The MIT study that reveals failing voucher schools across the country—much worse than the so-called “failing public schools” that billionaire oligarchs and for-profit corporations want to replace.
I posted this study a month or so ago. But I continue to get inquiries from school board members in states that are considering the adoption of vouchers. I heard today that this study may have killed vouchers in Tennessee, at least for now (true believers never give up). Make sure that every member of your state school board and every member of your state legislature gets a copy of this study. The study was completed by researchers at MIT.
The study is titled “School Vouchers and Student Achievement: First-Year Evidence from the Louisiana Scholarship Program.” Granted, this is only the first year, but the findings are strong and devastating to the belief that vouchers (most of which go to religious schools) will “save poor kids from failing public schools.” The study compared the test scores of lottery winners and lottery losers, which is supposedly the gold standard for voucher…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
teachingeconomist
February 16, 2016 at 09:55
The MIT study only covered the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Louisiana is a relitively small single state in the United States. I am not sure how you concluded “The MIT study that reveals failing voucher schools across the country”
Lloyd Lofthouse
February 16, 2016 at 17:23
Let’s wait and find out of the autocratic, for-profit at any price, corporate public education demolition derby allows a national study of this nature—without controlling the results.
teachingeconomist
February 16, 2016 at 20:20
Lloyd,
Your post is not about the future, it concerns a claim about a paper out of MIT. That claim is completely false, correct?
Lloyd Lofthouse
February 17, 2016 at 08:40
No, it is not “completely” false. In fact, if the autocratic, for-profit (anyway you cut it), private sector, often opaque and fraudulent public funded private sector schools that are labeled as voucher schools would be willing to open their books to unbiased sources and become transparent, the results would be simliar to the previous studies of publicly funded, private sector charter schools and publicly funded, private sector on-line schools.
For Instance, the CREDO study out of Stanfrod that was funded by the Gates Foundation of publicly funded, private sector charters:
Academic Growth of Charter Schools Compered to their Local Markets
READING (page 57 credo.staford.edu)
56% No Significant Difference
19% Significantly Worse
25% Significantly Better
MATH
40% NO Significant Difference
31% Significantly Worse
29% Significantly Better
Click to access NCSS%202013%20Final%20Draft.pdf
Then there is the cherry picking of students in many publicly funded, private sector Charters but even cherry picking students doesn’t make the grade because 25 and 29% is not a passing grade. It is an F-.
“Many charter schools enroll a neighborhood’s strongest and most motivated students, making the job of the local public school even more difficult. Families who apply to charters are often seeking a highly disciplined learning environment, with a longer school day and year. Few students with significant learning, emotional or behavioral challenges, or English language learners, even apply. As stronger students enter charters, those who struggle are left behind in increased concentrations in the public school.”
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/10/are-charter-schools-cherry-picking-students/charter-school-cherry-picking-from-admission-to-expulsion
Then there are the results of publicly funded, private sector on-line schools.
“How online class about online learning failed miserably”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/05/how-online-class-about-online-learning-failed-miserably/
Online schools “worse than traditional teachers’
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34671952
In addition, there is the history of “Sweden’s School Choice Disaster”.
“Advocates for school choice might be shocked to see how badly the country’s experiment with vouchers failed.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2014/07/sweden_school_choice_the_country_s_disastrous_experiment_with_milton_friedman.html
Then we have this from Chapter 19 The Failure of Vouchers:
1990 – Milwaukee launched voucher program for low-income students
1995 – Cleveland offered vouchers for low-income students
2004 – The District of Columbia created a voucher program for low-income students … Florida established two voucher programs, one for f-rated schools, the other for students with disabilities.
All voucher programs were initiated by legislatures NOT by voters.
“After 22 years of vouchers there was NO evidence they were saving poor children, they were NOT out performing public scholls They were actually producing low levels of achievement and absorbing large amounts of tax dollars without any accountability. In Florida there was no regulation of curriculum. Some administrators had criminal records.”
https://prezi.com/_dnzwiowd4yz/copy-of-chapter-19-the-failure-of-vouchers/
In 2013 (updated in 2014) “Louisiana voucher students score almost 30 points below average on LEAP tests”
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/05/louisiana_voucher_students_sco.html
Wisconsin paid millions to failed voucher schools
http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/local/2014/10/12/wisconsin-millions-failed-voucher-schools/17152907/
teachingeconomist
February 17, 2016 at 09:15
Lloyd,
Your post is about the paper out of MIT. The paper looks at the voucher program in Louisiana. It reveals nothing about schools “across the nation”, only about schools in Louisiana.
Lloyd Lofthouse
February 17, 2016 at 09:28
I stand behind my comment regardless of your attempt to divert the topic through nitpicking. There has been no study that has examined every state, but every study that has looked closely at publicly funded, private sector voucher schools in several states and DC has reported similar results to the wider and more in depth studies of publicly funded, private sector, autocratic, corporate charter schools and the almost total failure of online education. After more than twenty years of attempting to privatize the education of our children and take them out of the hands of the people’s community based, democratic, transparent, and nonprofit public schools, nothing has proven better than the entire public school system. The post about the paper out of MIT was not my post. I Re-posted it on my blog from another bloggers blog and I made a comment. I think this is proof that you don’t pay attention or you would have clicked the link and read the other bloggers entire post on his site.
teachingeconomist
February 17, 2016 at 13:09
Lloyd,
It is not nitpicking. Your post (not Dr. Ravitch’s post) says “The MIT study that REVEALS FAILING VOUCHER SCHOOLS ACROSS THE COUNTRY…”
The MIT study does not even attempt to look at voucher schools across the country.
I have actually read the paper. Have you?
Lloyd Lofthouse
February 17, 2016 at 19:43
As someone else your questions. I’ve already had my say and anyone who reads this thread will decide for themselves. They can read all about it from all those links that were in my comments.
teachingeconomist
February 17, 2016 at 20:00
Indeed they can read the actual paper. They can decide if an analysis of charter schools in Louisiana “reveals failing voucher schools across the county” or if an analysis of charter schools in Louisiana reveals failing voucher schools in Louisiana.
Lloyd Lofthouse
February 18, 2016 at 06:25
They can also go to this site and read about the THIRTEEN states (and the District of Columbia that isn’t a state) that have voucher programs out of FIFTY and and learn what states require these voucher schools that must administer assessment tests/programs to track the progress of voucher students, and I provide the link—below.
THIRTEEN is 26% of the states.
So technically, “across the country” only applies to the states in that list of THIRTEEN that require annual testing and require those tests to be made public? And the only reports that count are those from reputable, unbiased sources that have no economic links to the voucher schools and/or receive funds from billionaire oligarchs and/or their foundations that support the voucher movement.
How many of these THIRTEEN states have accessed their voucher students using unbiased, outside sources not paid by billionaire oligarchs?
http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/voucher-law-comparison.aspx
In addition, any FOOL can see that no matter what someone says in a comment the title of the post clearly says: “MIT Study: The Big Fail of Vouchers in Louisiana”
Of these THIRTEEN states, TWO are not required to administer state assessments that the community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools must administer and report.
Of these THIRTEEN states, only EIGHT are required to administer an assessment but there is no language that they have to make this data to the state or the public.
Of these THIRTEEN states, only THREE are required to report the results of the assessment to the state. So “across the country” applies to those THREE states that are required by law to assess the student and turn over the results to the state. Those are the only three states that required publicly funded private voucher schools to be totally transparent.
North Carolina
Louisiana
Indiana