VOUCHERS: NO SOLUTION TO EDUCATING THE POOR

by
David Berliner, Walter Farrell, Luis Huerta, and Roslyn Mickelson

Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PO Box 413
Milwaukee WI 53201
414-229-2716

February 22, 2001

CERAI-00-37a

Arizona Republic
Arizona ( AR ) - Thursday, February 22, 2001.

President Bush hasdisingenuously offered about $1,500 for thechildren of poor single mothers toescape the failing schools their children attend. But even heavily subsidizedreligious schools charge around $3,000 per year, and the better non-sectarian privateschools cost $10,000 and more.

The $1,500 buys nothing forpoor people -- those whom the president says he wants to help. Poor people,even with the president's voucher, lack themoney to send their children toprivate schools. But the president seems determined to get Congress to supportthis meaningless voucher program, perhaps to pave the way for full-scalestatewide voucher programs later. Bush is joined in this goal by stateSuperintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham Keegan and Congressman JeffFlake.

Vouchers are not likely toimprove poor children's education. Differences between poor and middle- classstudents are evident on the first day of school. These achievement differencescannot be the product of failing public schools in which poor students are"trapped," or due to the "soft racism of low expectations,"as voucher advocates charge.

They have many causes:lower educational attainment of parents in poverty, the restricted access thesechildren have to proper nutrition, health care, day care and educationalresources in pre-school years. Those differences are exacerbated when thesechildren are concentrated in deteriorating schools that lack resources andamenities found in wealthier communities.

Even if we did concludethat vouchers for poor children resulted in positive effects, should we thengeneralize the findings from a few small studies to promote a large-scalevoucher program? Will vouchers for millions of students at a cost of billionsof tax dollars improve schools?Research on this issue says "no."

Voucher experiments havebeen completed in Chile and New Zealand. In neither nation did low-incomestudents end up better off. Voucher programs reinforced segregation andinequality between poor students and middle-class students.

As might be suspected,private schools competing in the free market employed screening procedures thatkept out those who were the most challenging to teach -- the academically weak,the disabled, and the poor. As many predicted, the middle and affluent classesprofited from vouchers and the disadvantaged classes suffered.

Indeed, when privateschools do have beneficial effects, they can almost always be attributable toinvolvement of parents, smaller school and class sizes, and powerful peereffects. The peer effect is the positive influence of achievement-orientedstudents on the school, after those who will not or cannot achieve have beendumped from the school.

There will never be enoughroom, or enough desire, to accommodate all the poor students in the fewexcellent private schools that exist. Inevitably, most students who choose toleave public schools will end up in second-rate proprietary schools. Sovouchers for low- income students cannot be expected to benefit their overallachievement, but vouchers would inevitably segregate poor students frommiddle-class and more affluent students.

When a police force becomescorrupt, brutal, and unresponsive to civilian complaints, no one seriouslysuggests granting vouchers to private citizens to purchase private protection.Instead, political leaders recommend police department reforms and investresources to make communities safer.

So it should be with publicschools. We should fix them, but not with a system known to have failedelsewhere. Furthermore, voucher money subsidizes private schools that are oftensupported by families who do not want their children to mix with those whodiffer from them.

Vouchers only add anothermeans to segregate our citizens.

Those who offer vouchers asthe solution to the low academic achievement of poor students ignore thecomplexity of what contributes to student achievement, and they turn theirbacks on the goal of building a more democratic society.

Instead of subsidizingprivate schools and further fragmenting society, the world's richest nationmight consider ways to improve low-income communities. We could invest injob-training, public transportation,quality day care for working families,after-school and Saturday programs, and community youth groups to teach adolescentspro-social behavior, to name just a few.

Improving the quality inurban schools means improving the quality of life in urban neighborhoods.That's a job that vouchers can't do, and one that would make vouchersunnecessary. The president can help our nation more by worrying about poorneighborhoods than by trying to impose a voucher system likely to fracture oursociety even more.