimmergirl
Well lets see, I got the following data from the budget that was published by JSD for 2012. Last year we funded JSD to the tune of about $16,000 per student per year (or close enough that it really doesn't matter).
Here you have data from the Report Card to the Public 2011-2012 as published by JSD:
How did the JSD do with AYP? Did the meet AYP? No
AYP Level: 4
* District AYP Level 1 = Alert; Levels 2 and 3 = Improvement Status, Level 4 = Corrective Action
AYP level designation is based on assessment results from spring of 2011-2012 school year and applied to 2012-2013
school year.
Districts at Level 2 or above must develop an improvement plan. JSD is in the fourth year of a five year improvement plan and still tests at level four..... and what that means is that although a corrective action or 'improvement plan' is in place the JSD is not meeting the goals of the plan.
What was the JSD on time graduation rate? 70 percent. Give the failing students an extra year and include them in the five year cohort and you get a big improvement....a whopping 7 percent more can manage to graduate if you give them an extra year to do it. Interestingly, Yaakoosge’ Daakahidi is really banging along.... the graduation rate there has never been over 34.1 percent. (that's a pretty big investment in failure)
Further reading: STAR (Student Achievement Report) for 2011/2012 (As published by JSD) shows that for the last three years the Overall Percentage of Students at or Above Grade Level has stayed in the low sixty percent range. (Abysmal)
Forty percent are not getting an education an additional twenty percent are only getting a marginal education they qualify but just barely.
This means that the District is only succeeding in putting out qualified students who are prepared for college about forty percent of the time.
In a nutshell, using the school district's own data, Yep, they are failing to provide an education and have been for a long time.
In fact it's fair to say that at this point it's chronic.
JSD
AH HA It is impossible to get accurate number of testing. 1. Juneau has large population of special needs children. Most of them are unable to even take the testing, and the ones that can need extra help. 2. AS swimmergirl stated JSD has some excellent teachers who work long hours working on treatment plans the keep the children motived. 3. It is NOT the teacher fault if s child doesn't want to learn. Children need to have positive role model at home, with parents working with the child. So many children enter kindergarten NOT knowing how to read. or know their numbers. The teacher has to the work with 2 groups of students and. has extra work to do with the non reader The readers have to stay motivated while the teacher helps the others
AH HA.
One of the funny things few people mention in these debates, even when Parnell spoke about attaining a 90% graduation rate, is that the entire U.S. average graduation rate is only around 78%... and that number is a 40-year high.
I am not saying that JDHS is doing well by any means, nor am I saying that it cannot improve: the main problem I see with vouchers, especially vouchers spent on private/religious schools, is that it effectively says "Hey, the public school system is broken and not worth fixing, so we'll let private industry do so for us." Lest we forget, isn't good publicly available education one of the foundations of our democracy?
One other problematic aspect of this proposed voucher systems is that it would effectively create a price floor for private K-12 education. It also heightens the effects of one of the primary predictors of educational success, social class/wealth. The probable long-term effects of both of these factors bother me greatly.
@billb
You appear to be offering excuses for failure.
Perhaps, you might spend a little time at the JSD Web site becoming more familiar with the data? a full thirty percent of the students in JSD will not graduate on time and additional thirty percent will graduate on time but will have repeatedly tested as passing but marginal. When these students get to college, they are tested prior to entrance and the results are very similar.
AH HA Unfortunately the test
AH HA
Unfortunately the test scores DO NOT give an accurate percentage. They are based on the TOTAL number of students in the district. This includes special needs students. Many of these students are unable, or have different rules for taking the tests. JSD has a large number of special needs students. I know testing is the only way of gathering data, but it is flawed in many ways. There also students that know the subject matter well, but freeze on tests
@Cynical
How's that? You lost me.... (Really)
They way things are now, a low income family has little or no chance or ever sending a child to a private school. If we offer vouchers to all families then, any family could send a child to a private school. I do not see how that is going to heighten the effect of social class or wealth. If anything it will serve to level the playing field.
As far as free public education being one of the foundations of our democracy, perhaps but it's a real stretch. "free" education was very uncommon until the 1820's and not common until after the civil war. Until then schools were largely either private or 'fee-rate". Federal control really did not get started until Johnsons "great Society" and this was effectively the end of parents ability to choose where to spend their education dollars.
AH HA
It doesn't matter if it is the best private school in the country a child will NOT excel if there is NO parent interaction with their children
You have a point, admittedly.
You have a point, admittedly. I should have said an informed populace, which in this day requires a certain degree of education (it didn't always).
With regard to the price floor issue, if you effectively say that this is the minimum amount that the government at any level will reimburse you for taking a student, you wind up creating a minimum amount that a private school eligible for that voucher will charge. In other words, a price floor. Yes, it may be that this will allow a family to send their children to a private school when they previously could not. It will most likely not allow them to send them to a private school whose quality is that much greater, after all the private school must make a profit or it will stop operating. Operating at a loss or inefficiently is supposedly a government prerogative, after all.
At the same time, it also heightens the effect of wealth and social class on future education. How? First, by more tightly tying money spent on education (beyond the voucher system) with academic performance. It doesn't matter if this is an actuality, but the *perception* will be present and more than adequate to influence results. It will also draw more attention to one of the other significant impacts, namely parental involvement in their child's education. At the moment, previously simple things like a parent having the time to actually help their child with homework, teach them additional material beyond the classwork, or interact with them in any other significant manner are also a prerogative of the upper classes. It is rather hard to actively care for a child yourself if you are forced to work two jobs to pay the bills, as a more specific example.
If there are other aspects of my statement which are confusing, I would be happy to clarify.
Personal responsibility
People that want a private education for their children should pay for it themselves...not ask the government for something free.
Conservatives... is this your thought?