Skeptics aside, vouchers help public schools

I'm sure this is in Jay Greene's book, Education Myths, but I'd forgetten it -- it's quite a remarkable fact (and a damning indicment of our K-12 public school system):

Another myth, which goes to the heart of the 10-percent proposition, is "the notion that we have a large pool of students who are fully qualified to go to [a four-year] college, but can't because there's insufficient aid or insufficient affirmative action."

The problem is not insufficient aid or affirmative action, said Greene, "the problem primarily is a lack of qualified students."

About 4 million students nationally enter high school every year. Of those, 2.8 million graduate. But of those who do, only 1.3 million have taken the high school courses needed to apply to most every four-year college: four years of English, three of math, and two years each of natural science, social science and a foreign language. "If you don't have those, almost all doors are shut."

So, said Greene, "if 1.3 million students are graduating high school with a college-prep transcript, guess how many students enter a four-year college for the first time each year? 1.3 million. More or less everybody who is college-ready from our k-12 system goes to college. We have very little reservoir of students who meet the minimum qualifications to go to a four-year college who can't because of money or access."

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Skeptics aside, vouchers help public schools

Atlanta Journal Constitution editorial, Jim Wooten - Staff Sunday, March 19, 2006

 

An education idea that never had much merit --- automatic admission to the University of Georgia or to Georgia Tech for the top 10 percent of the state's high school graduating classes --- was relegated last week to the ash heap of history.

The proposal flunked out of the Georgia General Assembly, an accomplishment of some renown since legislation middlin' and mediocre got advanced in bulk.

Also rejected was a proposed constitutional amendment to clarify the state's right to buy social services, such as drug counseling, from faith-based organizations. It failed after being trashed by Democrats as a conduit for school vouchers. "I'm opposed to anything that opens the door to vouchers," said Rep. Stan Watson (D-Decatur), voicing the suspicions of teacher unionists and other status quo interest groups.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, at whose behest the amendment was introduced, insisted it wasn't.

While it probably wasn't, it should have been.

Clearly, when the top 10 percent of the state's public high school graduates don't qualify on merit, something is broken.

Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who also heads the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, spoke recently to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an Atlanta-based think tank, on education's myths.

He noted, for example, that graduation rates and achievement test scores are flat over the past 30 years, while spending, when adjusted for inflation, has doubled --- puncturing the myth that more spending produces better outcomes. "There's no statistically significant relationship between spending and achievement," he said.

Another myth, which goes to the heart of the 10-percent proposition, is "the notion that we have a large pool of students who are fully qualified to go to [a four-year] college, but can't because there's insufficient aid or insufficient affirmative action."

The problem is not insufficient aid or affirmative action, said Greene, "the problem primarily is a lack of qualified students."

About 4 million students nationally enter high school every year. Of those, 2.8 million graduate. But of those who do, only 1.3 million have taken the high school courses needed to apply to most every four-year college: four years of English, three of math, and two years each of natural science, social science and a foreign language. "If you don't have those, almost all doors are shut."

So, said Greene, "if 1.3 million students are graduating high school with a college-prep transcript, guess how many students enter a four-year college for the first time each year? 1.3 million. More or less everybody who is college-ready from our k-12 system goes to college. We have very little reservoir of students who meet the minimum qualifications to go to a four-year college who can't because of money or access."

Another myth, which relates to the suppositions of Democrats and interest groups opposing the governor's Faith & Family Services amendment, is that school choice --- in whatever form --- drains talent and resources from traditional public schools. Vouchers are a disallowed form of school choice in this state and one that frightens the bejesus out of the public school monopoly everywhere.

Choice for Georgia parents is limited to a handful of public charter schools --- 47 this year and probably 60 next --- two-thirds of them in metro Atlanta.

"What happens when we expand access to choice and competition?" asked Greene. "A series of studies have looked at this. Every one of them has found a positive relationship between choice and competition. In fact, I'm not aware of a single study of the choice program in the United States that finds a negative relationship between expanding school choice and student achievement in public schools."

Florida has a voucher program --- or did until the state Supreme Court we saw up close in the hanging chads debacle struck it down. Students in chronically failing schools were offered vouchers to go to other public or private schools. Four studies examined the impact of vouchers and the threat of them.

"Those four studies all found that public schools facing increased choice and competition made exceptional improvement, made greater gains in student learning than other public schools in Florida that faced lower levels of competition," said Greene, who conducted one of them.

Eventually, defenders of the status quo notwithstanding, Georgia parents will win school choice. And when it does, public education will be stronger for it.