Research

Why the education establishment feels so deeply threatened by school choice

Smarick

Last night I had a dream. I was attending a very large meeting of regional and state education leaders. I recognized many of them as friends and colleagues I have known for years. In this meeting they were passionately discussing their fears about Kentucky's recent move toward charter schools, the implications of school choice, and their general sense of threat to public education. I rose to speak on the issue, to share my own perspectives as a longtime school choice advocate and a recently-appointed member of the state Board of Education. But after I talked for a bit I looked around to discover they'd all gotten up and walked out. Only about three people remained, listening out of what appeared to be politeness alone.

The dream was at once both comical and disturbing, a symbol of the constant tension I feel in my work these days when many people I admire and support view me with confusion at best, and suspicion or even hostility at worst, for the public positions I have taken on school choice. The battle for charter schools in Kentucky has been bruising, and will likely take new forms as the law is implemented and new choice policies come under consideration. A strong sense of fear characterizes the education establishment these days. The need for civil, informed dialogue and reflection is enormous, yet harder than ever to achieve.

In light of this situation - and in light of my dream, I want to strongly recommend a brand new paper by American Enterprise Institute education scholar (and Maryland Board of Education chair) Andy Smarick, called Analyzing an Educational Revolution. Smarick uses Thomas Kuhn's n0w-famous 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to explore the slow-rolling earthquake taking place in education policy. Advocates for charters and choice often downplay the paradigm-disrupting nature of their ideas, emphasizing how choice fits within the existing structures of educational delivery, but Smarick says this is not the case. The "differentiation and choice" paradigm does, in fact, represent an enormous break with a century-old way of thinking about schooling (what he calls the "territorial exclusive franchise model") that has completely dominated the educational landscape in the U.S. His paper, which is highly readable and only 26 pages long, helps illuminate the disrupting nature of the new paradigm and explains why members of the education establishment feel so threatened.

Thomas Kuhn explored how the greatest scientific breakthroughs have not come from the natural processes of doing science within conventional frameworks of thinking or practice. The discovery that neither the earth nor the sun was the center of the universe could not have emerged from existing scientific paradigms, Kuhn explains. Likewise, the emergence of relativity theory and quantum physics was not the result of conventional, Newtonian approaches to science. These new paradigms created full-blown crises in the scientific disciplines that took decades or even centuries to subside until the new paradigm was firmly accepted.

Andy Smarick adapts Kuhn's framework for how these paradigm shifts take place to analyze education policy in the U.S. Smarick describes the existing paradigm of educational delivery as the territorial exclusive franchise model, in which geographically-defined government actors (the local school district), governed by a majoritarian democracy (the locally-elected school board), assigns students to attend certain schools and oversees all aspects of a fairly standardized educational program.

Smarick contrasts the dominant paradigm with the differentiation and choice paradigm, which suggests that families should be able to select from a variety of publicly-financed educational options, many of which will vary considerably in terms of educational philosophy, instructional emphasis, curriculum, etc.

As Kuhn had explained in Structures, dominant paradigms emerge because they actually work to help explain things and solve problems at an unprecedented and effective level. Smarick explains how the territorial exclusive franchise model of education emerged during a time of great consolidation, commensurate with the apex of the Industrial Revolution and political Progressivism, in economic, political, and cultural structures (for another great look at this historical process, see Yuval Levin's book, The Fractured Republic, and my review here). As Ashley Berner Rogers notes in her excellent new book, Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School, the new paradigm ended a much more pluralistic and community-based model of educational delivery, and sometimes reflected a dark spirit of prejudice toward Catholics, immigrants, and other minority groups. Smarick doesn't deny this, but emphasizes that the district model also brought standardization, efficiency, uniformity, and especially a much greater and necessary level of educational equity and access, all at a time when America was gearing up to be a singular world superpower.

But the nature of dominant paradigms is that over time they can become blind, or at least tone deaf, to the many problems their assumptions and structures cannot explain or solve. For all the great accomplishments of the territorial exclusive franchise model, problems abound. Monopolistic systems tend toward one-size-fits-all solutions, resist innovation, and require complex quality control structures. Above all, our rate of improvement in student learning, however real, is so agonizingly slow the system simply cannot be expected to meet the educational goals required by our rapidly deconsolidating economy and culture (see my extended discussion of these patterns, especially as they apply to Kentucky, here).

The differentiation and choice paradigm has emerged in response as an alternative way of conceptualizing educational delivery and accountability. But this model requires a huge shift in thinking about how education is funded, which principles of democracy should be operative in how schools are governed, and a willingness to accept new risks and emergent problems for which there are, as yet, no clear solutions. Smarick carefully examines each of these areas.

In terms of funding, the old paradigm assumes education dollars belong to districts to allocate for the operation of schools to which they have assigned students. The new paradigm assumes that education dollars will follow students to their families' choice of schools (much as Medicare dollars or food stamp dollars follow beneficiaries to the health care providers or grocery vendors of their choice), with a variety of possible mechanisms for authorizing which schools would be eligible for such publicly-funded students to attend.

In terms of school governance, the two paradigms offer competing assumptions about how best to ensure democratic accountability for education. The old paradigm is democratic in the sense that it empowers a governance structure elected by majority vote. But the new paradigm questions the extent to which such structures have truly been effective and raises concerns about how minority viewpoints are easily shut out. It further suggests that "democracy" also means the empowerment of individual families and the engagement structures of civil society (like churches, civic organizations, nonprofits, businesses, etc.) in determining what the educational landscape should look like. Above all, the old paradigm defines the "public" nature of education as "owned, operated, and managed by the government with majoritarian-elected oversight." The new paradigm defines public as "serving the public interest" with a broad array of possible educational options driven by family choice and subsidiarity.

Finally, Smarick illustrates how, per Kuhn, dominant and revolutionary paradigms "ask fundamentally different questions, look for different types of answers, and prioritize different things." Smarick notes how choice-based systems require a great deal of careful thinking and policy-making around enrollment, as decisions have to be made about how families choose schools and how schools are allowed to prioritize student admissions, if at all. These questions are largely irrelevant under the old paradigm, which just assigns students to their schools mostly based on where they live. From my own perspective, another emergent problem is how to determine which schools of choice should really be eligible for public funding (the "authorizing" component of charter schools, for example). Adherents to the territorial exclusive franchise model view the unknowns and risks associated with these new challenges as further evidence of the superiority of the dominant paradigm, while adherents of the differentiation and choice model see them as the natural process of policy-making based on a new set of assumptions.  Thus the "incommensurability" of the two worldviews, as Kuhn called it, becomes more intractable.

Smarick's Analyzing an Educational Revolution helps explain the ferocious backlash of educators toward the differentiation and choice paradigm. Kuhn's Structures described a similar reaction within the scientific disciplines to new paradigms:

Kuhn argued that such shifts are often interpreted as an existential threat to not only established ideas but also the careers and professional work of respected leaders. The revolution reflects critically "upon much scientific work they have already successfully completed." The identification of disqualifying anomalies in the existing system and the offering of a new approach produce "a period of pronounced professional insecurity" for those at the helm.

Choice advocates need to understand this insecurity and respond with some degree of sensitivity and appreciation for the major shift in thinking and practice they are asking of dedicated professionals deeply committed to their work. Likewise, choice opponents would benefit from reading Smarick's analysis to help further clarify how the dominant paradigm emerged in the first place, and to better understand its strengths and limitations, as well as the new problems they are likely to face as the differentiation and choice paradigm grows in strength.

I'll interpret my dream last night in the most positive way possible, especially in light of Andy Smarick's Analyzing an Educational Revolution: as a reminder to be gracious to my fellow educators for whom this differentiation and choice talk sounds like an utterly foreign language. In time, I hope more of them will stay in the room with me to listen.

Usual disclaimer: All views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

Related posts:

 


A School Choice Primer, Part III

St Joseph Opening Day Blessing

Image Above: Parents and teachers blessing students at St. Joseph School, Bowling Green, on opening day 2015. School choice programs like scholarship tax credits would enable more low-income students to attend schools like St. Joseph.

In this series of posts I've attempted to explain in a straightforward way the basic argument for why the government should not have a monopoly on education delivery, and the kinds of policy options that give parents more choices in where their children attend school. In this final post I'd like to address some of the most common questions and objections that are raised about school choice.

Won't school choice policies drain money from already-needy public schools?

As I've written before, this concern only makes sense if you assume that government schools should have a monopoly on educational delivery. If you assume, instead, that education dollars should flow to the school of each student's choice, then it makes no sense to say that such a choice "drains" money from the school that isn't chosen. We have two hospitals here in Bowling Green. We don't say that we are "draining money" from the Medical Center because a Medicare patient chooses to use her benefit for a procedure at Greenview Hospital. We don't think that way because we don't care which hospital she uses as long as she is getting quality health care. Medicare is designed to provide health care access for the elderly, not to prop up the operations of one hospital over another.

That said, if we introduced school choice into our current system, and if students did choose to leave their assigned district school, then certainly those would not be dollars that would continue to be held by those schools. If very large numbers of students left their assigned school, this could obviously create a problem for the school being left, but a mass exodus would indicate that parents are seriously dissatisfied with the education their children are receiving. It would be a sign that something dramatic needs to change in that school.

Nevertheless, that's not what tends to happen in reality. Certainly some students do leave their assigned school when choice is introduced, but the numbers tend to be small enough that the net financial result is a positive one for taxpayers. Schools of choice typically educate students at a lower per pupil cost than district schools, meaning more money is left over for district schools or in public coffers.

Wouldn't private school choice potentially violate the separation of church and state?

First, it's important to note that the words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, even though this term was sometimes used by some of the Framers in their discussions about the First Amendment. Rather, that Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." Jurists have long argued about what this actually means, but in the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the court ruled that Cleveland's voucher program, which included faith-based schools, does not violate the Establishment Clause. The majority's rationale was that the Establishment Clause requires the state to take a neutral position toward religion, and that the Cleveland voucher program maintained neutrality because the state provided the voucher benefit directly to families, who were then responsible for deciding which kind of school their child would attend. The state did not favor religious schools over non-religious schools or vice versa in the application of the voucher program. I would equate this policy to the federal Pell grant program, which provides financial assistance for low-students to attend the university of their choice, including private, faith-based options. The benefit is for the student; the state is neutral in regards to where that benefit is used.

Nevertheless, many states have constitutional provisions that go farther than the U.S. Constitution in prohibiting the flow of public funds to faith-based K-12 schools. Section 189 of the Kentucky Constitution does this explicitly, meaning that a voucher program would be difficult to pass a legal challenge here. This is why charter schools and scholarship tax credits (both discussed in my previous post) are the most likely and promising school choice mechanisms in Kentucky.

What does the research say about school choice and student achievement?

Many empirical studies have been conducted using a variety of methods to analyze the impact of school choice on student learning. The general consensus from the best of these studies is that low-income students and students of color tend to outperform their demographically similar peers in traditional public schools when they attend choice schools. Of course, one can find exceptional studies that contradict this general trend. Each study has to be evaluated on its own merits and based on the context involved. What matters to me is the general trend in the research, which strongly indicates that when choice is introduced, student learning increases not just for students who select to attend schools of choice, but also for the students who stay behind in traditional public schools. No one has demonstrated exactly why this happens, but it stands to reason that a bit of competition causes all schools to step up their game.

But won't school choice lead to segregated schools?

Schools of choice are generally prohibited from making admissions decisions using race as a consideration. But what appears to usually happen is that students of color tend to move from more segregated schools to less segregated schools, further contributing to the diversity of the schools of choice themselves - just the opposite of more racial separation.

But wouldn't school choice cause a deeper fracturing of society into like-minded enclaves? What about the idea that public schools are a socially and politically unifying force?

Where is the evidence that government-run schooling leads to more social unity? In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that when the government has a monopoly on education, we get more intense and ugly battles for control of the system itself as every faction must politically dominate the system to bend it to its agenda and desired ends. What research actually suggests is that students who attend choice schools demonstrate greater lifetime levels of social tolerance and civic engagement than their peers educated in traditional public schools. So no, school choice does not cause social fragmentation. In fact, it responds in a positive way to the fragmented nature of modern American culture.

Would schools of choice be required to serve students with disabilities?

Perhaps. You could certainly write school choice policies in a way that would require schools of choice to do so. But that might not actually be in the interests of students with disabilities themselves. Generally, schools of choice are highly reluctant to turn away potential students since their entire operation depends on enrollment. But a small private school might find it impossible to meet all of the requirements of federal special education law. Nevertheless, parents of a student with a disability might still want to choose such a school because it is a better fit for their child. A family should not be denied their choice of schools if they are willing to select a school that is not fully compliant with the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). And, in fact, many such families do and as I noted in my previous post, many choice policies apply specifically to students with disabilities.

Likewise, some schools might specialize in meeting the needs of certain students with disabilities. If a school specializes in dyslexia, for example, should parents be denied the opportunity to send their dyslexic child to this school simply because it isn't equipped to also deal with severe autism spectrum disorders? The bottom line is that school choice broadens learning opportunities for all students, including those with disabilities.

How do we ensure that schools of choice are high quality?

How do we ensure that traditional public schools are of high quality? How do we ensure that automobiles sold in the United States are safe? Accountability systems of various sorts would remain in a school choice environment. Regulation would be necessary to ensure a mechanism for dealing with fraud and perpetually low student achievement. Let's have arguments about what those accountability and monitoring systems would look like, instead of whether we should give low-income families a choice at all.

What happens to students who stay behind in low-performing public schools?

As we've said earlier, the general trend is that student achievement improves in such schools when choice is introduced, and local districts are often left with more resources per pupil to meet those students' needs.

What if some parents don't care enough or aren't educated enough to exercise choice?

Mechanisms to help parents be knowledgeable about their options would need to be created. But I want caution us against assuming that poor parents are too ignorant to make choices for their children. There is a kind of dark paternalism at work in this assumption. And at any rate, should we deny all poor families a choice in who educates their children just because some of them won't exercise a choice? Some families struggle to make good health care choices as well, but as of yet we don't deny them such choices where available.

What if parents don't have transportation to take full advantage of school choice?

There is evidence that choice is sometimes limited based on the ability of parents to transport their children. Of course one way to address this is to ensure that generous transportation funding is included in the amount of money that follows each child to his/her school of choice. Transportation is one of those reasons that makes school choice a much more viable policy in urban or metropolitan areas. But that should not be a reason to oppose school choice. I would like to occasionally eat at a Five Star restaurant here in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Because of market forces we don't have such a restaurant here and likely never will. But that doesn't mean Five Star restaurants should be banned in communities that could support such an establishment, right?

Can't we just give parents a choice among public schools?

Certainly, and we should (see my discussion of open enrollment policies in my last post). Many public school districts are now experimenting with innovation academies, magnet schools of various sorts, and intra-district transfer policies. These are all good. But giving parents a choice among schools all run by the local district is like saying you can only buy your shoes at Target, but you can get boots, sneakers, sandals, etc. It's great to have those choices, but you should be able to also buy your shoes from another store if that's your wish. Our current education system says you can buy your shoes wherever you want - as long as you are affluent. If you're poor - you only get Target (or some other vendor - but no others).

What makes you think school choice is the silver bullet solution to all our education problems?

I don't, and I don't know any school choice supporter who thinks that. For a variety of reasons, the local district schools are going to continue to be the schools of choice for the vast majority of students. Schools of all kinds are going to need on-going improvement and support in their curriculum, teaching, and assessment. Effective leadership is essential to schools of all kinds. Education funding in general is probably insufficient for the challenges our schools are facing.

There is and will remain much work to be done to ensure high quality schools for all students, whether public, charter, parochial, or independent. In fact, I'd really enjoy moving forward with that work, but I'm finding I'm spending a large amount of time defending the idea that all parents, regardless of income or ZIP code, should have access to that full range of schools. I hope this primer has helped to advance us toward that time when we can stop arguing about whether all families should have access to a wide array of schools, and focus instead on ensuring that all of those options truly are great.

Other posts in this series:

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

 


Why Knowledge Matters: The Most Important Education Book of 2016

Hirsch_cover_web

Update, 1/22/17: A version of this review has been published in the Bowling Green Daily News.

E. D. Hirsch is well known in education circles as a long-time advocate for "cultural literacy," the notion that there is a body of knowledge all educated people should master to be effective and virtuous citizens. Despite the immense popularity of Hirsch's books (I use his What your First Grader [etc.] Needs to Know series with my own children) and the advent of the supposedly more rigorous Common Core State Standards, curriculum has continued to erode in American schools, especially in the early grades.

Hirsch's latest book, Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing our Children from Failed Educational Theories, is a blistering indictment of this trend away from rigorous content and its effects on the most disadvantaged students. Hirsch vividly describes how the over-emphasis on skills to the exclusion of knowledge coupled with vapid state standards and problems with standardized reading tests have exacerbated achievement gaps. His call for a renewal of rich content in the early grades based on social justice concerns as well as research on student achievement and learning theory is extraordinarily timely and makes Why Knowledge Matters, in my estimation, the most important education book of the year. Parents, educators, and policymakers should read it closely.

The basic problem, as Hirsch describes it, is that elementary schools have shifted toward an overwhelming emphasis on reading as a skill. Students spend hours each day learning reading techniques like how to sound out words, how to find the main idea of a passage, or how to do "close reading" of a text. In turn, time spent on social studies, science, the arts - essentially everything except reading and math - has been drastically reduced in the early elementary grades. The effect on reading tests in the short-term is positive: general trends in student achievement show elementary reading skills have improved. But achievement levels are stagnant or even declining at the middle and high school level, and Hirsch argues that's because students have been denied access to the kinds of rich content knowledge they need to read widely across a variety of subject areas.

This effect has relatively little harm on students from affluent families who absorb knowledge by osmosis through their lives outside of school. But for students of poverty whose parents can't take them to museums or on vacations or expose them to the wider world through reading and cultural opportunities, the impact is to make them fall further behind and deny them the information they need for economic and academic success.

The system is unfair to children, but also to teachers, who are often given the blame for lackluster student achievement. Hirsch argues that reading tests are invariably tests of content knowledge. But because elementary schools lack a rich, carefully-designed content framework, reading tests aren't actually measuring the impact that teachers have made on students, but rather what students have learned (or have not learned) at home. 

Hirsch cites a wealth of data from U.S. schools in his argument, but also devotes an entire chapter to education in France, which provides a helpful case study since that country has a single, unified education system. According to Hirsch, France has an excellent and well-organized preschool curriculum which helps narrow achievement gaps early, but like the U.S., France went through a shift toward skills-centrism in the early grades with well-documented negative effects on student learning. French educators are now calling for the return to a clear and common curriculum that will give all students the content knowledge they need for long-term academic success.

Why Knowledge Matters lays part of the blame for these trends on educators themselves who have become enamored with the idea that, in our age of instant information access, specific content learning is no longer necessary. Instead, students should learn critical thinking and problem-solving skills and can "look up" anything else they need to know. In some of the most compelling passages of the book Hirsch dismantles the idea that content knowledge can ever be separated from skills in this way. All skills are domain specific, including the ability to read (and thus, there is actually no discrete "main idea finding" skill; if students know what a passage is talking about, they automatically know the main idea):

Two texts that are rated at the same difficulty level are rarely of the same difficulty for an individual student... A student can be an excellent reader about dinosaurs and a terrible reader about mushrooms... No matter how widely-skilled people may be, as soon as they confront unfamiliar content their skill degenerates.

Hirsch is generally supportive of the Common Core Standards as an improvement over what preceded them in most states, but believes they reinforce this over-emphasis on skills to the exclusion of knowledge and must be supplemented accordingly (including with specific literary texts that all students should study). And he rejects as a false dichotomy the tension between informational and literary texts that characterizes some of the debate over Common Core: "Good works of fiction can be informative. And good informational texts can be literature."

Why Knowledge Matters acknowledges that rebuilding curriculum will not be easy given the enormous focus on testing and accountability that makes educators so risk averse. And Hirsch concedes the political difficulty of getting school stakeholders to agree on a common curricular canon that all students should master. But he believes such a transformation can happen at the local level, and he cites the efforts of many hundreds of schools that have adopted his Core Knowledge curriculum as examples, though emphasizing that Core Knowledge is but one approach to a well-crafted body of content knowledge that can guide instruction. Furthermore, Hirsch argues that reducing time on reading skills and bolstering time on domain specific knowledge will increase student achievement scores, so schools have everything to gain and little to lose by doing so.

In future posts I'll react to some of Hirsch's arguments in greater depth (including what should be included in such a curriculum), but his core thesis seems exactly right to me. I've long been a proponent of more personalized learning approaches. Learning tasks should meet students closer to their actual readiness levels and give them more opportunities to work through standards at their own pace. But I'm increasingly wary of the tendency to take this a step farther and individualize the content that students learn. There are certain things that students do actually need to know, and Why Knowledge Matters shows why you can't simply look things up when you don't know them: we need existing mental maps of knowledge for new information to make sense, or to even know what information is relevant to the questions we are posing.

I am discovering from my own experience as a parent that I can personally supplement a lot of what my children learn at school through learning experiences at home and in the community. But what about those children whose parents lack the knowledge, time, or resources to do this for them? As I've argued before, closing achievement gaps will require a much more comprehensive approach, involving more drastic changes in what students learn, and how, and where, than we are currently offering.

 The learning Hirsch describes in Why Knowledge Matters, with its emphasis on more whole-class instruction, will strike some educators as very traditional. But, using many examples from Core Knowledge schools, Hirsch stresses that a rigorous curriculum does not have to mean boring learning experiences. I am hopeful about this, and have been greatly encouraged by schools that are attempting to blend a rich and detailed curriculum with various student-centered approaches to pedagogy. Libertas School of Memphis is one example. This charter school, now in its second year, serves extremely at-risk students and offers a Core Knowledge curriculum delivered through Montessori methods. I correspond regularly with the director at Libertas and hope to visit there soon and write about their experiences.

But I am eager for Why Knowledge Matters to be widely read and thoughtfully discussed in the education community for this same reason. I have enormous respect for pioneer educators who are successfully implementing project-based learning and other innovative strategies. I want them to read this book with an open mind and weigh in from the standpoint of logistics: how far can we go in delivering a rigorous and specific curriculum and still respect students' innate need to have a greater role in the learning process? I have been regularly arguing that good curriculum and good pedagogy are not mutually exclusive, but there may be a dynamic tension here - or we may need to have deeper discussion about what really constitutes "good pedagogy" in light of what we want students to really know and be able to do as a result of their schooling.

At any rate, Why Knowledge Matters, if read with the care it deserves, should have parents, educators, and policymakers engaged in a whole new level of discussion about the direction of our schools.

Usual disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University (my employer) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

Related posts:


A high school diploma that really means something

Graduation-995042_640
We know that Kentucky's high school graduation rates are improving, even if we're not sure how they really compare to other states.  That is probably a good thing; if students aren't staying in school we have no chance to educate them.  But in the long run, a diploma only has value if it means that students have mastered a certain level of knowledge and skill.  New research from the Bluegrass Institute shows that some Kentucky school districts are doing a remarkably good job of ensuring their high school diplomas really represent some measure of achievement, while others need a lot of improvement.

Using public data on 2014-2015 district report cards (the latest year for which such data are available), Richard Innes, education analyst for the Bluegrass Institute, has compared districts' graduation rates with two other measures of student achievement: college and career readiness rates, and the percentages of students who pass the state-required Algebra II end-of-course assessment.  [Note: I serve on the Bluegrass Institute Board of Scholars, so I had an early look at these data but did not contribute to the analysis].

The way schools calculate the percentage of students who have achieved college or career readiness (CCR) is complicated and subject to some debate as to its validity, but CCR currently counts toward 20% of a high school's overall accountability score, so it's an important, if limited, measure.  To account for the possible validity concerns with CCR, Innes also considered another measure of student achievement: Algebra II end-of-course (EOC) exam passing rates.  Currently all Kentucky students must pass an Algebra II class to graduate from high school.  But students don't have to actually pass the state Algebra II exam (the Kentucky Department of Education recommends schools make the EOC worth at least 20% of the student's final grade in the course, but this means a student could easily fail the exam and still pass the class.)

Since it is a more comprehensive measure, Innes used CCR to calculate an "effective graduation rate" for each district: in other words, the percentage of students who started in a district as freshmen and then not only graduated, but graduated college or career ready. He then calculated the gap between the reported and "effective" graduation rates, and ranked the districts by size of the gap.  For the second analysis, he calculated the gap between reported graduation rate and the district's Algebra II proficiency rate and again ranked districts by the size of their gaps.  You can access spreadsheets detailing district-by-district results for both analyses by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the post.

These data reveal that the graduation gap based on CCR rate varies from as much as 57 points (Covington Independent) to as little as 2 points (Jenkins Independent; see data for the highest and lowest graduation/effective grad rate gaps here).  I spent seven years working as a school and district administrator in the Simpson County Schools, and I'm pleased to note that this district was one of the best in this regard.  In 2014-2015, Simpson County graduated 93.9% of its students on time, and 91.6% of those graduates were also rated as college or career ready.  This makes for an effective graduation rate of 86%, a gap of only 7.9 points, the third best in the state.

When it comes to comparing graduation rates against Algebra II EOC, the numbers are more troubling with gaps ranging from a high of 91.9 (Washington County) to Caverna Independent on the low (positive) end, which had slightly more students pass the Algebra II EOC than actually graduated.  Note that Caverna's overall graduation rate of 76.7% is distressingly low, a situation I'm sure the district is trying to address, but stakeholders can be pleased that students who do achieve the high school diploma in that district are proficient in Algebra II.

I'm most interested in districts from the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative (GRREC) region because those are the districts I primarily serve in my role at the university.  I'm pleased that several GRREC districts were among the best at ensuring students who graduate are also proficient in Algebra II.  Grayson County, Glasgow Independent, Todd County, and LaRue County were all top performers in this regard (see a chart highlighting the biggest and smallest graduation/Algebra II EOC gaps here).  I'd be curious to know if these districts require a higher percentage of the EOC in students' final Algebra II grades, and if that has anything to do with their relative success.

These are district data, of course, so if a district has more than one high school there could be significance variance within that district that doesn't show up on these spreadsheets.  [Update: As one reader points out, another limitation is that this analysis comes from only one year of data.  These numbers can fluctuate quite a lot from year to year so trend data would be very illuminating here in terms of districts' relative position.]

In this post I've tried to highlight districts that are doing well in making sure their diplomas really do represent a higher level of student learning, but of course the real story is that this gap is so large for so many districts in the first place.  As I noted last week, we can easily lapse into distracting "happy talk" about the state of education and miss the damning evidence that we've go to do much, much better overall.  I hope state and district leaders will study these data carefully and prioritize lifting student achievement at least as much as we've raised graduation rates.  That would be a good start.

Update (8/16): To address the question of how Kentucky's low-income students are doing in these analyses (relevant given the recent, flawed Johns Hopkins University report that alleges Kentucky is outperforming other states in improving graduation rates for students who receive free and reduced lunch), Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes has also looked proficiency rates on the Algebra II EOC and CCR rates just for this target group.  This analysis just looked at statewide rates, but reveals a similar gap. 

The statewide reported graduation rate for low-income students in 2014-2015 was 84% (the overall rate for all students was 87%), but only 27% of low-income students passed the Alebra II EOC, a gap of 57 points.  Details here.

Of the low-income students who graduated statewide in 2015, only 55% were identified as college or career ready, which makes for an effective graduation rate of 46% for that group, a gap of 37 points.  Details here.

Realistically, we have no idea how those numbers compare to other states, but it affirms that the achievement gap takes many forms, and the gap between receiving a diploma and valid measures of life readiness is one that educators and policy makers must address.

Usual disclaimer: All opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University or the Kentucky Board of Education.

Image above from the public domain, Creative Commons Zero.

Related posts:


Let's move past the "Happy Talk" about education in Kentucky

For All KidsLast week Johns Hopkins University's Civic Engagement and Everyone Graduates Center released a report recognizing Kentucky's improved graduation rate.  According to its authors, Kentucky is especially doing a better job than other states in helping low-income students graduate.  The report was widely circulated and celebrated in the state's education community.

Obviously it's a good thing that our graduation rates are improving.  Educators and policymakers should be congratulated for that.  If kids aren't staying in school, then we have no chance to educate them.  But like so many other state-to-state comparisons of education, this report has some methodological problems that challenge its validity, and draws conclusions based on unsubstantiated generalizations.  Terry Brooks, executive director of the Kentucky Youth Advocates, calls this "happy talk" and he's right; it distracts us from some of the significant problems our educational system needs to confront with more rigorous reform.

The Johns Hopkins report, called For All Kids: How Kentucky is Closing the High School Graduation Gap for Low-Income Students, uses a comparison of graduation rates for students receiving free and reduced lunch to draw its conclusions about Kentucky's performance against other states.  But in 2010 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal free lunch program, started implementing a provision that allows schools with at least 40 percent of students participating in the program to offer free lunch to all students, regardless of income level. 

Kentucky still collects free lunch eligibility data from parents to ensure we have accurate numbers, but some states or local districts do not.  This means we can no longer tell for sure if students receiving free lunch across the country are actually from low-income families.  This is a big problem for education research in general, and it undermines the validity of any cross-state comparisons using this metric.

But an even bigger problem with the For All Kids report is that it makes some generalizations about the possible reasons for Kentucky's improved graduation rates that are not backed up with any empirical evidence and actually contradict existing data.  For example, the executive summary of the report suggests that Kentucky has managed to improve its graduation rate because we don't have charter schools:

Kentucky has no charter schools.  Many education leaders credit the lack of this option with strengthening the public schools and districts because parents are more invested in their community schools, and there is greater impetus for districts to improve their schools.

This statement, besides citing no actual data and quoting unnamed "education leaders," makes no logical sense and defies existing evidence.  How does denying families an educational choice make parents more invested in the only option available to them?  How does not having any source of competition for all but the most affluent families give districts an impetus to improve their schools?  Furthermore, research indicates that charter schools actually graduate students at higher rates than traditional schools do.  The For All Kids report reflects a bias on the part of the authors that has no place in an ostensibly objective work of scholarship.

For All Kids also contains factual errors, such as claiming that Beechwood Independent and Burgin Independent school districts have low-income student graduation rates of 75%, among the lowest in the state.  This statement is simply untrue, as a look at the Kentucky school report cards for both districts will confirm (and staff at the Kentucky Department of Education have also confirmed).

The report includes case studies of several districts that have been successful in improving their graduation rates.  This is perhaps the most valuable part of For All Kids as other schools might glean insights about how similar strategies would apply to their contexts.  But unfortunately the usefulness of these case studies is overshadowed by other problems in the report.

Additionally, what isn't mentioned in the celebration of Kentucky's improved graduation rates is the large number of students who are graduating but aren't demonstrating any meaningful readiness for college or careers.  Recent and forthcoming research from the Bluegrass Institute (where I serve on the Board of Scholars) shows that some districts do a much better job than others in guaranteeing their diploma means something.

Again, it's a very good thing that more kids are graduating.  If they don't persist until graduation we have no chance of making them college or career ready.  But now that we've made some progress on this issue, let's turn our efforts to making sure that our diplomas aren't just a form of social promotion and actually guarantee a student has met learning goals.

Everyone needs to indulge some happy talk now and then to keep us encouraged.  But the rate of education improvement in Kentucky, however real, is so slow we don't have the luxury of much celebration (especially celebrations fraught with the errors of the For All Kids report).  Let's reserve that energy for ramping up our reform efforts.

Usual disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University or the Kentucky Board of Education.

Related posts:

 

 


How does Kentucky's education system stack up against other states?

It seems like every few months a new report emerges ranking the states' educational systems.  In several over the last few years Kentucky appears to have shown improvement.  This week a report from Johns Hopkins University's Civic Education and Everyone Graduates Center celebrates Kentucky's seeming success in improving graduation rates, especially for students of poverty.  I'll address that report in a future post

In this post, I want to challenge the idea that it's so easy to make these comparisons in the first place, and to share some data that suggest Kentucky isn't really making as many huge strides as the headlines would suggest.  This is not meant as a criticism of the hard-working teachers, school administrators, and education officials who are trying valiantly to improve student learning.  I've concluded that we have deep systemic problems in education that actually prevent innovative educators from having the impact they could otherwise, and you can find my thoughts about how to address that challenge in other posts and in future posts.  Here I just want to make the case that Kentucky still has a long, long way to go in improving student learning outcomes. 

My thinking on this is greatly shaped by the work of Richard Innes, education analyst for the Bluegrass Institute.  Dick makes an excellent effort to explore data trends giving much greater insight into how our schools are actually doing than most ranking systems or single scores of achievement can convey (by way of disclosure, I serve on the Board of Scholars for the Bluegrass Institute, so I follow Dick's work closely and help advise the Institute on education policy proposals).

The first point to make is that finding consistent metrics for cross-state comparison isn't easy.  States calculate graduation rates in multiple ways, don't always test all their students, and use a wide variety of testing systems.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, also known as "the nation's report card") is considered one of the best measures because it is well respected and administered nationwide. 

But even doing state-to-state comparisons with the NAEP is difficult for two reasons.  First, the statistical margin of error on the NAEP can be large enough to wipe out differences between states that a simple ranking of average statewide performance can otherwise suggest.  And second, the demographic make-up of states is also extremely variable and we know differences in student achievement across demographic categories is one of the most difficult educational challenges to address.  For this very reason, the National Center for Educational Statistics (producer of the NAEP) has cautioned since 2005 that overall state achievement comparisons are problematic, and suggests comparisons of specific demographic groups as a more reliable method.

This is exactly the approach Dick Innes has used in a recent (and on-going) analysis of 2015 NAEP data. To address the demographic differences across states, Dick is comparing the achievement of only Kentucky's white students to white students in other states.  A similar analysis could be done with any demographic group, but since whites are the largest racial category in Kentucky, it makes sense to start here.  Dick is also comparing the achievement of white students who were eligible for free and reduced lunch with their counterparts from other states on the 2011 and 2013 NAEP, but since the advent of community-based free/reduced lunch eligibility, those data are now somewhat meaningless for 2015 (a big problem for educational research that is thoughtfully discussed here).

As one example of the charts Dick has created using the NAEP Data Explorer tool, see how Kentucky's white 8th graders compared to whites in other states on the 2015 NAEP math test.  They outperformed their counterparts in only two other states (Alabama and West Virginia).  We've hovered in this same range since 2011.

G8-Math-Map-for-Whites-2015

Meanwhile our white students receiving free/reduced lunch lost ground to their peers in other states between 2011 and 2013 on the 8th grade NAEP math assessment (remember that there is no reliable data on this demographic group for 2015).

Other findings from Dick's analysis:

  • In 4th grade math, while it looks like Kentucky's white students improved relative to other states in 2015, our scale scores actually stayed flat, while the national average score for this demographic group declined.  So we're better in comparison to other states, but not really in comparison to our historical performance.
  • 4th grade reading scores for Kentucky whites did improve in 2015, but Kentucky white students receiving free and reduced lunch declined from 2011 to 2013.
  • Despite those real improvements in 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading scores have been in decline compared to other states since 2011.

I'll share more details as Dick posts these analyses on the Bluegrass Institute blog.

It's important to note that, comparisons with other states aside, Kentucky 4th and 8th graders have in fact improved their performance on all NAEP subtests over the last few decades.  But here's the thing: the increment of improvement is so small that, at this rate, it would take about 50 years to reach 80% proficiency in 4th grade reading, and over 100 years to reach the same level of proficiency in 8th grade math.

That rate of improvement is just unacceptable given the economic and social challenges Kentucky - and the United States in general - now faces.  Much more dramatic changes in the nature and structure of education policy and delivery are in order.

Usual disclaimer: Opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and don't reflect the views of Western Kentucky University or the Kentucky Board of Education.


Education savings accounts: A winning strategy for Kentucky

Education savings accounts (ESA’s) are an idea whose time has come for Kentucky.  Dr. Vicki Alger of the Independent Institute recently gave a presentation on ESA’s to the Interim Joint Education Committee of the state legislature.  Her report, commissioned by the Bluegrass Institute and detailing the impact education savings accounts would have for Kentucky families and school districts, makes a convincing case for expanding school choice in the Commonwealth.

Why school choice?

School choice is based on the idea that education is a public good.  We all benefit economically and culturally from a well-educated populace, and so we should make a public investment in that desired outcome.  But there is no reason to assume a well-educated community can only be achieved via government-run schools.

A healthy community that values education should have a wide array of schooling options available to all families.  A vibrant education marketplace encourages competition and innovation and increases the likelihood that every family can find a school that meets their individual child’s needs.  Therefore, most education tax dollars should follow the child to the school of his or her family’s choice. 

This is not an unusual idea.  As Dr. Alger’s report points out, the popular federal Pell Grant program provides $32 billion for low- and middle-income American students to attend the college or university of their choice.

In fact, more than 131,000 Kentucky undergraduate students are using nearly $468 million in Federal Pell Grants to attend postsecondary institutions, including more than 42,000 students who are using $150 million in public funds to attend private and proprietary postsecondary institutions.

Most Kentuckians view the Pell Grant program as a good public investment in the state’s economic and cultural future, regardless of where these students attend university.  Likewise, education savings accounts would be an excellent investment and offer Kentucky families new options for K12 schools.

ESA’s and how they would work in Kentucky

Education savings accounts are already helping thousands of families access non-public schools in five other states. Dr. Alger defines education savings accounts like this:

The concept behind ESAs is simple. Parents who do not prefer a public school for their child simply withdraw him or her, and the state deposits most or all of what it would have spent into that child’s ESA instead. Parents receive a type of dedicated-use debit card to pay for authorized expenses, including private school tuition, online courses, testing fees, tutoring, and special education therapies. Any leftover funds remain in the child’s ESA for future education expenses, including college.

If Kentucky modeled an ESA policy on Arizona’s, 90% of the student’s SEEK funds (the adjusted per-pupil state education allotment) would go to the family’s debit card, while the remaining 10% of SEEK, plus all of the student’s additional allotment from local, state, and federal funds, would stay with the district, a provision that makes an ESA policy very lucrative for the traditional public schools.  The appendix of Dr. Alger’s report details exactly what this would mean in dollar amounts for every single district in Kentucky.

A personal example

Let me offer a personal example based on Alger’s data if Kentucky had an education savings account plan like Arizona’s.  My family resides in the Bowling Green Independent School district.  Total per pupil revenue for BGISD, including local, state, and federal sources, is $10,700 per pupil.  My daughter attends a non-public school, and our annual ESA amount would be $5,711. 

The annual tuition at my daughter’s school is $4,530, so the ESA would leave us an extra $1,181 per year which would could save for her future college expenses, and/or for supplemental educational materials to help with her special reading and mathematics needs.

Meanwhile, the Bowling Green city schools would keep $4,990 of my daughter’s per pupil allotment and would not have to spend a penny to educate her.  Given this windfall, you’d think officials from the BGISD would be eager to support ESA’s! 

You can check the appendix of Dr. Alger’s report to see similar numbers of every other district in Kentucky.  The median ESA across the state would be $5,690 per student, while the median kickback to the local district would be $4,569.

Education savings accounts would be a win-win for everyone.  My daughter would get the best education option for her.  The money I am currently spending on her tuition would likely be spent in other ways in the local economy, further supporting jobs and the community tax base.  The local public school district would have additional resources to spend on its other students.  The entire community would benefit.

That’s how ESA’s benefit a relatively affluent family like mine.  Now imagine the doors of opportunity it opens for families of more modest means who could never exercise a school choice otherwise, with an even greater social benefit in the long run.

Education savings accounts are but one mechanism to enhance school choice options for Kentucky families.  Charter schools, scholarship tax credits, and other proposals should also be on the table and could work together to create a rich local education market and strengthen student learning outcomes.  Polling data suggest Kentuckians are eager for all of these choices, and it’s time parents start pressing political leaders for change.


Poll: Kentuckians strongly support school choice

At last week's kickoff event for the EdChoice Kentucky coalition, we shared data from a recent poll indicating that Kentuckians are strongly in favor of school choice policies.  Read more on the EdChoice website.

EdChoice commissioned research firm Public Opinion Strategies to conduct the poll of 500 Kentucky voters over a 3 day period this summer.  The margin of error was plus or minus 4.38%. 

I've long suspected that support for school choice was much deeper than media coverage of the topic reveals, but I was still astonished by the results. 

First, there was widespread agreement that public education is in need of reform in Kentucky.  Across genders, political parties, and geographical regions of the state, an average of 57% of respondents agreed that education is "on the wrong track," with less than a third agreeing it is "on the right track." 

Polling data

Obviously problems in education can't be fixed with a single policy idea.  But Kentuckians do seem to recognize that when a child's school is not meeting his or her needs, there should be additional options available.  Low- and middle-income families should have the same opportunities as the affluent for accessing high-quality schools. 

School choice policies are based on the idea that education is a public good, and the tax dollars allocated for education should be of primary benefit to the child.  Instead of doling out money to school districts, all or some portion of the educational benefit should follow the child to the school of his or her family's choice.  Overwhelmingly, Kentuckians seem to agree.  Polling data showed that 70% of respondents agreed with the concept of educational choice (47% strongly agreed), with only about a quarter opposed.  This was true across all polling groups.  Even a majority of teachers (58%) supported school choice.

Edchoice support poll

This is encouraging because school choice works.  Research shows that children who take advantage of school choice policies tend to outperform their peers in traditionally-assigned schools.  Meanwhile, when school choice policies are introduced, traditional public schools tend to improve because a new environment of competition usually spurs innovation and positive change.

And concerns that school choice leads to social fragmentation also appear unfounded.  Research shows that school choice encourages greater levels of integration within schools of choice, and that students educated in non-public schools actually have higher levels of social tolerance and civic engagement than their peers in traditional public schools.

Scholarship tax credits are an increasingly popular school choice policy, in part because they rely entirely on private donations to give families more education options.  A tuition tax credit encourages more donations to scholarship programs that help low- and middle-income children attend the school of their choice. 

In the poll 73% of Kentuckians across all demographic groups supported scholarship tax credits, with 47% strongly favoring the concept and only 11% opposed. 

Scholarship tax credit support

Policy makers and members of the media need to take note of these numbers.  School choice is no silver bullet that will fix all the problems in education.  But among the many mechanisms we have for improving student learning, giving all families more schooling options is one that can make a big difference, and one that Kentuckians support.

 

 


An exciting week for Kentucky school choice advocates

It's been a exciting week for advocates of expanded school choice in Kentucky with testimony before members of the state legislature, a press conference by Louisville pastors, and a kickoff event for the EdChoice Kentucky coalition.

Legislative testimony

On Monday school choice supporters appeared before the Kentucky General Assembly's Interim Joint Committee on Education.  Dr. Vicki Alger, an expert of school choice policies, testified about the concept of education savings accounts (ESAs).  While states have configured ESAs in various ways, Dr. Alger described how the idea would work in Kentucky based on Arizona's current policy.  

Families of school-aged children would receive an ESA debit card worth 90% of the adjusted SEEK amount for that child (the state's portion of per pupil funding for children attending public schools).  Families could then use that card toward tuition at non-public schools or to pay for other education expenses associated with homeschooling, tutoring costs, therapies for special-needs students, etc.  Besides vastly expanding the educational options for Kentucky families, such a policy would reap the state and local school districts significant financial benefits.  Dr. Alger has prepared a report identifying the average ESA amount and cost savings to every Kentucky public school district using Arizona's approach.  You can access that report here, and I'll be blogging about it in more detail in coming days.

Andrew Vandiver, associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, also testified about the concept of scholarship tax credits, a key initiative of the EdChoice Kentucky coalition (more on that below), an idea I've previously written about here, here, and here.  Such a proposal would use a tax credit to encourage more private donations to scholarship programs that help low- and middle-income families afford tuition in non-public schools.  Andy was join alongside Heather Huddleston of School Choice Scholarships, one of the state's largest such scholarship granting organizations, and Sylvie Umuhoza, a Rwandan refugee and graduate of a Kentucky non-public school who personally benefited from such a scholarship.  Heather emphasized that the demand for scholarships far outpaces donations, and a scholarship tax credit would help remedy that situation.

Responses from anti-school choice members of the committee were somewhat predictable with Senator Reggie Thomas (D-Lexington) saying that such proposals would ultimately drain funds away from public schools and Representative Linda Belcher (D-Shepherdsville) claiming that students with special needs are better served by public schools.  Andrew Vandiver of the Catholic Conference explained that states save money from school choice proposals because, in part, parents of non-public school students still pay school taxes but the local districts do not have to educate those students.  Representative Belcher's comments reflect a kind of educational paternalism that suggests politicians and education bureaucrats know better than parents what schools would best serve their own children's needs.

On the other hand, Representatives John Carney (R-Campbellsville) and Jim DeCesare (R-Bowling Green) gave impassioned statements of support for school choice.

You can watch the complete testimony here courtesy of KET.

Rally for charter schools

Later Monday afternoon, the Kentucky Pastors in Action Coalition, a group of Louisville church leaders, held a rally before the evening meeting of the Jefferson County Public Schools.  The pastors called for charter schools and other school choice measures to address the lingering performance problems and intractable achievement gaps in the Louisville schools.

Kentucky remains one of only eight states that still prohibits charter schools.  You can read more about charter schools, how they work, and why they are good for students, here.

School choice roundtable

On Tuesday morning I participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Bluegrass Institute (where I serve on their board of scholars) and featuring Dr. Vicki Alger, who testified the day before about education savings accounts (ESAs).  In our discussion, which also included state Representative James Tipton (R-Taylorsville) and former Kentucky gubernatorial candidate and education activist Hal Heiner, Dr. Alger further explored the financial implications of ESAs. She noted that Kentucky already recognizes $23 million in higher education tax credits each year, a policy that is viewed as a smart investment in the state's future, and an amount that pales in comparison to the state's $6 billion annual education budget.

Dr. Alger further emphasized that the various school choice policies under consideration in Kentucky (charter schools, tuition scholarship tax credits, ESAs, etc.) should not be viewed as conflicting with each other, but rather complementary approaches that combined can vastly expand educational options for Kentucky's families.

EdChoice Kentucky kickoff

Later on Tuesday morning I was pleased to host a kickoff event for the EdChoice Kentucky coalition, where I serve on the board of directors.  EdChoice Kentucky is a coalition of citizens and organizations committed to offering Kentucky families a richer array of schooling options.  Our focus at this time is on scholarship tax credits.  Speakers included Senator Ralph Alvarado (R-Winchester), Andrew Vandiver of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, and Debbie Abney, a single parent whose daughters have directly benefitted from scholarship programs.

The event include the introduction of the coalition's website, www.edchoiceky.com (you can also following the group on Twitter, @EdChoiceKY), plus Andrew shared compelling data from a statewide telephone poll of 500 Kentuckians carried out by an independent consulting company this summer.  The poll revealed strong bipartisan support for school choice policies and 73% of respondents had a favorable view of scholarship tax credits (47% had a strongly favorable view).

I'll be writing more about these polling numbers in an upcoming post, but email me for details if you want a copy of the charts shared at our kickoff event.  These data, and the enthusiastic response to this week's events, suggest Kentuckians are hungry for new ideas to support educational improvement in the Commonwealth.  I'm honored to be a part of this movement, and will be regularly reporting our progress.

Note: As always, opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer or higher education colleagues.

Related posts:


EdChoice Kentucky advocates more schooling options for all families

I'm proud to serve on the board of directors for a new 501(c)(3) non-profit organization called EdChoice Kentucky which advocates expanding educational options for all families in the Commonwealth.  An op-ed co-authored by members of the EdChoice board of directors appeared in last Sunday's Courier-Journal.  Excerpt:

Few know that we have school choice in Kentucky—for those who can afford it.  Wealthy and upper-middle-class parents have the financial means to send their child to a school of their choice or move to a different district when their assigned public school fails to meet their child’s needs.

But for Kentucky’s middle- and low-income families who lack the means to move or go private, school choice is not an option.  A family’s income or ZIP code should not dictate their children’s future.  Middle- and low-income students should have the same opportunities as their more affluent peers.  Kentucky’s education system is unjust and change is necessary.

The commentary goes on to discuss the major legislative focus for EdChoice Kentucky this year: a bill that would provide a tax credit for private donations to scholarship funds that support low-income families to attend the school of their choice.  You can read more about that proposal in this post and hear me discuss it in my recent interview on WKYU-PBS "Outlook" here.

EdChoice Kentucky will formally launch its statewide push for the tuition assistance tax credit proposal at a special kick-off event in Louisville on Tuesday, October 13, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time at the Hurstbourne Business Center, 9300 Shelbyville Road, Suite 1210.  Members of the coalition will speak, plus the event is slated to feature families who already benefit, or could directly benefit, from tuition assistance programs like those addressed in the bill.  You can email me or Kaylee Carnahan, [email protected] for more information.  A website and Facebook page for EdChoice will be launched at the event, but you can already follow the coalition on Twitter.

I want to follow up on the arguments laid out in Sunday's op-ed with a couple of points on the research and the philosophy behind school choice.

Our op-ed cites a 2013 report from the Friedman Foundation on the positive outcomes of school choice programs.  You can access that full report here, and you'll see that it is a comprehensive analysis of a multitude of high-quality research studies.  This is important because opponents of school choice will often claim there is little evidence that school choice policies really make a difference in student learning.  But those who would stand in the way of families selecting the best school for their child's needs are the ones who have to cherry-pick from research to support their argument. 

The Friedman report shows that out of 36 gold-standard research studies, 11 demonstrate positive outcomes for children who participate in school choice programs and 21 show positive outcomes for students who choose to remain in public schools within a larger school-choice environment.  Two other studies showed no visible effects.  None of the studies demonstrated a negative impact on students as a result of school choice policies. 

Eighteen other studies analyzed in the report describe the impact of school choice programs on other important variables like racial segregation of schools, the fiscal impact on taxpayers, and civic values among students.  Again, most studies showed positive outcomes on all counts, and none showed a negative impact.

When faced with this kind of evidence, opponents of school choice usually appeal to philosophical arguments about the value of education as a public good.  Society, the economy, and American democracy benefit by a strong public investment in schools.  Which is true, of course.  But there is no reason to presume that, because education is a public good, it must necessarily be delivered to all children by a government-run school.  (See my arguments to this effect here and here, plus an case for how non-public schools actually help support a vibrant democracy here).

As our Courier-Journal op-ed argues, affluent families already have school choice.  It is only the poor and middle class who have few, if any options, and there is no reason to assume that only government-run schools can meet the needs of these families.  We recognize health as a public good too, but we don't assume that we must get all of our health care from government-run hospitals and doctors offices.

There are many great public schools in Kentucky, and when families are happy with their assigned public school, they certainly should be able to choose it.  But every family is unique, and so our communities benefit from a rich marketplace of educational options that can meet all those individual needs.  EdChoice Kentucky believes our public policies should support that kind of diversity in school choices.

Watch for more updates on this effort in coming weeks.

As always, my work on public policy issues is my own initiative as a private citizen and in no way reflects the views of Western Kentucky University or any of its affiliates.