Wisconsin Choice Schools Deliver Better Achievement for Less Money

Private schools and independent public charter schools are more productive than district public schools, according to a new report.

“The United States invests over $660 billion on K-12 education, or over $13,000 per student, each year,” according to report author Corey DeAngelis, who adds:

That is equal to over $169,000 for each child’s K-12 education. Interestingly, real education expenditures in the U.S. have nearly quadrupled in the last half century without consistent improvements in student outcomes...Because education dollars are scarce resources, and because students’ academic success is important for society, it’s vital to examine which education sector delivers the most “bang for the buck.”

DeAngelis compares the productivity of schools in cities throughout Wisconsin based on per-pupil funding and student achievement. The Badger State offers a rich field for study because it’s home to the country’s longest-running modern voucher program, launched in 1990, and its first charter school opened in 1994. Wisconsin’s four private-school parental choice programs currently enroll over 40,000 students combined, and more than 43,000 students are enrolled in charter schools.

Because of the competitive pressures public charter schools and private schools face, one would expect them to be more productive than district public schools, as DeAngelis explains:

Economists argue that traditional public schools hold significant monopoly power because of residential assignment and funding through property taxes...If a family is unhappy with the education services provided to their children in traditional public schools, they usually only have four options:

(1) pay for a private school out of pocket while still paying for the public school through taxes,

(2) move to a more expensive house that is assigned to a better public school,

(3) incur the costs associated with homeschooling while still paying for the public school through taxes, or

(4) complain to the residentially assigned public school and hope things get better.

Private school vouchers reduce the costs associated with option one by allowing families to use a fraction of their public education dollars to pay for private school tuition and fees. Independent charter school laws give families the option to attend privately run public schools regardless of the default public school assignment. Private and charter schools must cater to the needs of families if they wish to remain in business, so they have strong financial incentives to spend their scarce education dollars wisely. In other words, more power is in the hands of the consumers – families – in a system with school choice.

Compared to Wisconsin district public schools, private schools participating in parental choice programs receive 27 percent less per-pupil funding, and charter schools receive 22 percent less. Yet these schools get more bang for every education buck, according to DeAngelis:

I find that private schools produce 2.27 more points on the Accountability Report Card for every $1,000 invested than district-run public schools [across 26 cities], demonstrating a 36 percent cost-effectiveness advantage for private schools. Independent charter schools produce 3.02 more points on the Accountability Report Card for every $1,000 invested than district-run public schools [throughout Milwaukee and Racine], demonstrating a 54 percent cost-effectiveness advantage for independent charter schools.

These are important findings, particularly in light of Governor Tony Evers’ attempts to limit parental choice in education. This year he has proposed freezing the number of students who can enroll in Wisconsin’s three low-income voucher programs, phasing out the special-needs student voucher program, and banning the creation of new charter schools until 2023.

DeAngelis recommends instead that full education funding follow all students, regardless of what type of school their parents think is best for them, including charter and private schools. That would introduce powerful incentives for all schools to use funds wisely to attract and retain students. He also suggests giving public-school principals more autonomy over budgeting to improve spending efficiencies.

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UK: Down with the decolonisation movement

We’re at risk of treating black students as permanent historical victims

The University of Cambridge has launched a new research project. Nothing surprising there: this is what universities do. But this project is different. It is unlikely to result in any scientific breakthroughs or medical advances, because the primary focus of the research is the university itself. Academics will investigate Cambridge’s past relationship with slavery – specifically, how the university benefited financially from bequests and donations that originated in money made through the slave trade, and how scholarship conducted at Cambridge might have shaped the racial thinking that, at the time, provided a moral and intellectual justification for slavery. The project aims to acknowledge the institution’s past links to slavery and also address its modern impact.

Cambridge is not the only university reflecting on links to the slave trade. Last October, following a year-long investigation, the University of Glasgow declared it had, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, ‘received significant financial support’ from the profits of slavery. In response, it announced a programme of ‘reparative justice’ to include the creation of a centre for the study of slavery and the building of a memorial dedicated to those enslaved.

The University of Oxford is also examining its past sins. A plaque has been laid at All Souls College to commemorate slaves from plantations in Barbados. Profits from these plantations were donated to the college by a former student to cover the cost of building the library. Meanwhile, at St John’s College a new academic post has been created to investigate how the college helped create and maintain Britain’s empire. As well as exposing donations from sources and individuals now deemed morally dubious, the researcher will look into the ‘monuments, objects, pictures, buildings that evoke the colonial past’. Revealingly, in announcing the post, the college declared: ‘The drive to “decolonise the university” or, at any rate, to think through the implications of institutional involvement in the imperial projects of the past, is now a global business.’

We have known for well over a century that slavery was an inhumane, barbaric, murderous practice for which there is no conceivable justification. It has long been considered a stain on our national history. But it is only now that ‘decolonising’ makes business sense. Universities gain moral authority from confessing past sins and seeking public atonement. This moral authority brings with it positive media coverage, a continued supply of bright young students with their tuition fees, and a new round of donations from alumni keen to assuage their guilt by association. What’s more, these newly announced projects have far more in common with global business and charities than they do with academic research. They may be dressed up in the language of scholarship, but their goal is not an intellectual pursuit of truth.

In the past, some academics did indeed promote a supposedly scientific theory of racial difference and inequality that was used to justify slavery and more recent degrading and discriminatory practices. This research is morally repugnant to us now, but, perhaps more importantly, it has also been scientifically discredited. No scholar today could make reference to phrenology, for example, to argue that some groups of people are inherently criminal. Scholars in the past no doubt reflected and contributed to the prejudices of their day. Scholars today have not suddenly become immune to this tendency. The best retort is always for better, more rigorous scholarship that does not simply reproduce pre-determined politicised outcomes.

Knowledge of the past is important, but knowledge in and of itself does not dictate any one particular course of action in the present. Uncovering how institutions gained financially from slavery now often leads directly to demands for reparations. Most obviously we see calls for statues to be pulled down and for buildings to be renamed. There are also growing demands for universities to provide financial compensation for the descendants of slaves, today’s students of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Geoff Thompson, chair of governors of the University of East London, has argued that universities known to have benefitted from slavery should contribute to a £100million fund to support ethnic-minority students.

But the idea that funding students in the present atones for the institutional sins of the past raises more questions than answers. If compensation is thought appropriate, then why give it to students, particularly ones who have managed to make it to the most elite universities and who are well on their way to making a success of their lives? Why compensate the ancestors of slaves, but not relatives of other historical atrocities? What about today’s teenagers who may have lost a great grandfather in the Battle of the Somme or a distant relative in the Irish Potato Famine? Universities have no doubt received money from all manner of former students who went on to be ruthless industrialists, politicians or warmongers at home and abroad.

A fund for black and ethnic-minority students suggests that this group of people are uniquely burdened by a historical legacy that continues to impact upon them in the present. MP David Lammy tweeted his praise for the Cambridge project: ‘The wounds of that period still reverberate today. Contrition and atonement for a grievous wrong is the only way to face the future.’ But at what point do we assume that wounds have stopped reverberating and that people can take ownership of their own lives unburdened by the legacy of history? The risk here is that we rehabilitate a racist double standard in the name of promoting social justice.

Of course, we should know more about the history of slavery, and we should know more about the history of our universities. But the new research being promoted is less about the past than it is about the present. It is driven less by scholarship than by institutional politics and the demands of academic-activists. Afro-Caribbean students risk being exploited as a mechanism for members of today’s elite to expunge their feelings of guilt and self-loathing.

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Australia: UQ students loudly vote 'No' to Western history degree program

In a supreme example of irony, their lecturers have told them that the courses are "racist".  In fact it is they who are racist for discriminating against a study of white history

Almost 500 students crammed into every seat and aisle at the University of Queenland's under-threat Schonell Theatre to vote 'No' to the private humanities degree being offered to the university by the conservative Ramsay Centre.

They also voted loudly for students to retain ownership and management of the replacement theatre if the Schonell Theatre is demolished.

The UQ Senate last year proposed to demolish the theatre, build a new student union hub and add the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation degree to the university's program.

The two votes were taken at Wednesday night's general meeting of students, the first since the 1971 student protests against the touring Springboks rugby union team.

The meeting was called by the student union to gauge opinion on the "two big issues" involving UQ students, student union president Georgia Millroy said.

She said the strong vote gave the union a "very clear mandate" to negotiate with the university on both issues.

"A lot of students clearly felt quite strongly about these issues and when they come up in my discussions with the university, in the ensuing weeks and months, I will have a very clear mandate to represent what students think," she said.

Ms Millroy would meet with the UQ vice-chancellor in early June.

The debate needed 300 students as a quorum of the university's 53,000 students, of which almost 10,000 voted at the past student union election.

As the Schonell Theatre doors closed, 420 students were counted inside and another 30 students crammed in to the crowded theatre as the vote began.

"This shows that [some] students do actually care and do want to be involved," Ms Millroy said. "It shows students do value the power of a democratic vote."

The loudest response came as most students voted against the university administration continuing to negotiate with the Ramsay Centre.

About eight students voted in favour of the UQ Senate pursuing talks with the Ramsay Centre.

Before the vote, student union councillor Priya De described the Ramsay Centre's course as "racist" and its administration as belonging to the "go back to where you came from" arm of the Liberal Party. "They cannot stomach anyone in society – students in particular – challenging their white supremacism," Ms De said.

"These people are not academics, they are politicians," she said.

However, humanities student Kurt Tucker said the Ramsay Centre was offering $43 million to the University of Queensland to run its Western Civilisation degree course as part of UQ's humanities program.

Mr Tucker said the course offered about 100 student places, "in return for $43 million to be distributed across the humanities", he said.

Despite being described as a "right-wing heckler", Mr Tucker said the millions of dollars would employ lecturers to reduce humanities class sizes and allow some casual lecturers to be employed full-time.

"It would certainly alleviate some of the concerns that have been raised about the humanities."

Another supporter of the Ramsay Centre program said the university offered African studies and Indigenous studies and in the same way students should be offered the opportunity to study Western civilisation in one degree program.

"Why not? Are you scared some of your ideas are being challenged?" the student said.

However, a "proud" Torres Strait Islander student, who did not wish to be named, described the Ramsay Centre course as "abhorrent".

"He [the previous supporter of the program] forgot to mention genocide," he said. "He forgot to mention deaths in custody. He forgot to mention children stolen from their families."

"They aim to whitewash the black history of Australia," he said, as the large student crowd jumped to its feet and roared its support.

Earlier, three theatre and drama students spoke in favour of students keeping control of any new theatre being considered by the university because the UQ student union contributed at least $4 million to its construction. The Schonell is now largely leased as a live theatre venue for community groups.

One opera and voice student said her course was refused a practice room at the theatre. "We just don't have a proper rehearsal space to validate our degree," she said.

Student union representatives said they had to prioritise university clubs and societies in the practice space.

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