Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools

by Diane Ravitch

  In 1990, Milwaukee launched a voucher program for low-income students. In 1995, Cleveland was permitted to offer vouchers, also for low-income students. In 2003, Republicans in Congress created a voucher program for low-income students in the District of Columbia. All of these voucher programs were initiated by legislators, not by voters. Conservative think tanks, like the Center for Education Reform, the Heritage Foundation, the Friedman Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and others at the state level, kept up a steady drumbeat of advocacy for vouchers as the answer to the problems of low-achieving, low-income students. They hoped that once the public accepted vouchers for low-income students, eventually middle-income parents would demand vouchers for their children too. Over time, they expected, the voucher idea would take on a momentum of its own, and the public school system would wither away as all students got vouchers to attend the schools of their choice. In this competitive environment, schools would get better and better, and scores would go higher and higher, and the problems that now beset the schools would be resolved by the simple mechanism of choice and a free market.

  Before any city or state offered vouchers with public money, it was easy to speculate on what they might achieve and to predict amazing transformation for the children lucky enough to get them. But over time, the results of the nation’s three publicly funded voucher programs became clear. They didn’t make any difference in terms of test scores. Competition between voucher schools, charter schools, and public schools did not cause the public schools to get better. Instead, the competing programs drained the public schools of both students and funding and weakened them.

  The Milwaukee voucher program started in 1990. In 1998, the courts allowed religious schools to accept voucher students, and the voucher program expanded. For years, the program was closely studied to determine whether voucher students made greater gains than their peers who remained in the public schools. On average, they did not. On Wisconsin state tests, students in Milwaukee’s voucher schools performed no better—and sometimes worse—than students in the district’s public schools.3

  Nor did the competition with voucher schools and charter schools bring about improvement in the Milwaukee public schools. In 2009, Milwaukee public schools participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress for the first time. In reading and mathematics, Milwaukee was found to be one of the lowest-performing cities in the nation. Black students, who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the city’s school voucher program, scored among the lowest-performing students in the nation in both fourth and eighth grades, in English and mathematics. The same poor performance was recorded by Milwaukee again in 2011 on the NAEP test. Twenty-two years after the start of the voucher program, black students in the Milwaukee public schools were performing poorly, and their peers in the Milwaukee voucher schools and charter schools were doing no better.4

  A comprehensive evaluation of the Milwaukee voucher program by researchers at the University of Arkansas concluded that students in the program showed gains in reading but not in mathematics. More consequentially, the evaluation showed, students in the voucher program were 4 percent likelier to graduate from high school and 7 percent more likely to enroll in a four-year college than their peers in the public schools. However, an independent reviewer questioned the evaluator’s claims about higher graduation rates, noting that “roughly 75 percent of the original sample of 801 MPCP [Milwaukee Parental Choice Program] 9th graders were not still enrolled in a MPCP high school in 12th grade. The inferences drawn about the effects of the MPCP on graduation rates compared with those in the MPS are severely clouded by substantial sample attrition.” The evaluators at the University of Arkansas later changed the attrition rate from 75 percent to 56 percent. Even at 56 percent, this very high rate of attrition very likely left the most motivated students in the voucher schools and certainly raised questions about whether the voucher program had any effect on the graduation rate or the college enrollment rate.5

  After twenty-two years of vouchers, there was no evidence that vouchers were a panacea, nor that they were saving poor children who had been in public schools. On average, the voucher schools were not outperforming the public schools; some of them were simply bad schools, not only producing low levels of achievement but absorbing large amounts of taxpayer dollars without any accountability. Veteran Milwaukee journalist Alan J. Borsuk described voucher schools in which less than 5 percent of the students were proficient and staff turnover was high, but the schools had collected $40–50 million in the past decade through the voucher program.6

  Despite the poor results of the voucher program in Milwaukee, the enthusiasm of voucher advocates was undiminished, and if anything, grew stronger. In 2011, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker expanded the voucher program to Racine and lifted the income eligibility requirement in Milwaukee, extending vouchers to more students in a larger geographic area. Vouchers were a priority for ALEC, the far-right organization of state legislators, including many from Wisconsin.7 Vouchers were also a priority for the American Federation for Children, an organization founded by a wealthy Michigan activist, Betsy DeVos, to advance school choice, which honored Governor Walker in 2011 for his advocacy for vouchers.

  The voucher program in Cleveland began in 1995. The results there were no different from those in Milwaukee. The students in the voucher schools did not perform better than those in the public schools. The students in public schools typically did better on state tests than those in the voucher schools. Competition with voucher schools and charter schools did not improve the Cleveland public schools. Cleveland’s schools, populated almost entirely by low-income students, performed very poorly on national tests, and Cleveland was one of the lowest-scoring districts in the nation, along with Detroit, Milwaukee, and the District of Columbia. From 2003 to 2011, when the federal tests were offered, students in the Cleveland public schools not only had low scores but showed no improvement for any group: not for black students, white students, Hispanic students, or low-income students. And students in voucher schools performed below those in public schools on state tests. Despite the absence of evidence for the success of the Cleveland voucher program, the state of Ohio expanded vouchers statewide to students in low-rated schools and to students with autism (the legislature decided to make this kind of voucher available to all students with disabilities in 2012–13). By 2011, the state was spending $103 million on vouchers. With choice advocates in control of the legislature, the voucher program was certain to grow, regardless of evidence about its effects.8

  In the District of Columbia, a Republican-controlled Congress passed a voucher program in early 2004. It was called the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). Knowing the American public’s distaste for vouchers, Republicans referred to vouchers as “opportunity scholarships.” The final, congressionally mandated evaluation of the program concluded, “There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP affected student achievement. [Italics and boldface in the original.] On average, after at least four years students who were offered (or used) scholarships had reading and math test scores that were statistically similar to those who were not offered scholarships. The same pattern of results holds for students who applied from schools in need of improvement (SINI), the group Congress designated as the highest priority for the Program.” The evaluation determined that students who participated in the program were likelier to graduate from high school, based on parental reports (82 percent who received vouchers versus 70 percent who did not).9 Based on this self-reported evidence of improvement, Congress extended the life of the voucher program.

  Florida established two voucher programs, one for students in F-rated schools, the other for students with disabilities. The vouchers for students in low-rated schools were called “opportunity scholarships,” as in the federal program. Since the American public had repeatedly voted down voucher programs, “opportunity scholarships” was the euphemism preferred by voucher advocates. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court held the “oppor
tunity scholarship program” unconstitutional. The chief justice of the court said in the opinion that the program “diverts public dollars into separate, private systems … parallel to and in competition with the free public schools.” Only 720 students were enrolled in the voucher program that was struck down by the court. At the time, the far larger program in Florida, known as McKay Scholarships, enrolled 14,000 students with disabilities. In 2012, there were 24,000 students using a McKay Scholarship to attend a private school.10

  But the McKay Scholarship program was riddled with problems, due to the state’s lack of oversight. Gus Garcia-Roberts of the Miami New Times conducted an investigation in 2011 and found that many students were attending substandard schools. The state failed to regulate key aspects of these schools, such as the curriculum, creating what the newspaper called “a cottage industry of fraud and chaos.” Schools could qualify to accept voucher students even though the schools had no accreditation and no curriculum. Some administrators, the investigation reported, had criminal records. In one school, the students watched old videos and summarized the plot; the head of the school administered corporal punishment—banned by local law—as he saw fit. The state overlooked practices that would be unacceptable in a public school. No one cared “if students are discovered to be spending their days filling out workbooks, watching B-movies, or frolicking in the park. In one ‘business management’ class, students shook cans for coins on street corners.” Nor was there a systematic effort to pursue fraud and padded enrollments. As the reporter put it, “It’s like a perverse science experiment, using disabled school kids as lab rats and funded by nine figures in taxpayer cash: Dole out millions to anybody calling himself an educator. Don’t regulate curriculum or even visit campuses to see where the money is going.” And he added, “For optimal results, do this in Florida, America’s fraud capital.” Regular public schools were all too willing to dump their special education students, who might pull down their all-important school grades. The Republican legislature, unconcerned by the problems related to the vouchers, voted to expand the program so that students who were allergic to peanuts or bee stings would qualify.11

  For his exposé of the underside of the McKay Scholarship program, Gus Garcia-Roberts was honored by the Society of Professional Journalists, which selected him as first-place winner of the Sigma Delta Chi Award for public service journalism at a non-daily newspaper.12

  After Republicans captured statehouses and legislatures in the 2010 election cycle, the voucher movement picked up steam. Governor Mitch Daniels passed voucher legislation in Indiana, and Governor John Kasich increased the number of vouchers available in Ohio.

  Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana pushed through the most audacious voucher program in the nation. In the spring of 2012, with Republicans in control of both houses of the legislature, Louisiana passed an education reform act that authorized vouchers for every student in a school graded C, D, or F by the state. That covered over 400,000, more than half the students in the state. These vouchers could be used in any sort of educational institution, whether public, private, religious, online, or operated by a business for profit. About 10,000 students requested vouchers, and about 120 schools offered seats. Most of the schools willing to accept vouchers were religious, and 19 were known to teach creationism, not evolution, and to use textbooks that taught science, history, and other subjects from a biblical point of view. Some of the schools lacked facilities or teachers to accept additional students but promised to expand in time for the opening of school. Unlike the public schools, the Louisiana voucher schools would be allowed to hire uncertified teachers.13 In May 2013, the state’s highest court struck down the funding of vouchers from public school monies as unconstitutional.

  Why were so many Republican governors intent on implementing voucher programs, in light of the meager results from Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the District of Columbia?

  Conservatives with a fervent belief in free-market solutions cling tenaciously to vouchers. They believe in choice as a matter of principle. The results of vouchers don’t matter to them. They cling to any tidbit of data to argue on behalf of vouchers. If there is evidence of parental satisfaction, that’s good enough for them. But even if there were no evidence of success, they would still promote vouchers. They want to create a free market in schooling, with multiple providers and competition. The true reward of vouchers is that they will end government control, supervision, and regulation of schooling. They let parents decide where their children should enroll in school, without regard to the quality of the school. Those schools that enroll the most students will thrive; those that do not attract enough students will not survive. Let the market decide.

  If the market were always right, the best products would always be the most successful, but that is not necessarily the case. If the market were always right, only the highest-quality books, movies, and television programs would top the charts, but that is not necessarily the case.

  Would the free market produce better education? Should the state subsidize schools where teachers are not certified and meet no particular standard of professionalism? Should taxpayers fund religious schools whose beliefs do not accord with modern science or history?

  Are vouchers the wave of the future? The public has not embraced the idea. Republicans still insist on calling them “opportunity scholarships,” taking pains to avoid the word “voucher.” No state has ever passed an initiative or referendum supporting vouchers. To date, as judged by state referenda, most Americans place a high value on keeping public education public. Vouchers represent a major step toward privatization. There is no evidence that the American public is prepared to continue down this path as its ultimate destination become clear.

  CHAPTER 20

  Schools Don’t Improve if They Are Closed

  CLAIM Schools can be dramatically improved by firing the principal, firing half or all of the teachers, or closing the school and starting fresh.

  REALITY There is no evidence for this claim.

  School reform in the early twenty-first century followed a pattern.

  First came high-stakes testing. Test students every year, and grade everyone involved. Grade the students; grade the teachers; grade the schools.

  Then came accountability. Use the test scores and grades to hand out rewards and punishments. Give bonuses to those who got higher test scores every year. Punish those who were unable to improve test scores year after year: fire the principal, fire some or all of the teachers, close the school.

  Then came reform: hire new staff, turn the school into a charter, or give it to private management.

  President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law created the template for testing, accountability, and punishment. President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top program accepted the template and added to it the concept of “turning around” five thousand of the nation’s lowest-performing schools. The Obama administration awarded $5 billion to states and districts that agreed to “turn around” their lowest-performing schools. There were four models offered: turnaround, closure, restart, and transformation. All began with firing the principal. The school could be closed down altogether. Half the staff might be fired, or the entire staff might be fired. The basic approach was to shake up the school, disrupt its culture, and launch a new beginning, with new faces, new leadership, and perhaps even private management.

  The disruption was expected to produce innovation. More typically, it produced turmoil and demoralization.

  Two major surveys released in the spring of 2012 reported growing levels of demoralization among American teachers. The annual MetLife Survey of the American Teacher said that nearly one-third of teachers were thinking about quitting. The Scholastic-Gates survey did not report numbers that high, but found that teachers did not like the direction of school reform. They did not trust standardized testing. They did not want merit pay or rewards for test scores. They did not want a longer day or a longer year; many were already working eleven-hour d
ays. What did they want? They wanted families to be more involved; they wanted higher expectations; they wanted smaller classes; they wanted better leadership in their schools. The MetLife survey of teachers and principals in 2013 found that both groups were feeling stressed and demoralized. Most principals reported that their jobs had become more difficult in the past five years, and a third said they were likely to leave their job or change occupations.1

  It is not surprising that morale was low and educators were feeling disheartened. Federal policy constantly bombarded them with the message that they were failing, as did the corporate reformers’ media campaign with its negative and demonstrably false claims. With NCLB’s unrealistic requirement that all students be proficient by 2014, the number of “failing” schools escalated every year in every district and state. The requirement was guaranteed to produce failure and demoralization. Thousands of schools could not meet the impossible goal. Many failed year after year. Most of the lowest-performing schools enrolled large numbers of African American and Hispanic students and had high levels of students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, which is the federal measure of poverty.