The Voucher School District

This week, Education Committees in the House and Senate will consider a number of bills creating school vouchers in Tennessee. Proponents are pushing the bills even as growing evidence suggests vouchers fail kids.

So, what would happen if Tennessee started a voucher program, even a small-scale one, this year?

One state with a record on this is Indiana. Vouchers started there back in 2011 in a relatively small program with fairly strict eligibility requirements. At the time the vouchers were created, then-Governor Mitch Daniels said:

Back in 2011, Daniels spoke to a conservative think tank a few months after he signed the program into law. At that speech, he said he didn’t expect this to become a big problem.

“It is not likely to be a very large phenomenon in Indiana,” he said “I think it will be exercised by a meaningful but not an enormous number of our students.”

Initially, vouchers were only to serve some 7500 students.

Fast forward five years, and the program has expanded exponentially, serving more than 30,000 students — 3 percent of the state’s student population.

The qualifications have changed, too. Now, a student doesn’t even have to have attended a public school to qualify for a voucher. Reports suggest this provision means Indiana is spending some $54 million supporting private schools — money that would not have been spent without the voucher program:

A report on the program released by the Department of Education shows the program costs $54 million.

“If the idea behind a voucher program is we’re going to have the money follow the student, if the student didn’t start in a public school, the money isn’t following them from a public school, it’s just appearing from another budget,” [Researcher Molly] Stewart said. “And we’re not exactly sure where that’s coming from.”

Vouchers, then, create $54 million in new expenditures — an education funding deficit — in Indiana.

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To put that state’s program growth into perspective, 3 percent of Tennessee’s student population would be 29,936. The Tennessee voucher district would be the 8th largest district in the state, just larger than Sumner County and slightly smaller than Montgomery County. And, if our experience is at all like Indiana’s, about half of those students will never have attended a public school.

Nearly 15,000 students who never attended public school suddenly receiving vouchers would mean a state cost of $98 million. That’s $98 million in new money. Of course, those funds would either be new money (which is not currently contemplated) or would take from the state’s BEP allocations in the districts where the students receive the vouchers.

Let’s look at Davidson County as an example. If three percent of the student population there took vouchers, and half of those were students who had never attended a public school, the loss to the district would be a minimum of $8.4 million.

This means local governments would be stuck picking up the tab to support private schools. The alternative would be a dedicated state fund to support the voucher school district. That’s a total cost of around $200 million, half of that new money.

Should taxpayers be asked to invest $100 million in a program that gets negative results? Studies in Indiana, Ohio, and Louisiana all indicate that vouchers have a negative impact on student academic outcomes.

Kevin Carey noted recently that even a study by the Fordham Institute showed negative results for vouchers:

In June, a third voucher study was released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank and proponent of school choice. The study, which was financed by the pro-voucher Walton Family Foundation, focused on a large voucher program in Ohio. “Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools,” the researchers found. Once again, results were worse in math.

This week, we may hear that any new voucher program will start small and will only serve a fraction of our state’s students. Even if that’s true, the cost to taxpayers at the state and local level will be significant. Then, there’s the fact that studies are emerging showing vouchers just don’t work. Why spend more to get less?

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport


 

Nashville’s Not Alone

The involvement of Project Renaissance/Nashville RISE in this year’s MNPS school board races has been the source of a bit of controversy, from promoting (then deleting) an event with Stand for Children to a Phil Williams story raising questions about the source of funding and lack of disclosure.

A group of incumbent board members have said they won’t attend the upcoming forum and Zack Barnes on this blog asks questions about that decision.

This all may seem a bit much over a group that bills itself as a grassroots collection of parents dedicated to improving school quality.

Of course, Nashville has seen what an organic grassroots schools movement looks like. Just look at East Nashville United as one example.

There’s something a little different about Renaissance/RISE and it merits further examination.

As the Phil Williams story points out, Nashville RISE is incredibly well-funded, backed by money from philanthropic interests and by supporters of the charter school movement. Also backed by some donors who don’t want their identities revealed.

But there’s more. Project Renaissance/Nashville RISE is part of a national network of groups known as Education Cities.

Here again, the mission sounds pretty nice:

Our members are nonprofit organizations that create and coordinate ecosystems that foster the growth of high-quality public schools in their respective cities. Together, our members are improving opportunities for millions of children and their families. To find out more about our members, please click on the map or list below.

But, it’s difficult to find a true “success” story among the so-called “Education Cities.”

A closer look at two cities with Education Cities member organizations that have impacted education policy reveals a need for caution.

First, a look at Minneapolis and a group called MN Comeback. Sarah Lahm reports on this group:

In Minneapolis, MN Comeback has been meeting privately for at least a few years, and busily concocting a vague but “doable” plan to “remake our entire city’s education system.” This plan centers on the creation of 30,000 “rigorous and relevant seats” across the city, in “sector agnostic” settings, meaning they don’t care where these seats are–charter, private or traditional public school–as long as they are “high performing.”

This may all sound quite familiar, in that the rhetoric of Renaissance/RISE and Nashville’s charter sector is consistently focused on quality “seats” rather than the children who occupy those seats.

Further, Lahm notes:

Clearly, the privately managed, privately funded MN Comeback–which bears no responsibility to the “seats” it hopes to serve–has had its hands in the Minneapolis schools for some time. And their range is focused: the CPS model is one of only three things being “supported” by MN Comeback, according to the Education Cities website. The other two are MinnCAN, whose flush, reformy thumbprints are all over every MN Comeback policy “team,” and the IFF, a Chicago-based nonprofit that specializes in real estate consulting for “low-income communities.”

Next, let’s turn to Indianapolis, where their version of Renaissance/RISE is called The Mind Trust. You guessed it, The Mind Trust is also an Education Cities member. Also, Project Renaissance lists Ken Bubp as a Board Member and notes his role as Vice President of The Mind Trust.

What you are about to read may sound eerily familiar, as current MNPS board member Amy Frogge recently raised concerns about the high cost of school board races in Nashville.

Regarding the education scene in Indianapolis, Justin Miller reports for the American Prospect:

At the epicenter of the city’s reform push was the Mind Trust, a local education-reform group that promotes more school choice, autonomy, and charter partnerships. To do those things, the district needed a friendly superintendent and a sympathetic school board. The Mind Trust helped bring in DFER, the advocacy group Stand For Children, and the network of political money that came with them.

Sound familiar?

Miller continues, noting how Mind Trust-friendly groups and donors helped dramatically increase the cost of School Board races in Indy:

By the end, Cosby had raked in a total of nearly $80,000. Two other reform candidates were elected with more than $60,000 in support, including $10,000 checks from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The purchase of the Indianapolis School Board by outside groups continued, as Miller notes:

In her campaign to oust Roof, who had been elected board president, from Roof’s at-large seat, Sullivan (the reform candidate) raised more than $70,000, inundating the city with mailers, phone-banking, and paid media. She trounced Roof by more than 25 percentage points.

Miller suggests that what happened in Indianapolis is part of a broader, national effort supported by the likes of the Broad and Walton Foundations.

And here’s something interesting about all that: The funders of Education Cities include The Broad Foundation, the Walton Foundation, and The Gates Foundation — the Big Three in corporate education reform.

Perhaps more interesting is the group of partners, including the pro-voucher Fordham Institute.

All of the above are big players in the drive to remake American public schools, though it is difficult for that group to point to a true “Education City” success story.

What is clear is Renaissance/RISE is following a playbook developed by outside interests. Looking to Minneapolis or Indianapolis can help us see where that playbook may lead Nashville.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport