Thursday, January 26, 2006
Letter To The Editor On School Vouchers
"To develop inspired learners who excel academically and socially in dynamic schools that instill confidence and generate enthusiasm throughout the District's many diverse communities and make DC Public Schools the first choice of parents, youth and families."
The Mission Statement of D.C. Public Schools
Although DCPS claims that the goal of its Superintendent, administrators and teachers is to make their facilities the predominant choice of its constituents, their customers are voting with their feet. Each year more and more students flee from traditional schools to attend charters whose enrollment now stands at approximately 18,000, representing 24% of all kids who attend public school. In addition, there are about 1,700 students participating in the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship (voucher) Program with more families desperately wanting to get in.
Providing all of these educational options is not cheap. For example, one estimate I have seen published by a public policy research institute is that is that it costs over $15,000 for DCPS to teach each one of its 57,000 kids. Charter schools receive about $10,000 per child when you add together the pupil allocation and facility allowance. Each Opportunity Scholarship is worth $7,500. If you went to a school outside of the District then you can most likely do the math and appreciate that we have a very complicated and expensive educational landscape in the nation’s capital. Yet, as we shall see, it is not enough.
Why are we doing all this? The answer is simple and familiar to most of us. We are failing to adequately prepare our youth for future success. D.C. students have the lowest standardized test schools in the country and, at 50%, one of the highest high school drop-out rates. Many of our schools are not safe. We are in a public educational free-fall.
All of these problems were supposed to diminish through the use of school choice. The theory behind choice is simple, and is perfectly expressed on the web page of the organization Friends For Choice In Urban Schools (FOCUS):
“The idea behind public charter schools is that parents, given a variety of public schools to choose from, will pick the schools they think best meet the academic needs of their children. This will create competition for students among public schools - charter and traditional - that will bring across-the-board improvements in public education.”
I have been an active participate in the school choice movement in Washington for over 7 years. Has our goal of using competition to fix public education made a difference? Not so far. A recent study by Sara Mead when she was with the Progressive Policy Institute shows mixed results for charter schools when compared to traditional institutions for standardized testing. And as reported by Dion Haynes of the Washington Post, charters do not seem to be distancing themselves from regular schools when it comes to No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress measurements. Finally, we have not seen evidence that traditional public schools, in the face of dropping enrollment, are suddenly re-inventing themselves to become centers of excellence for education in the 21st century.
The reasons for this lack of change could be many. For example, the charter school movement in D.C. is still relatively immature. The first ones only opened in 1998. The significant lack of adequate facilities for charter schools have prevented them from growing as quickly as they could. Alternatively, the voucher program is only a couple of years old. It appears that it is just too soon to expect to see dramatic change.
Furthermore, there is a public policy problem that may halt these bold attempts to foster an educational marketplace. As I reported, the Opportunity Scholarship Program has generated significant interest by parents. However, when these kids are ready to enter high school there are few slots available. For instance, this fall over 20 students were forced to exit the program due to lack of space in private schools. Next year that number could climb to 80.
The William E. Doar Jr. Educational Foundation, which 2 years ago founded a successful charter school for the performing arts in Washington, D.C., is ready to jump in and try and provide a home for these kids. We are excited at the idea of providing this population with rigorous academics linked to a truly integrated arts curriculum. However, we have found that the voucher allocation of $7,500 per child does not provide us with the financial means to reach our goal. We are also concerned that our ability to secure a facility for this new school may be an impossible dream.
One of the main tenets of school choice is that demand would generate new capacity. However, I am fearful that the lack of adequate resources provided in the Opportunity Scholarship Program will derail the extraordinary educational reform that our kids deserve.
Sincerely,
Mark S. Lerner
Chairman, Board of Directors
William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts
PermaLink | 5:25 AM |
|
The Mission Statement of D.C. Public Schools
Although DCPS claims that the goal of its Superintendent, administrators and teachers is to make their facilities the predominant choice of its constituents, their customers are voting with their feet. Each year more and more students flee from traditional schools to attend charters whose enrollment now stands at approximately 18,000, representing 24% of all kids who attend public school. In addition, there are about 1,700 students participating in the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship (voucher) Program with more families desperately wanting to get in.
Providing all of these educational options is not cheap. For example, one estimate I have seen published by a public policy research institute is that is that it costs over $15,000 for DCPS to teach each one of its 57,000 kids. Charter schools receive about $10,000 per child when you add together the pupil allocation and facility allowance. Each Opportunity Scholarship is worth $7,500. If you went to a school outside of the District then you can most likely do the math and appreciate that we have a very complicated and expensive educational landscape in the nation’s capital. Yet, as we shall see, it is not enough.
Why are we doing all this? The answer is simple and familiar to most of us. We are failing to adequately prepare our youth for future success. D.C. students have the lowest standardized test schools in the country and, at 50%, one of the highest high school drop-out rates. Many of our schools are not safe. We are in a public educational free-fall.
All of these problems were supposed to diminish through the use of school choice. The theory behind choice is simple, and is perfectly expressed on the web page of the organization Friends For Choice In Urban Schools (FOCUS):
“The idea behind public charter schools is that parents, given a variety of public schools to choose from, will pick the schools they think best meet the academic needs of their children. This will create competition for students among public schools - charter and traditional - that will bring across-the-board improvements in public education.”
I have been an active participate in the school choice movement in Washington for over 7 years. Has our goal of using competition to fix public education made a difference? Not so far. A recent study by Sara Mead when she was with the Progressive Policy Institute shows mixed results for charter schools when compared to traditional institutions for standardized testing. And as reported by Dion Haynes of the Washington Post, charters do not seem to be distancing themselves from regular schools when it comes to No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress measurements. Finally, we have not seen evidence that traditional public schools, in the face of dropping enrollment, are suddenly re-inventing themselves to become centers of excellence for education in the 21st century.
The reasons for this lack of change could be many. For example, the charter school movement in D.C. is still relatively immature. The first ones only opened in 1998. The significant lack of adequate facilities for charter schools have prevented them from growing as quickly as they could. Alternatively, the voucher program is only a couple of years old. It appears that it is just too soon to expect to see dramatic change.
Furthermore, there is a public policy problem that may halt these bold attempts to foster an educational marketplace. As I reported, the Opportunity Scholarship Program has generated significant interest by parents. However, when these kids are ready to enter high school there are few slots available. For instance, this fall over 20 students were forced to exit the program due to lack of space in private schools. Next year that number could climb to 80.
The William E. Doar Jr. Educational Foundation, which 2 years ago founded a successful charter school for the performing arts in Washington, D.C., is ready to jump in and try and provide a home for these kids. We are excited at the idea of providing this population with rigorous academics linked to a truly integrated arts curriculum. However, we have found that the voucher allocation of $7,500 per child does not provide us with the financial means to reach our goal. We are also concerned that our ability to secure a facility for this new school may be an impossible dream.
One of the main tenets of school choice is that demand would generate new capacity. However, I am fearful that the lack of adequate resources provided in the Opportunity Scholarship Program will derail the extraordinary educational reform that our kids deserve.
Sincerely,
Mark S. Lerner
Chairman, Board of Directors
William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts
PermaLink | 5:25 AM |
| 
