kitchen table math, the sequel: why school choice isn't the end all

Friday, January 12, 2007

why school choice isn't the end all

Minding the (Achievement) Gap:

"One of the series that created the most ripples was 'Inside Choice Schools,' a seven-part report in 2005, fifteen years after Milwaukee launched the voucher program, detailing students' experiences at voucher-supported schools. Borsuk and fellow reporters visited all but 9 of the 115 voucher-supported schools at the time -- all that would allow them in -- and described what they saw. The schools ranged from excellent, he recalls, to 'startlingly bad,' such as one Christian school in a dimly lit church basement without classroom walls or any clear curriculum. Through interviews, the reporters found that Milwaukee parents generally want a school with a cozy feel and value this intimacy over teacher credentials. Borsuk wrote (with colleague Sarah Carr), 'Parental choice by itself does not assure quality. Some parents pick bad schools -- and keep their children in them long after it is clear the schools are failing.'" (emphasis mine)

Unlike many school reform advocates, I am not totally convinced by "vouchers" as a solution to our education problem. While I agree that competition on a wide scale level does have an overall positive effect on the quality of products that people buy, on smaller scale, when it comes to individual services or goods people can make some surprisingly poor choices.

Unfortunately, because education deals with people's children, parents are often to emotionally attached, to close to the situation, to make rational decisions. Just as people make poor choices to get themselves deep in debt to buy flashy cars or the "right" clothes, people don't make decisions about their children's education based on quantitative measures.

Part of the problem may be that there is no good easy to find, widely published information on how well any school or school district performs. Instead parents rely on subjective feelings to judge schools. Do they like the teachers? Is the playground well kept? Do they use lots of cool edubabble?

Witness the success of good charter school systems like KIPP or Achievement First. You would think that parents would be rioting to get their kids in the schools or demanding that their public schools adopt the same policies. Yes there are waiting lists, but there is nowhere near the urgency that you would expect.

Imagine if a new cell phone provider came out and was able to offer better call quality, state of the art phones, double the minutes, at half the cost of your current one. People would be dropping their current service in droves and scrambling to get on the new plan.

When I first moved to Sumter, South Carolina the general consensus was (and still is) that Sumter High School was way better than rural Crestwood High School. Sumter High School had all the town money, it has the good football team, great buildings, and most importantly it was 55% white vs 43% white at Crestwood.



But... if you are savvy enough to look find the the school report cards, you find something different. I compiled this table based on Sumter HS and Crestwood HS 2006 school report cards.



As you can see, on almost every category, Crestwood HS kicks Sumter HS's ass. In the two categories that Sumter HS has the edge, it's only by the slimmest of margins.

You would think that parents who attend kids attend school at Sumter HS, especially black parents, would be raising hell, but no! 80% of parents who attend Sumter HS are happy with the learning environment, whereas at Crestwood HS only 44% are.

It's numbers like these that depress me. A rural, mostly minority school can provide a better education than the city's mostly white school, and yet the perception is exactly the opposite.

This doesn't mean that school choice is a bad thing. There are some parents who are smart enough to make educated decisions. Eventually market forces will have a positive affect. Even if the parents don't see the differences, the school administrators will learn from each other.

I have always been an optimist, and I am convinced if school reform advocates continue to yell loud enough that eventually our country can at least come closer to having the education system that it deserves.

19 comments:

MTheads said...

The idea that school choice is only a positive for parents savvy enough to figure out which schools are the best is wrong. One of the ideas behind school choice and vouchers is that this would create a competitive environment where all schools would strive to attract students. This would mean that even students left behind in their “default” schools would benefit as their schools set about competing for the more savvy students.

School choice and vouchers do not eliminate bad schools, but they do make it easier for parents to leave bad ones and try somewhere else. Waiting for institutional reforms to spread throughout the country and improve one’s particular school during one’s particular children’s education is a fantasy.

As a savvy parent, I often feel chained to all those parents out there who might make bad decisions, or who are negligent, or who are too busy to properly supervise their children’s education since these are the people who are always used as examples why school choice and vouchers are impractical.

TurbineGuy said...

Just to make it clear, I am definately pro school choice, though I prefer charter school options to vouchers.

I think it is ridiculus for "savvy" parents to have to suffer mediocre schools.

The schools competing for students is an excellent point, and will probably help speed up the positive effects of school choice on a wider scale.

Catherine Johnson said...

I never know what to think about this issue.

Hirsch maintains that parents simply aren't going to be savvy consumers, period. Given my own track record, I have no reason to disagree.

otoh mthead's point is, I think, correct...and yet, here in Westchester, where we have many, many public schools, I would have expected more difference in quality than I think there is....

I just can't cess this one out.

I've come around to the view that I would throw my support to vouchers-with-standards as opposed to vouchers-without-standards.

I tend to think that the more checks and balances a system creates the better. Making voucher money contingent upon test scores (or whatever metric is chosen) is a check on a school's "power" to run amuk.

I think.

Catherine Johnson said...

I also think public policy is possibly more complex than math.

Catherine Johnson said...

That perception is the major stumbling block for me when it comes to local politics.

a) nothing Ed and I do is likely to make a difference

BUT

b) if it did make a difference, who's to say things wouldn't be worse?

Fortunately I'm so ill-equipped to grasp public policy I'm not paralyzed by these reservations.

Catherine Johnson said...

I've also begun to think seriously that wealthy white schools may be a bad bet.

I'll get some of the value-added articles posted on this blog (they're on ktm 1).

The incentives in a place like Irvington are all wrong.

Catherine Johnson said...

My sister has an interesting situation where she lives.

The wealthy white school is significantly worse than the poorer rural school.

She's moving her child to the rural school.

Catherine Johnson said...

I'm very concerned that we may have a significant social justice issue here in Irvington, precisely because the school relies upon parents to reteach material and hire tutors.

note: The school's position is that it does not rely on parents to reteach material or hire tutors.

However, when you have backpack newsletters telling parents the school is sending home flash cards so parents can have their kids memorize their math facts & guidance counselors advising parents to hire tutors, I can't take the school's position seriously.

Our school district relies upon parents to reteach content and hire tutors.

Period.

So what happens to kids whose parents can't reteach material and can't hire tutors?

Nobody's asking or answering this question as far as I can tell.

Anonymous said...

Re: wealthy districts v. rural districts

I grew up in a small town where the education system was always ten years behind. It was very mixed, both racially and socio-economically. There also wasn't a lot of money for teacher training, staff development, etc.

But I got a pretty solid meat-and-potatoes education. It was nothing fancy, few electives, but very solid. Teachers had lots of discretion, and they just did what they always did.

My husband went to school in an affluent suburb. He got open classrooms and other wacky fads of the 1970's.

I've heard my old school system went downhill, and they've even adopted reform math. But at least when I was growing up, it was a decent education, and, in some ways, better than the suburbs.

Barry Garelick said...

"Some critics oppose giving poor parents choice because “they won’t be able to make good choices.” Not only is this an inane and paternalistic form of reasoning, it denies the reality that in the places where poor parents are given options many of them are proving to be very effective at making good decisions for their children." from an essay by Howard Fuller called "The Struggle Continues" at Edspresso:
http://www.edspresso.com/2007/01/the_struggle_continues_howard.htm

Catherine Johnson said...

Robyn

interesting

I had started trying to teach myself economics before I had to stop and teach myself math (of course, math should have come first anyway...)

The one take-home concept I've held onto is the idea of "incentives."

I now think it's critical to look at a District's incentives for action.

I could make a case that nearly all of the incentives operating on my own district are bad.

Tracy W said...

The most obvious advantage of school choice is that it allows parents to get their kids away from really bad schools for that kid - such as bullying.

Given that kids have committed suicide as a result of bullying this is a really good thing.

Anyway, as an economist, incentives matter. School choice should clear out the really bad schools at least.

Catherine Johnson said...

School choice should clear out the really bad schools at least.

Hi Tracy!

really?

what leads economists to believe this?

Catherine Johnson said...

Hi, Allen!

Great comment.

As I say, I'm not remotely up to speed on public policy questions of this kind....

Politically and philosophically I support school choice in the form of charters certainly and vouchers-with-standards. (I wouldn't be horrified by vouchers without standards, but I've come to feel I'd vote for vouchers with standards.)

Having just been through a mini-ordeal in the medical world with Ed (my husband) followed by a fairly major ordeal in the medical world with my mom, I'm intensely aware of how impossible it is to evaluate institutions from the outside.

A few years ago Ed chose a doctor who was included on the "Best Physicians in Westchester" list; everything we heard about the guy was great.

His handling of Ed's tumor was so bad that the attorney we consulted told us he was definitely in the "medical negligence" realm if not frank malpractice (as I recall he was probably in that category, too).

My mom's nursing home looks great and the people are nice - and seem competent.

That's about all we know.

Turns out there have been quite a few complaints about them; the Evanston Ombudsman has made night visits; etc.

The nursing home is an interesting case because there we have access to far more "insider"-type information.

The ombudsman was enormously helpful.

There are also various websites reporting nursing home records (my other sister saw these, so I can't say anything more about them).

SO.....

I have to say that in the realm of nursing homes we've been very well-served by "checks" put in place by local and federal government.

More specifically, we've been well-served by "checks" put in place that are designed to give information to the patient or consumer.

I'd put money on it that if we'd had access to an Ombudsman and a website reporting complaints we would have known that Ed's former doctor was the wrong guy.

Ben Calvin said...

vouchers-with-standards as opposed to vouchers-without-standards

The danger in this is that standards can then become the battleground to impose public school rules on the new schools.

For example a number of people here favor requiring charter schools to be union shops.

Of course we've also just elected a Green Party majority to the School Board here.

Ben Calvin said...

My argument for school choice is not that all students will recieve a better education.

Instead it is that more students overall will recieve a better education than would otherwise.

Down in Palo Alto the school district is complaing that charters are taking an increasing number of students, so district-administered schools are being forced to close.

This is being portrayed as a threat to public education, rather than a sucsess for new education models.

NYC Educator said...

I'm not at all concerned with parental incompetence. What really bothers me is parental indifference.

A parent who cares is the very best thing a kid can have, and I think such parents will make good judgments. A good teacher is a distant second, but absolutely necessary for kids with indifferent parents.

Unknown said...

"Not only is this an inane and paternalistic form of reasoning"

I was thinking condescending, but paternalistic works.

Anonymous said...

Like stones cast into the public education waters, charter schools create ripples that can affect conventional public schools nearby. Find out more. See Charter Schools Today: Stories of Inspiration, Struggle & Success, by award-winning journalist Joe Williams and published by The Center for Education Reform. http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&documentID=2588§ionID=55