If you read Alan Borsuk’s accounts in the Journal Sentinel of the release of the new school choice longitudinal study, you may think that only those who support the choice program attended the Public Policy Forum’s event on March 26.
But you’d be wrong.
While Borsuk only quoted those who support vouchers—such as Howard Fuller, Cory Nettles, MMAC's Tim Sheehy and Susan Mitchell—two panelists spoke at length about why they felt the study was inadequate, and how we can create a different dialog about Milwaukee's schools.
The study—which didn’t release performance data for individual voucher schools—showed that there isn’t a whole lot of difference in the test scores of students who attend MPS and voucher schools. It showed that changing schools has a very adverse effect on student achievement, something that we’ve known all along. And it failed to confirm a theory that school choice would positively impact home prices in Milwaukee.
But two panelists spoke about why the study, conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project of the University of Arkansas, had serious flaws. Borsuk ignored their comments.
Deb Lindsey, director of research and assessment at MPS, told the crowd the following:
“It was not surprising, to me, to hear the finding that committed educators serving Milwaukee’s schoolchildren are getting comparable results. The educators are facing common challenges. So it’s not surprising that they’re getting similar results.
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“I think it also tells us some of what we already knew. That kids in Milwaukee, particularly kids in poverty, are underachieving. And, not surprisingly, kids who are more mobile gain less and potentially even lose academic growth over time. …
“My first take on the report was really kind of the in the spirit of those old Highlights magazine that you may remember back when you were a kid waiting in a dentist’s office. What’s missing? What’s not here?
“The first thing that occurred to me was there isn’t information in the reports about the participation rate in the assessments, whether or not all of the students in the school participated. If you exclude the performance of kids who don’t come very often and there aren’t rigorous efforts to make sure that kids take the tests later, that may lead to misleading results.
“Second, I didn’t see information on the proportion of students within schools with disabilities. Students with disabilities learn at very different rates. Disability matters very much. What I don’t see are controls for student disability status in these models. And I didn’t see controls for English language-learner status.”
Dennis Oulahan, president, Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, had this to say:
“The forum and the report implied that the pressure on MPS from voucher schools is rising all boats and MPS is doing better because of that pressure. I would argue with that. There are programs within Milwaukee Public Schools, there is hard work being done in the schools that have resulted in some gains in achievement. One example is that the superintendent announced last Saturday that the preliminary scores coming out on the WKCE indicate that every grade level has made gains in math. I attribute that to the Milwaukee Math Partnership, not the pressure from the voucher schools.
“It’s really kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t position for us. We’re told we had to have voucher schools because the public schools were so bad. And now as we do better it’s because of the pressure from the voucher schools.
“Many of these arguments are arguments about style. We avoid the conversation about substance about what’s happening in our schools. To me it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make a big difference, if it’s a private school or a public school. If you’re doing the same thing you’re going to get the same results. I think the studies bear that out. Paying less to get the same results? That’s not what we’re looking for. What we’re looking for is what we can do to get better results. More efficiently if we can. But it always has to be what we can do differently to get the results that we need. The children in this city deserve no less.”
