Study finds DC voucher program shows poorer math results
WASHINGTON — Students attending private schools in the nation’s capital through a federally funded voucher program are doing worse in math compared to their peers, according to a government study released Thursday.
The findings added fuel to one of the most heated debates in the education community: whether taxpayer money should be used to pay for private schools. Critics jumped on the study to reiterate that vouchers don’t work. Proponents stressed that test scores are not the only way to measure school quality.
The study, conducted by the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences, looked at students who enrolled in the program in the years 2012-2014 and compared them to their peers who applied for the vouchers through a lottery, but were not selected. The study evaluated students one year into their study,
The analysis revealed that students who attended private schools with voucher money scored 7.3 percentage points lower in math compared to those students who didn’t get in. The study did not find any statistically significant differences in reading skills.
But among students who had attended low-performing schools, the key targets of the voucher program, the study did not reveal any significant change in either math or reading.
At the same time, the program positively affected perceptions of school safety. Some 72 percent of parents in the program ranked their school as very safe, compared to 56 percent among those parents whose children didn’t get into the program.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said the findings are proof that voucher programs don’t help students and waste public resources. “D.C. students using vouchers actually lose learning; they performed significantly worse on math in the first year they used the voucher,” Scott said in a statement. “We know that these failed programs drain public schools of limited resources, only to deliver broken promises of academic success to parents and students.”
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has spent more than two decades advocating for charter and private schools, said the oneyear study was not enough to make long-term conclusions about school choice programs. She also said that offering parents choices benefited the whole system. “When school choice policies are fully implemented, there should not be differences in achievement among the various types of schools,” DeVos said in a statement. “D.C.’s traditional public schools have not suffered as a result of being part of a system that allows choice; rather, they have greatly improved.”
The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program was created by Congress in 2004 and was reauthorized in 2011. It currently serves more than 1,100 mostly low-income students. Families get up to $8,400 for elementary and up to $12,600 for high school students.
Lindsey Burke, director of education policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation said the results can be explained by the fact that public schools in the district may have improved because of competition inserted into the system by vouchers.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump this week signed an executive order that aims to reduce the federal government’s role in K-12 education.
Trump is giving Education Secretary Betsy DeVos just short of a year — 300 days — to identify areas where Washington has overstepped its legal authority in education, and modify and repeal regulations and guidance from her department, if necessary. A report will be returned to the White House and eventually made public, officials said.
Trump complained that the government over the years has forced states and schools to comply with “federal whims.” He said the order will help restore local control over education.
“We know that local communities do it best and know it best,” Trump said, surrounded by governors, members of Congress and teachers. “The time has come to empower parents and teachers to make the decisions that help their students achieve success.”
Republicans have long chafed at federal government involvement in education, asserting that states and local governments, school boards and parents are best positioned to decide what students learn. Antipathy toward the Education Department ramped up under Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, who offered states billions of dollars of federal money to help improve their schools in exchange for adopting certain academic standards.
DeVos said time has shown that “one-size fits all policies and mandates from Washington simply don’t work.”
But Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, said the review was unnecessary because a bipartisan education law enacted in late 2015 had already shifted power from the federal government to states.
“This is a case of been there, done that,” Weingarten said. She stressed that the law also contains key civil rights provisions that the federal government is obligated to uphold.
The Center for Education Reform, which advocates for charter schools, said Trump’s executive order will promote innovation and freedom.
“Conducting such a review is part and parcel of ensuring that education innovation and opportunity are able to take root throughout our various education sectors,” the organization said in a statement. “The connection between freedom and excellence is no secret.”