Two weeks ago, I wrote about the pending lawsuit over Louisiana’s voucher program. As some predicted, yesterday the lawsuit was dropped. However, the Obama Administration has called for a federal review of the program. It is likely this case will fade out of the conversation, but the battle over vouchers, and school choice more generally, is not over.
Here is a news piece with more information.
For those who have not been following this lawsuit, the federal government is claiming students in Louisiana are being racially segregated because of the state’s voucher system. What appears to be happening in the lead-up to the actual hearing (later this month) is a lot of political maneuvering to shape the conversation. In addition to a debate over whether or not segregation is occurring, both camps are using the attention to debate whether or not voucher systems (and private schools, generally) are beneficial. It is out of the scope of this post to discuss the merits of private education and vouchers.
However, I think a conversation about school choice, and the potential segregation that occurs as a result, is worth bringing up. As with many perceived problems in education research the answers depend on who you ask, what the specific question you ask is, and where you look for answers. The case for integration is no different.
Syracuse’s own MPA professor Bifulco finds integration to be endemic to voucher programs in North Carolina. Many people, and the Department of Justice, are claiming the same effects are happening in Louisiana. Is this a horrifying problem that must be addressed and changed immediately? I am not so sure, and here is why.
Children and parents are voluntarily choosing the schools to attend. This is not just a case of white parents taking their kids out of schools because they don’t like the racial composition (a problem many believe to be larger than it is). The families who are using the vouchers, those exercising choice, are predominantly minorities. In many places where voucher programs are set up, those eligible to use them are students from poor families and students attending failing schools; this means the students are heavily skewed toward non-white. Indeed, those who are “suffering” from segregation are minorities voluntarily segregating themselves. I’m not saying this cannot still be considered a problem, or that measures should not be taken to rectify the situation. I’m merely pointing out that the issue is probably not as sinister as the DOJ may have us believe.
Moreover, this lawsuit appears politically motivated. No schools are the same. Never, in the history of public education, have schools been the same. The control of schools at the local level has always resulted in providing unequal education to students. It is no secret that rich towns have better schools than inner cities. And these “rich” schools rarely have the same racial composition as “poor” schools. It is not a school, district, or state policy to racially segregate students, but it happens. Why isn’t the DOJ and the Obama Administration going after the hundreds of neighboring cities with racial and economic disparities for lack of integration? Probably because the schools aren’t part of a ‘school choice’ system. This difference in income and racial composition between schools is only more extreme when comparing public vs. private schools. Fairlie finds racial sorting to be very high in this case. Why isn’t the DOJ calling for an end to private schooling? Probably because they know the American public would not allow such a removal of freedom of choice.
In my opinion, Democrats generally protest school choice for a whole host of valid, political reasons (as numerous as the valid reasons for supporting school choice). But in this case and many others, using loaded words and ideas like segregation and racism are tactics which are used to mislead the public. If they really cared about the racial composition of schools, they would have MUCH bigger fish to fry than vouchers. It just so happens that their current ‘fish’ pisses off a lot of their core voters, teachers.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, a reputable news source located in Washington, D.C. has removed an article from their website in the past few days; This severely harms the blog post I prepared in response. Despite their removal of the post in question, I wish to discuss the topic. As a substitute, I quickly tracked down a Fox News blurb that gives a similar impression of the topic.
The general idea is as follows: For a variety of reasons, parents and schools are opting out of standardized tests. Parents don’t want their kids to take the tests, and schools are not stopping this from happening.
Some of the reasons parents may do this:
-Prevent child’s stress induced by taking long exams.
-Boycott a system which they believe harms the school system.
-This can be either concerns raised about narrowing curricula, or
-General negative attitudes toward standards-based policies which utilize test results.
-Among other reasons; we could probably identify a host of viable rationale.
Whatever the reasons, this revolt against standardized testing has serious consequences. Here are a few things I suggest thinking about as a response to this ‘news’:
-Do you find the reasons for boycotting valid?
-Is it to protect the children from some harm inherent in the testing administration?
-Can this be interpreted as a new form of school choice?
-Is it a political action where parents are simply using their children as weapons?
My largest concern is from a scientific perspective.
-If some kids are not taking the test because parents are voluntarily opting them out, what are the implications for the validity of the results?
-Is it likely that kids with parents who opt out represent a specific subgroup of the population, thus making any results obtained invalid?
-Will their absence from observation impact the integrity of the test results and, by extension, policies based upon the conclusions drawn from them?