“Who is this person?” I asked myself as I read Vicki Alger’s op ed, Education improves when parents can bypass clueless bureaucrats, in today’s Star. It segues from a diatribe against the U.S. Department of Education to a fact-challenged advocacy of vouchers into one of those states rights, 10th Amendment statements so popular on the far right. Who is this uninformed, unhinged character?
It’s worse than I thought. Vicki Alger is actually a “very serious person” in the world of ed privatization: research fellow at the Independent Institute (a libertarian organization with lots of money and questionable integrity), former director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Educational Opportunity and on and on. Oh, and she sits on the board of BASIS charter schools in Chandler and Phoenix. Alger is widely published and according to her blurb, working on a book about the U.S. Dept. of Ed. Meaning she’s a cog in the vast, well funded “education reform”/privatization/corporatization machine, where facts are optional and research begins with the conclusion and works back to the data.
Let’s take a walk through some of Alger’s statements in the op ed.
“Results on the Nation’s Report Card for 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds in reading, math and science have virtually flat-lined since the early 1970s.”
I guess it depends on how you define “virtually flat-lined.” Looking at the NAEP scores from 1973 — NAEP is the closest thing we have to a gold standard in testing, accepted as valid by people on the right and the left — reading scores for 9 year olds went up 13 points, 8 points for 13 year olds. In math, 9 year olds’ scores went up 25 points and 13 year olds’ scores went up 19 points. During that time, the gap between between white, black and Hispanic students has shrunk. It’s not as much progress as anyone wants, but it’s hardly flat-lining.
“This year, 245,000 students attend schools their parents have chosen through 32 voucher and tax-credit scholarship programs in 16 states and the District of Columbia, as well as one educational savings account program in Arizona. Research consistently shows participating students have higher graduation and college attendance rates, and higher reading and math scores, than their peers.”
Research doesn’t show voucher students outperform similar students in public schools. A study of the decades-old Milwaukee voucher system by a group of conservative scholars found insignificant differences in achievement between the two groups of students. The researchers tried again. When they sifted through the data a second time, they found a difference in graduation rates, popped champagne corks and congratulated themselves. “Finally, we found something that supports our agenda!” In a study of D.C. vouchers, conservative researchers were so desperate, they latched onto the only positive stat they could find: voucher parents were more satisfied with their children’s private schools than similar parents at public schools. The students themselves? No difference in satisfaction levels.
“When schools compete for students, all kids win, not just those in parental-choice programs. More than 200 scientific analyses show beneficial effects of competition on public schools, including higher student achievement, graduation rates, teacher pay and smaller class sizes.”
“200 scientific analyses”? I can only guess she means 200 schools were compared in a few studies. I’ve seen some of the research I think Alger is referring to. It shows what may be a slight trend toward minor improvements in some public schools in areas where vouchers have placed students in private schools. It’s weak tea at best, only important if you have an agenda to promote.
Vicki Alger once sold fool’s gold at the Goldwater Institute. Now she’s peddling her snake oil at the Independent Institute. Today, she pulled her wagon loaded with bottles of her magic “school choice” elixir to the Star and pitched her wares in its op ed pages.
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2014.
The Libertarian argument does not depend on the quality of common schools but is against coercive taxes and for free choice. Removal of legal blocks to charters, homeschools, private schools, etc. have occurred already in many states.
For information on Libertarians worldwide see the non-partisan Libertarian International Organization via http://www.libertarianinternational.org
I completely agree with this column. Actually, when I read the headline about “clueless bureaucrats” I immediately thought the column was going to be a condemnation of US Secretary of Education Duncan for his negative comment about parents who complained about the shoddy way NY State implemented common core standards.
Rather than adopt standards and teach to the new standards using curricula aligned to the standards, NY State adopted the standards and approved a test based on those standards. They sort of left out the part about teaching students using curricula aligned to the new standards. the result was that students did very poorly on the tests since they were, in essence, being tested on material they had not been taught. When parents complained, Duncan’s comment was that the real problem was that the students were not as brilliant as their parents thought they were. That makes Duncan the official poster child for “clueless bureaucrats.”
Kennon,
Our state ‘leaders’ are currently pursuing a libertarian agenda for education here in Arizona. It isn’t just the ‘removal of legal blocks’ for private and charters schools that you described, but the removal of funding (aka ‘coercive taxes’) and purposeful addition of more regulation for public schools as well.
The problem I have with all of this is that our libertarian government officials and state special interest groups (Goldwater Institute, etc.) are not being completely transparent & forthright about their goals. Most parents and voters do NOT understand that the current AZ political formula is to get rid of public schools, period. Goldwater & crew can’t say this directly, of course, because they know that the vast majority of Arizonans – Democrat, Republican, or otherwise – still support their local public schools as well as public taxes for our military, roads, libraries and other important parts of our communities. Most of us want smart government spending — not the wholesale dismantling of our nation’s public institutions.
I was told today that six Republican members of the Arizona Senate Education committee would blow up the conventional public school system if they could get away with it, and yes that means you, Miss Yee. Do not call them Empowerment, call them what they are, Private School Subsidy Accounts.
Selective moral outrage. An op-ed that will be read by 7 people about ed-privitization while the people who actively create policies to privatize public schools (and represent privatization think tanks just as bad as Goldwater) will be here tomorrow to help shape the future of TUSD. Yet for some reason, despite giving away $92,500 of public money to friends, and lies followed by silence at 1010, they still get a free pass and this is what our local education press spends their time on.
As a dedicated veteran public school teacher, I have watched the slow, heartless strangling of our public school system by right-wing creationists in the Arizona legislature for years with increasing incredulity. If parents and voters can’t see that privatization of schools in Arizona is tantamount to public funding of religious education, I have indeed failed as an educator. The separation of church and state, a founding tenet of our Constitution, is at stake, and the Arizona taxpayers will pay dearly for it.
AZ Republican “leaders” are, like so many other regressive state legislatures, cultivating an American Taliban mentality that longs to replace our imperfect government with tribal, or feudal, not American values. Their weapon of choice is another, but just as cowardly IED: Improvised Educational Disinformation
The open view for the folks of Arizona should be the 100% education voucher
system for each child of Arizona, via their parent for home, private, or public
schooling.
The overall outcome will give us a mix of 5% home, 20% private and 75% public
schooling.
The education voucher system will also honor two rights:
(1) The child’s right to basis education/training.
(2) The prior-right of parents to educate/train their child.
Still homeschooling and using self directed learning for my kids and very grateful that, whilst this conversation is interesting, it’s not something we have to get enmeshed in!
Parent X
Thanks for your comment. That just isn’t the Libertarian agenda. Libertarians invented and champion endowed and preferably student/parent run public schools but without the coerced taxation, monopolism, conformism, etc. They also stand for private and home schools.
Some libertarian fans say abolish public schools when what is meant is end coerced pseudo-public schooling/government control. I’m not sure the right-Republicans are making that distinction. The left sure isn’t in many cases.
More people support the Libertarian campaign to end the immorality of coerced taxation. Involuntary taxation will end. ‘Smart government spending’ needs to start adjusting to this reality.