National Center for Policy Analysis

MONTH IN REVIEW

Education
August,1996

TEACHERS' UNION STONEWALLS CHARTER SCHOOLS

In a recent statement on charter schools, the American Federation of Teachers seemed to be saying that schools exist to serve teachers' pay and pension interests. The statement also revealed a strategy for resisting establishment of charter schools by throwing up roadblocks and barriers.

Among other recommendations, the union wants to:

Allow collective bargaining rights and make charter schools responsible for retirement and health costs to the same extent as other public schools.
Require the approval of local school districts for charter schools within their boundaries.

Charter schools represent a popular educational reform effort that allows teachers and parents to run their own schools.

They are independent and operate without many of the restraints of local public schools.
However, a charter can be revoked if the school fails to meet the goals outlined.

The Hudson Institute is scheduled to release a report this week that supports separating charter school proposals from strict union contracts and allowing noncertified people to teach in the schools.
The Hudson Institute would:

Allow any individual, group or organization to submit a charter school proposal.
Allow private schools to convert to charter status.
Keep charter restrictions and regulations to minimum health, safety and nondescrimination provisions; and automatically exempt charter schools from other state and local laws and regulations.
Define charter school accountability as a triad consisting of standards, assessments and consequences.

Source: Tamara Henry, "Differing Philosophies on Running Charter Schools," USA Today, August 5, 1996.

ACCESS TO EDUCATION AIDS INCOME MOBILITY

Parents' educational background doesn't have much to do with whether Americans attend college, according to studies by the Department of Education during the 1980s and 1990s.

Almost 40 percent of the children of high school graduates receive a degree from a two-year or four-year college within 10 years of leaving high school.
Surprisingly, more than 50 percent of the children of college graduates don't receive a bachelor's degree.
As a result, the child of a college graduate will, on average, have only 1.5 years more education than the child of a high school graduate.

By the third generation, differences in the first generation's level of education disappear -- about the same rate at which initial differences in income are equalized. Historically, differences in literacy rates between mostly literate immigrants to the United States from England and Scandinavia and the much less literate Italian and Portuguese had mostly disappeared by the third generation, according to economist George Borjas of Harvard University.

While there is evidence that more lower-income students are obtaining at least some higher education, a high percentage of children of college-educated parents don't.

About 45 percent of low-income high school graduates now enroll in higher education after graduation, up from only 32 percent in the early 1980s.
On the other hand, a survey of students entering college in the 1989-1990 school year found that only 41 percent of those with college-educated parents had received a bachelor's degree after five years.
About 24 percent of them had no degree and were no longer enrolled, while the others were either still enrolled or had a two-year degree.

The returns to education in the form of income are well documented. For instance, workers gain 4 percent to 6 percent in income for every year of college, even if they never graduate. Thus educational mobility is linked to income mobility.

Source: Michael J. Mandel, "The Great Equalizer," Business Week, July 22, 1996.

VOUCHER SCHOOLS "GET RESULTS"

Elementary school pupils in Milwaukee who participated in the nation's first school voucher program scored higher in reading and math than students who stayed in public schools, according to a new study.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Houston compared the progress of 1,034 students using vouchers in the first four years of the program with 407 low-income students who applied, but were turned down for lack of space.

Voucher students in their third year scored an average of 3 percentage points higher on standardized reading tests and 5 points higher on math tests.
During their fourth year, the voucher students scored 11 percentage points higher on math and nearly 5 points higher in reading.
However, two years into the voucher program there had been no significant differences in scores between the two groups of youngsters.
The researchers conclude that while progress cannot be demonstrated overnight, voucher schools can and do eventually vindicate the confidence their supporters had in them originally.

In 1990, Milwaukee became the first city in the nation to provide tax-free tuition vouchers -- worth $3,600 last year -- for low-income children to attend private, secular schools. Ninety-seven percent of the students were black or Hispanic. In 1995, the Wisconsin legislature approved Gov. Tommy G. Thompson's expansion of the voucher program to include religious schools.

Thompson's plan to expand the program was put on hold by the state's Supreme Court until its constitutionality can be determined. A hearing is scheduled on the case this week.

Source: Associated Press, "Study Shows Voucher Pupils Thriving in Private Schools," New York Times, August 13, 1996.

For complete information on vouchers, school choice and charter schools, visit the NCPA Education page at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

TEACHERS UNIONS RELYING ON FLAWED DATA TO FIGHT CHOICE

Milwaukee's pioneer voucher schools are registering impressive gains in student test scores vis-a-vis their public school counterparts, according to new research.

The most recent study, conducted by Harvard University and University of Houston researchers, supersedes an earlier study by John Witte of the University of Wisconsin that found voucher students' performance was not significantly better than that of public school students after two years.
The new study examined students' test scores over a four-year period. It shows significantly higher reading and math test scores among the voucher school students. The authors of the study charge that the Witte research was "so methodologically flawed as to be worthless."

Yet teachers unions -- fierce opponents of privatizing elementary education -- are reportedly using the Witte study to convince a Wisconsin court to issue an injunction to stop the city from expanding its 1990 pilot voucher program.

Researchers say Witte's study is flawed because it used inappropriate comparisons between low-income, minority students in the school choice program and a much less disadvantaged cross-section of public school students for the control group.

Ninety-seven percent of school choice students in the Witte study were black or Hispanic, versus only 60 percent of the comparison group.
Choice parents reported family incomes of only $11,330 on average, compared with $20,040 for all Milwaukee public school families.
Fifty-eight percent of choice students' mothers were on welfare, compared with 40 percent of mothers in the comparison group.

The Witte study has been used repeatedly in Wisconsin and in Congress to claim that choice schools are not outperforming public schools.

Critics say the Witte study is not just bad science -- it is actually harmful to underprivileged children who most need the superior educational opportunities vouchers would provide.

Source: Jay P. Greene (University of Houston) and Paul E. Peterson (Harvard University), "School Choice Data Rescued from Bad Science," Wall Street Journal, August 14, 1996.

For more information on School Choice, visit the NCPA Education page at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

CHICAGO MAYOR DIRECTED TO FIX PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Faced with the mess of Chicago's public schools, the Illinois legislature last year gave the city's mayor, Richard M. Daley, sweeping managerial control over the public schools, their unions and their $3 billion budget. It gave him until 1999 to fix the district's problems.

In 1992, the Council of Great City Schools ranked Chicago lowest in student achievement among the country's 47 largest school districts.
It also ranked Chicago near the bottom in attendance and graduation rates.
The dropout rate exceeds 65 percent in some schools and more than half of high school graduates read only at a grade school level.

The new law reorganized management along corporate lines, gave the mayor permission to privatize any function he chooses, gave the city far more control over school finances and barred teachers from striking until the end of 1996. It also removed from teachers' contracts restrictive work rules governing such things as class sizes and schedules.

The mayor's new management team is reported to have found an administrative nightmare when it took over the system from the professional educators -- with no information on how people were being paid or when, how many teaching jobs were vacant, which schools were overcrowded and no plans for repairing the city's many old schools.

The mayor's team abolished 1,700 non-teaching staff positions and presented a five-year, $806 million plan to renovate every school.
lThe 17 unions in charge of school repairs were dismissed and the reform board and principals were given authority to contract with outside firms.
The mayor is reported to have "terrified (the custodians's union) into compliance" and obtained promises of greater accountability in the future.
The reform team is urging failing schools to adopt strict, phonics-based teaching -- amid resistance from some teachers and groups.

School officials say they will be putting some schools on probation when the results of state achievement tests come out. That would allow the central board's Accountability Office to send in a team that effectively takes over the school -- firing the principal and other staff if they deem it necessary.

Source: Julia Vitullo-Martin (The New Democrat), "Mayor Daley's Plan to Fix Chicago Schools," Wall Street Journal, August 19, 1996.

For more information on education visit the NCPA at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

SCHOOL CHOICE WOULD BREAK UNION'S EDUCATION MONOPOLY

What are American taxpayers getting for all those dollars spent on public education? Not nearly enough, according to education analysts.

By one measure, the productivity of public school employees today is about one-half what it was in 1950 -- while overall output per worker in America has about tripled.
American school children are registering disappointing scores on standardized reading, math and geography tests -- despite billions spent on increasing teachers' salaries.
In 1950, there were 1.55 non-teaching employees for each 100 students attending public schools -- compared to 5.28 by 1993.

Public schools are essentially government monopolies, shielded from the need to innovate in order to compete and from the forces of supply and demand. Privatizing schools -- through use of publicly funded vouchers that parents could use to send their children to the competing private school of their choice -- represents the single most encouraging reform on the horizon, according to many educators.

Average per pupil costs of private schools in America are markedly lower than those for public schools and most evidence demonstrates higher performance levels in private institutions.
Private school teachers earn about one-third less than their public school counterparts, but report they are more satisfied with their jobs and their students' performances.
Thus since 1991, private school enrollments have risen faster than those of public schools.
Public school teachers in big cities disproportionately send their own children to private schools.

Despite all the evidence, privatization of education has moved forward at a snail's pace, educators note, because of the political stranglehold of teachers' unions, the national PTA, school boards and administrative organizations, as well as some colleges of education. In fact, observers say, the best represented group among delegates to the Democratic National Convention is typically the National Education Association.

Source: Richard Vedder (Center for the Study of American Business), "School Vouchers to the Rescue...or to the Ruin?" Washington Times, August 18, 1996.

For more information on education visit the NCPA at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

COURT-ORDERED SCHOOL BUSING A FAILED POLICY

There is evidence that federal courts are realizing that the 25-year-old policy of busing to achieve racial balance in schools has not worked as a means for ending segregation or improving the academic performance of minority students. And many school leaders in the 800 school districts under federal desegregation orders are getting tired of it, too. They cite the huge costs involved, which must be paid for from money that might otherwise go to improving academic standards.

In Prince George's County, Md. -- a 70 percent black majority area -- the school board recently voted unanimously to ask a federal judge to lift a busing mandate.
A federal judge last month announced a full-scale review of desegregation efforts in the county.
In the 1990s, the U.S. supreme court has exempted school districts in Oklahoma City, Ok; DeKalb County, Ga; and Kansas City, Mo. from further participation in forced-integration plans.
Federal courts have also released schools in Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas; Columbus and Savannah, Ga.; Denver, Co.; and Wilmington, De.
An experiment in Kansas City to lure white suburban students to magnet schools in-town proved to be a $1.5 billion, 10-year failure.

On average, busing costs $300 to $400 per pupil per year and the evidence suggests it has not helped black pupils.

In Kansas City, black students in magnet schools have performed no better than black students in neighborhood schools.
After San Francisco spent more than $200 million since 1982 to comply with a desegregation court order, black and Hispanic students schools were found to lack "even modest overall improvement."
A 1983 report issued by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute of Education could not find a single study showing black children fared appreciably better following a switch to integrated schools.

But while districts and federal courts are moving away from court-ordered busing, some state courts -- acting on precedent -- may be moving toward busing.

Source: Carl Horowitz, "An End to Court-Ordered Busing?" Investor's Business Daily, August 20, 1996.

For more information on public school performance go to http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

PRIVATE SCHOOLS SERVE SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

Private schools offer a breathtaking array of specialized services for youngsters with disabilities and other special needs, disproving teachers' unions charges that they accept only the best students. Schools have been established to cater to teen mothers, recovering alcoholics, chronic truants and the learning impaired.

More than 3,000 private schools across the country enroll nearly 100,000 children with disabilities.
In Minnesota, for example, students recovering from drug and alcohol abuse may attend Sobriety High School near Minneapolis -- one of 19 private high schools in the state that last year helped 1,200 at-risk students get a second chance.
Sobriety High costs taxpayers $3,500 annually per student -- about half what Minnesota spends on a public school student.

Such schools save money by operating with fewer regulations, have greater leeway in staffing and curriculum and are rarely bound by collective bargaining agreements.

The High Road School in New Jersey focuses on children with emotional and learning disabilities.

School administrators explain that students come to High Road after failing academically and socially in public schools.
Public schools often place unruly students in the private schools when they disrupt classrooms and interfere with the learning of other students.

In addition to learning disabilities, private-sector schools serve children suffering from mental retardation, visual impairments, chronic illnesses and other disabilities.

Schools like Sobriety High and High Road belie the myth that the public schools are a dumping ground and that private schools take only the academically gifted, according to educators. What remains to be seen, they say, is whether the education establishment will continue to block efforts to afford others that opportunity.

Source: Janet R. Beales (Reason Foundation), "Educating the Uneducatable," Wall Street Journal, August 21, 1996.

For more information on education visit the NCPA at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS AND THE BABY BOOM "ECHO"

A record number of pupils will be enrolling in America's schools this fall, according to the Department of Education.

Some 51.7 million children will enter classrooms this year, compared to the previous record high of 51.3 million set in 1971.
The department predicts that new records will be set in each of the next 10 years.
It also predicts a need for 6,000 new schools and 190,000 new teachers -- at a cost of an extra $15 billion nationwide.

Demographers point to several reasons for the influx.

An increase in children born to baby boomers, who delayed marriage and childbearing compared to their parents' generation.
Increased immigration and higher birthrates among blacks and Hispanics.
More children enrolling in kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, as well as more students staying in school until they earn their diplomas.

School enrollments began to rise 10 years ago and are expected to peak in 2006 at 54.6 million children -- nearly 3 million more than today.

The largest school population increases will occur in the West and Southeast, with the North and Midwest remaining relatively stable.
High school enrollments will increase 15 percent nationwide -- and 30 percent in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Maryland.

Source: Rochelle Sharp, "Record School Enrollments Lie Ahead," Wall Street Journal, August 22, 1996.

For more information on education visit the NCPA at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

PARENTS LOVE CHARTER SCHOOLS, UNIONS DON'T

The fledgling charter school movement is fulfilling its promise as far as parents are concerned. But they are being fought every step of the way by teachers unions, according to new research.

A study of 43 charter schools in seven states by Chester E. Finn, Jr., of the Hudson Institute and two of his colleagues concluded that they may be "the most vibrant force in American education."

Existing public schools or new schools set up by districts or independent groups obtain charters, usually issued by the state or local school boards, to educate children free from the usual public school bureaucracy. The charters typically are granted for five years, to be renewed if the school has reached its performance goals.

Public authorities retain final say over the schools, which are financed by state and local taxes, are tuition-free and open to all who wish to enroll.

To date, 25 states have authorized charter schools and some 350 are in operation this school year -- and nearly all have waiting lists.
The researchers found that the best of the schools have near total independence to decide what and how to teach, whom to hire and how to use their resources, what hours to operate and how best to meet students' needs.
In the sample, 10 percent of teachers came from private and home schools and 12 percent from outside conventional teaching ranks -- including people with doctorates and university experience.
Among the 8,400 youngsters in the sample, 63 percent were members of minority groups, 55 percent were poor, 19 percent had limited English proficiency and 19 percent had disabilities that affected their education.

It was found that charter schools are fulfilling parents' demands for safety, order, basic skills and dedicated teachers. So far, none has closed because it can't attract or keep students.

However, national teachers unions -- primarily the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers -- are balking. They have been criticized for attempting to place so many restrictions and conditions on the charter schools that they are clones of public schools: adhering to local collective-bargaining contracts, hiring only certified teachers and requiring approval by local school boards.

These conditions, say the experts, would cripple the four-year-old charter school movement.

Source: Chester E. Finn, Jr. (Hudson Institute), "Teachers Vs. Education," New York Times, August 24, 1996.

For more information on charter schools, visit NCPA's Education page at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

BLACK PARENTS TURNING TO RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

Educators say black parents are being drawn to private Christian academies in increasing numbers and for many reasons, including dissatisfaction with public schools, lower tuition compared to other independent schools and conservative social values.

Black private school enrollment is growing at a faster rate than overall private school enrollment, with the largest share of growth in the Christian school population, according to the National Center of Education Statistics.
The number of African-Americans attending conservative Christian schools nearly doubled from 1991 to 1994, rising from 36,710 (7 percent of the total population of students) to 71,399 (12 percent).

Some black parents are looking for the order, discipline and openly religious values taught in segregated black schools before federal court-ordered desegregation, says Emory University education professor Jacqueline J. Irvine.

Due to "white flight" from urban areas, and the perceived decline in government schools, some Christian schools that began with all-white enrollments in the early 1970s are nearly all black today -- from Old National Christian Academy outside Atlanta to the Inglewood Christian school in suburban Los Angeles.

Mt. Salus Academy in Clinton, Mississippi, was closed to blacks when it opened in 1969, but the number of black students has doubled in the past three years, to 10 percent of the 210 students this coming year.
Capitol Christian Academy, a formerly all-white fundamentalist school in Prince George's County, Maryland, is now 85 percent black.
In addition, more than 300 black churches and organizations have started schools in the last 10 years.

Some parents are attracted to religious schools by higher education standards. Average test scores at Christian schools show students at all grade levels are at least one year and eight months above national norms, according to Stanford Achievement Tests, which administers the national Scholastic Aptitude Tests.

Source: David J. Dent, "African-Americans Turning to Christian Academies," New York Times Magazine, August 4, 1996.

VOUCHER SCHOOLS BRINGING HOPE IN CLEVELAND

Some 2,000 Cleveland, Ohio, children from low-income households are entering private or parochial schools on tax-supported vouchers this fall. Parents say they expect their off-spring to learn much more than they would in public schools.

Tuition at the private schools averages $3,116 per pupil, versus an average cost of $6,857 at public schools.
The 2,000 were selected from among the more than 6,500 whose parents applied for the slots from kindergarten through grade three -- 27 percent of whom already attend private school.
Each participant gets $2,250 in tax-funded tuition vouchers to attend one of 48 private or parochial schools.

Supporters say criticism of the innovative voucher concept emanates largely from teachers' unions. A member of the Cleveland Teachers' Union faulted the schools for siphoning off from public schools "the motivated poor" and the fact that 65 public school teachers lost jobs due to lower public school enrollments.

Nationwide, many are said still to oppose voucher schools, although polls differ, surveys show the private school option is steadily gaining support.

A poll conducted for Phi Delta Kappa, a professional education group, reported that a majority of respondents rejects allowing parents to chose a private school at public expense -- 61 percent to 36 percent.
This was down, however, from last year's 65 percent opposed to 33 percent in favor; and considerably changed from 74 percent opposed to 24 percent in favor in 1993.
Another survey -- conducted by USA Today, CNN and the Gallup Poll -- found Americans favored vouchers by 54 percent to 42 percent.

Source: Tamara Henry, "Widening School Choices," and "Many Reject Using Taxes for Private Education," both USA Today, August 28, 1996.

For more information on vouchers and education, visit NCPA's education page at http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/pi/edu/edu3.html

LOWERING SCHOLASTIC TEST STANDARDS

A new policy involved in the College Board's Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) implies that the organization believes today's students can never match the scores of their parents and grandparents.

Last year, the Board announced that the average score on both the mathematical and verbal tests would be "recentered" -- meaning that the standards would be lowered. The latest SAT scores, announced last week, were the first to be graded on the new curve. After many years of insisting that the test was an "unchanging standard," the average score was recalculated to reflect the results of students who took the test in 1990 -- rather than by the standards of those who took the test in 1941.

Originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test when introduced in 1941, the average score was set at 500 on a scale of 200 to 800.
As a result of the recentering, a student receiving a 508 on the mathematics test this year would have received only a 484 in prior years.
Someone receiving 505 on the verbal test this year would have received just a 428 last year.
A score of 800 on the verbal test is no longer a mark of perfection -- it can be the equivalent of a less-than-perfect 730.

Students' scores have varied over the years, causing some specialists to speculate that the College Board abandoned its "unchanging standard" too soon.

Scores reached an all-time average high of 478 on the verbal portion of the test and 502 on the math portion in 1963 and 1964.
Then scores dropped steadily until 1980, when verbal scores leveled off at 424 and math scores at 466.
But by 1995, math scores had risen to an average of 482 -- with 21 percent of students scoring more than 600.
Verbal scores, however have not risen above 428 for 20 years.

Experts say that students are increasing their academic course load in every subject except English. If English teachers do not believe that grammar and proper syntax are important, neither will their students. So the new average, they say, validates mediocrity.

In 1977, a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by the College Board concluded that the decline in academic achievement among American students was the result, in part, of the increased ethnic diversity of the test takers, less homework, the proliferation of nonacademic courses and grade inflation.

Source: Diane Ravitch (New York University), "Defining Literacy Downward," New York Times, August 28, 1996.