Discussions between John Kirtley and Matt Klein on parental choice/vouchers

My recent emails triggered an interesting discussion on parental choice/vouchers between John Kirtley (who's spearheaded such programs in Florida) and Matt Klein, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Foundation.

Matt:

Hi Whitney and John,

 

Thanks for provoking thought and reflection on these issues.  As you both know, I'm hugely incensed by teacher union obstruction and a fan of charter schools and additional forms of school choice.

 

But John, there is one issue on pure vouchers which I've meant to raise with you and get your take: the very real practice of private / religious (even charter schools) not accepting or forcing out kids with learning challenges, poor testing results, emotional issues etc.  It seems to me that the use of public dollars should require adherence to basic public values, among which I would include a commitment to all children, not just the easiest-to-serve children.  (If the voucher is funded by private money I have no problem if the schools accepting vouchers use selection criteria.)

 

I would wholeheartedly support the idea of public money following the kid if private or other schools had to accept kids by lottery and committed to graduating them, or if there were some very public mechanism with accountability measures that tracked the profiles of the kids that schools accepted and did or didn't graduate (i.e., if schools had a pattern of only accepting / retaining high performing kids, and no special ed kids, etc., then they would lose eligibility for public money vouchers).

 

John, I know you are an evangelist for all forms of school choice.  Does the creaming using public dollars give you pause at all?

 

- Matt

John:

Matt,

 

I appreciate your interest in my post very much.

 

I believe you have fallen prey to a myth spread by opponents to school choice. This myth is that private or charter schools will as you say "cream" -- only take the easiest to teach kids. Let me comment on that myth in two ways.

 

First, existing school choice programs have proven not to cream -- just the opposite, in fact. About 800 private schools serve children in the corporate tax credit program for low-income kids in Florida. We administer over 18,000 kids in the program. Not once have we received a complaint from a parent that a school has turned down their child. To the contrary, I have much anecdotal evidence that these schools are willing to remediate children who are one or more grade levels behind.

 

Think of it intuitively. The maximum scholarship in this program is $3,750. The average tuition at the schools is $4,300. That doesn't include uniforms and activities fees. Many parents have more than one kid on the program. If your kid was doing great at a public school, would you make such a financial sacrifice?

 

The McKay program for special education children is an even better example. Before it was passed, opponents said "private schools will never serve these kids". Since its creation, over 600 schools have reached out to take kids at all disability levels. Last week a report from a group critical of school choice even admitted there has been no creaming in McKay.

 

Most of the schools serving McKay kids are not specialized schools for disabled kids but faith-based private schools who are reaching out to help them.

 

Are inner-city public schools "committed to graduating" the kids? If so they need to increase that commitment. Are public schools even as all accepting as you claim? Can any kid who wants to go to Bronx Science or Stuyvesant?

 

Show me any evidence, even anecdotal, that a choice program has limited rather than expanded choices for a low-income parent. You can't, because the opposite is true. Show me a public school system where every school has to take every student. You can't because it doesn't exist.

 

Again thanks for your interest.

 

Sincerely,

 

John

Matt:

Hey John,

 

It's great to hear that the phenomenon of private schools using admission criteria in connection with vouchers is overstated -- that is a relief to me.

 

If it's essentially a non-issue for the schools, then why not just make universal acceptance a condition of the voucher?  That would allay concerns of people like me and broaden the base of the voucher movement, I would think.

 

Most of your other points I agree with, but aren't exactly related to my concern.  It's true that there are Stuyvesants of the world (like the public high school I went to, Boston Latin School), and other specialized public schools (gifted and talented elementary / middle schools, schools for pregnant teens, for recent immigrants, etc.) that do not accept every student, but every student can attend some school in the public system (and the more choice within the public system the better).

 

If we allow public money to follow a student out of the public system, then I think it's appropriate for the entity that gets the money to adhere to the value that there is a place within their educational services for any child as well.  And from what you're saying, it sounds like the private schools shouldn't have a problem with this since that's how they are operating in practice.  Again, I think if this principle were codified in policy there would be even more proponents of vouchers, so I would urge it from a strategic perspective as well!

 

Thanks for the thoughts!

John:

Matt,

 

Are you willing to impose the same standard on the public schools? If so, then Boston Latin, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant would have to accept all children by lottery. Would that serve the public interest?

 

If your answer is no, why do you have a different standards for taxpayer funds in a the form of a voucher vs. in the public system?

 

Thanks,

 

John

[I added:

Matt,

 

The GI Bill didn't require that, say, Harvard drop its admissions standards

-- for good reason.  If this were a requirement, top schools would not participate at all -- how does that benefit voucher recipients?

 

Whitney]

Matt:

I would keep the Latin-type schools (perhaps no surprise to you!); their existence doesn't change the requirement that a public system educate every child.  The Boston public schools still have a place for every high school student.

 

I understand the practical problem for a voucher program.  Most private schools are individual entities rather than part of a larger system, so adhering to the value of educating every child means accepting every child into that one school (rather than into a system or pool of schools).

 

John stresses that schools are not really screening, though, so there may not be much of an actual drop-off in slots if there were a formal commitment to accept all children.

 

Whitney, I think there are important differences between the GI Bill and the practice of per pupil allocations following students out of a public school system.  There is a public values difference between primary and higher education: children up to a certain age (16?  18?) must by law -- the expression of our public values -- be provided with public education services.  And the GI Bill was a distinct pool of federal money; if a GI used GI Bill money to go to Harvard, the University of Massachusetts didn't have its existing funding reduced as it continued to educate its students.

 

I do see how it would reduce the number of options for high-performing kids if schools which wanted to screen decided not to participate in a voucher program that required them to accept all children.  This is a serious downside.  Are there creative solutions that have been proposed?  E.g., could schools opt in to a voucher program in a pool, rather than individually, so that they collectively made the commitment to take all children with vouchers?

 

By the way, I'm getting what I hoped by raising my original question -- a thoughtful answer that helps me understand the issue better!  If I understand your answer, its that:

 

1) In practice, most private schools accept kids with vouchers without applying screening criteria;

 

2) Even if private schools did screen, it's not an affront to public values because individual public schools sometimes screen kids too; and

 

3) Even if private schools screened and if this were considered a negative, it is outweighed by the positive that the kids who are accepted into the private schools have more options available to them.

 

I'm not sure I'm wholly swayed yet, but this gives me good stuff to chew on....