1. Early Ed Teacher Licensure?  Two School Choice Bills Intro’d. Update on S.127
2. Why Didn’t US Dept of Ed Release DC Voucher Results Sooner?
3. Washington Post Editorial: Don’t Pull the Plug on DC Voucher Program

EARLY ED TEACHER LICENSURE, SCHOOL CHOICE BILLS

Early education advocates are back at the Statehouse, this time arguing for licensure requirements for early-ed providers. The discussion was interesting for what was missing—any substantial acknowledgement that perhaps parents are the best influences on young children’s lives and we shouldn’t be expecting the state to raise kids. Now advocates want only licensed teachers getting state money. That will squeeze out home providers of early ed services for sure. And eventually it will probably expand the ranks of NEA members in the state as well as add to the tax burden of ordinary Vermonters as costs in these programs rise. 

On the good news front, two school choice bills were introduced. S. 140, sponsored by Sen. Harold Giard (D-Addison ), would allow parents to choose other public schools or approved independent schools for their children at the elementary and high school levels. S.140 has some reasonable cost-control measures and registration deadlines in order to protect school administrations and districts. 

S. 139, also introduced by Sen. Giard, would allow school districts to enter into dual enrollment agreements with any Vermont state college. These agreements would allow students in high school, who meet the college’s entrance requirements, to take college courses for credit. For many students, this would be a valuable program, allowing them to get an early start on college. 

Update on S.127 - Designation of Public Schools and School Choice 

S.127 was passed out of the Senate on April 3, 2009. Among other ideas in the bill, which are to support small schools, there is protection of school choice for parents and students who live in a tuition town. VBE worked to get language in the bill that protects and empowers parents to still have school choice while providing a mechanism to protect the taxpayer from rising educational costs. The bill has now been sent to House Education where the designation of a public school will be considered. Tuition towns are all different. Some have many schools around them from which to choose some do not. VBE will continue to watch this bill for any attempts to reduce the amount of school choice that parents and students currently enjoy. 

ELSEWHERE: DC VOUCHER PROGRAM NEWS

Both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post editorialized recently about a new report on the DC voucher program showing academic gains in voucher students. Parental satisfaction with the program, an important indicator of quality, has always been extremely high, but it’s helpful to have statistically significant academic gains to rebut the drone of voucher critics who insist such evidence should be required before continuing any voucher program (while not insisting on the same approach to academic progress in public schools). 

In fact, having the DC voucher report available would have been useful before Congress decided to cut the program. But the report was only recently released.

The Wall Street Journal, in its editorial on Monday, rightly points out, though, that the report probably WAS available in the halls of power before the Congressional cut-off of the program. Voucher recipients, the Journal says, were tested last spring, and scores were analyzed over the summer and fall. Here’s more from the Journal’s excellent editorial:

“….in November preliminary results were presented to a team of advisers who work with the Education Department to produce the annual evaluation. Since Education officials are intimately involved in this process, they had to know what was in this evaluation even as Democrats passed (and Mr. Obama signed) language that ends the program after next year.

“Opponents of school choice for poor children have long claimed they'd support vouchers if there was evidence that they work. While running for President last year, Mr. Obama told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that if he saw more proof that they were successful, he would ‘not allow my predisposition to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn . . . You do what works for the kids.’ Except, apparently, when what works is opposed by unions.

“Mr. Duncan's office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You'd think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program. A reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Duncan's department didn't want proof of voucher success to interfere with Senator Dick Durbin's campaign to kill vouchers at the behest of the teachers unions.

“The decision to let 1,700 poor kids get tossed from private schools is a moral disgrace. It also exposes the ugly politics that lies beneath union and liberal efforts across the country to undermine mayoral control, charter schools, vouchers or any reform that threatens their monopoly over public education dollars and jobs. The Sheldon Silver-Dick Durbin Democrats aren't worried that school choice doesn't work. They're worried that it does, and if Messrs. Obama and Duncan want to succeed as reformers they need to say so consistently.”

The full editorial is available here.

Pasted below is the April 4 Washington Post editorial:

Don't Pull the Plug Yet

THE INK WAS barely dry on the latest study of D.C. school vouchers when Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that he is ready to pull the plug on the program, although he doesn't want current students moved. The study's findings are no slam-dunk for the program's success, but they are, by no means, proof of failure. Indeed, for the first time, researchers found statistically significant improvement in reading test scores for students offered vouchers and that, at the very least, demands further study. 

An evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program released yesterday concluded that, after three years, students offered scholarships earned reading scores equivalent to 3.1 months of additional learning. It also mirrored earlier studies in showing that parents who had children in the program were more satisfied with the schools, viewing them as safer and more orderly. The study found no difference in math performance and no gains for students from the lowest-performing public schools. 

It's no surprise that partisans on both sides of the debate over the nation's only federal voucher program will seize on the mixed bag of findings to buttress their political points of view. We had hoped that Mr. Duncan, who prides himself in being a pragmatist interested in programs that work, would have a more open mind. For one thing, this report -- while carefully calibrated as a scientific study -- has limitations in that it does not compare the performance of students who use vouchers to attend private schools against the performance of students in the city's public and charter schools. Instead, it compares students who were "offered" scholarships against those who weren't. It makes sense to want to do further study before rendering a verdict on the efficacy of vouchers. 

So it's perplexing that Mr. Duncan, without any further discussion or analysis, would be so quick to kill a program that is supported by local officials and that has proven popular with parents. Unless, of course, politics enters the calculation in the form of Democratic allies in Congress who have been shameless in their efforts to kill vouchers. Most recently, they inserted language in the omnibus budget bill that cuts off funding after the next school year unless Congress and the District government reauthorize the program. 

We've made no secret of our support for vouchers. They are no substitute for serious public school reform, but they give low-income, mostly minority, parents what wealthier people take for granted: a choice in where their children go to school. Still, we agree that the program should be judged on its merits. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, under the leadership of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine), has scheduled hearings for May. Mr. Duncan might want to watch. 

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