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.
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Online:
HJR1: http://bit.ly/Wtllne
SJR9: http://bit.ly/YPvtof
Comments (39)
Add commentAh Ha still missess...
....the intricacies of data.
billb is correct - both special education and English language learners are groups who, by definition, should not do well on the standards-based test. However, they are still counted as students who contribute to the total number of kids in a school meeting proficiency or not.
Second - if you look more closely at the data, you'll notice that Auke Bay school, which is not a high poverty school and therefore does not receive extra federal funding, and which consists mostly of kids with middle to upper income parents in stable families - does far better - 90% proficient in Language Arts, 86% in Math overall. Compare that to a school with much higher low-income, sped, and ELL populations - like Harborview - where many, many more of the kids come from broken families, young mothers, etc. etc. - and the difference in scores is clear. 76% proficient in Language Arts and 69% in math. Even lower if you only look at low-income parents - 56% and 47% respectively.
Faced with numbers like these, there simply is no denying that parenting and family makeup have a significant impact on student performance, regardless of school/teacher delivery - after all, these two schools operate under the same district, with the same standards, training, and curriculums.
It's simply not logical to lay the entirety, or even the majority, of blame on the fact that it's a public school. If private schools had the same accountability and the same populations, they would likely do worse, as many do not employ trained teachers.
Another poster mentioned
Another poster mentioned leaving ideology at the door and looking at facts. That would be sound advice when discussing voucher programs.
Obviously, a huge majority of our public schools are broken. They aren't educating our children adequately. So let's try something different that appears to produce better results, so far.
And I'll repeat this fact again, the teachers' unions have a stranglehold on America's education system. They have become the elephant in the room and if nothing else, their monoply needs to be broken. They buy politicians and shape policy with an agenda all the way from the top to the bottom.
For those that think "disabled" and low income children can not benefit from a voucher program, see this -
EXISTING PROGRAMS
Voucher Programs in the United States
There are 16 school voucher programs in the United States serving 81,590 students during the 2011-12 school year. Nine states and the District of Columbia and Douglas County, Colo. offer school voucher programs.
Florida: John M. McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Florida.
Serves 22,861 students in 2011-12.
Georgia: Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Georgia.
Serves 2,965 students in 2011-12.
Indiana: Choice Scholarship Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children from low- and middle-income families in Indiana.
Serves 3,919 students in 2011-12.
Louisiana: Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children from low-income families in failing schools in Louisiana.
Serves 1,848 students in 2011-12.
Provides private school vouchers to students with special needs in LouisianaServes 186 students in 2011-12.Louisiana: School Choice Pilot Program for Certain Students with Exceptionalities
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Louisiana.
Serves 186 students in 2011-12.
Mississippi: Mississippi Dyslexia Therapy Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with dyslexia in Mississippi.
This program is set to begin in 2012-13.
Ohio: Autism Scholarship Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with autism in Ohio.
Serves 2,236 students in 2011-12.
Ohio: Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children from low-income families in Cleveland, Ohio.
Serves 5,603 students in 2011-12.
Ohio: Educational Choice Scholarship Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children in failing schools in Ohio.
Serves 16,136 students in 2011-12.
Ohio: Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Ohio.
This program is set to begin in 2012-13.
Oklahoma: Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship for Students with Disabilities Program
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Oklahoma.
Serves 160 students in 2011-12.
Utah: Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship
Provides private school vouchers to assist children with special needs in Utah.
Serves 635 students in 2011-12.
calypso - are these children
in the schools you mentioned performing at higher levels than the other students in their state, disabled or not, as measured by the same instrument?
If not, then one cannot say with certainty that they "benefit". They are simply in a different building.
Private/voucher schools
Private/voucher schools typically have higher mean test scores when compared to public schools.
Public schools in 2011-12 also had nearly 3x more students-per-cap with special needs, emotional disorders, or free/reduced lunch programs.
When you run a private business, you do not need to adhere to such strict government oversight. If a student consistently disrupts the learning of other students (ADHD or just poor social skills), that student can be expelled quite easily from a private school.
AYP
Private schools can opt out of AYP and choose other "tailored" progress assessments.
AYP is broken anyway. If we actually believe he rhetoric of AYP and No Child Left Behind, there should be no students performing below grade level by 2016. AYP increases the bar by 5% (compounded) each year with the expectations that public educators will be able to "teach" away the FASD or ED issues that get in the way of high stakes test scores.
Copenhaver - yes, but
..you understand, right, that if a private school and a public school are not taking the same, standards-based assessment, saying anything about "comparing" their test scores is irrelevant, right? It would be like you taking a math test provided by MIT, and me taking one with pictures given to me by my mom. Regardless of which you think is the public/private version, you simply cannot compare our scores on these tests to each other.
Also, the disparity of % of FAS, Sped, ELL, and just disruptive and rude or non-parented kids within each system is another reason why you cannot compare the two systems to each other.
Again, I propose that if private schools had to take the same student population and the same assessments - the results would be - the same.
What a joke...
The GOP seems to never fail to be on the absolute wrong side of history every time. We have established a public school system for taxpayers to send their children to. One system. If you wish to opt out, you do it on your own. Much to the dimay of right-wing Bible-thumpers, there is such a thing as separation of church and state (thank God) which is in place to prevent just this sort of non-sense. You're welcome to believe what you want to believe, but not at the expense of the rest. The Voucher program is madness, and it will gut and destroy the fragile education system we have in play, which, unfortunately, appears to be exactly what proponents are aiming for. Not on my watch right-wingers! It is the height of hypocrisy for these ideologues to expect taxpayer welfare so they can send their kid to some private school. Nice work republicans. Any bets as to if there will even be a credible GOP in 2016? Their tent is about the size of a pup-tent. Kick out the right-wing extremists - there's a start, and just say NO to vouchers.
Calypso
Why do you feel that teachers are over paid? A teacher has gone through 4 years of college and hold a BA in education. It has cost a sizable amount of money for this education. Teachers are also required to take additional classes during their years of teaching. I would go out on limb, but I would say close to half of the teachers in Juneau hold a MA in education. For year teachers were on the lower end of the pay scale. They should be getting FAR more than they are payed
public money should go to public institutions
which are accountable to the public, subject to oversight, and in compliance with state and federal standards: By accepting these vouchers, heretofore private schools recreate themselves as public institutions, and must comply with these standards or be in violation.
Alaskans, our Constitution isn't broken---Let's not try to fix it with this, which will only weaken our already struggling public schools, muddy the waters of the separation of church and state, and make an ideological battleground of our kids' education such as hasn't been seen since the civil rights era.
Religious conservatives welcome this battle because it's one they've been fighting for generations: To assert their doctrine through the auspices of public institutions and with the force of law. Let's not give them this tool to further fragment our society, weaken our institutions, and degrade the egalitarian spirit that once made our education system the envy of the world.