While Vermont Democrats are trying to eliminate choices for Vermont kids
by Rob Roper
Ten years ago, I took part in a series of debates on school choice opposite Paul Cillo of the Public Assets Institute and Bill Mathis of the National Education Policy Center and the Vermont State Board of Education. I was for school choice; they were opposed. At the time, Mathis used the then latest and second installment of the Stanford CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes) study on charter schools, which he called “the gold standard,” to argue school choice options led to statistically insignificant differences in student outcomes, and so we should not adopt them.
I countered that what CREDO II (2013) showed is that independent charter schools do at least as good a job as their public-school counterparts, but for significantly less money. If nothing else, better ROI for taxpayers! But even then, there was something else. Though the 2013 study did show negligible differences in outcomes overall, it also showed that certain subsets of students – Black, Hispanic, low income, and English language learners – performed better in charter schools than their peers in public schools.
Addressing such learning gaps long experienced by these categories of students in Vermont was, at the time, a primary problem we needed to focus on solving. (Unfortunately, it still is, though we have added more problems to the list.) Expanding school choice options would have been a solution benefiting these children without harming others.
But now that the 2023 CREDO III study is out, I can’t help but wonder if Bill Mathis is still touting it as “the gold standard,” because ten years later it shows conclusively that access to educational opportunities outside the traditional public schools (TPS) absolutely, undeniably lead to overall better student outcomes – especially for those afore-mentioned groups that have been traditionally underserved by the public school system.
Here are some highlights from the 160 page report:
The majority of charter schools provide better year-to-year outcomes for students compared to their traditional public-school options. Most of these schools perform better to such a degree that the difference is statistically significant. The results stand up to deeper investigation. Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent TPS. They move Black and Hispanic students and students in poverty ahead in their learning faster than if they enrolled in their local TPS. They are more successful than the local public school alternatives across most grade spans and community settings. These results show that charter schools use their flexibility to be responsive to the local needs of their communities. (p.13)
Moreover, the longer a student remained in a charter school, the better that student’s outcomes become. And, like the students, the longer a charter school exists the more it adapts and improves to provide better educational opportunities.
The research also eviscerates the false argument that independent charter schools either actively “cherry pick” or passively benefit from the self-selecting of more talented or better prepared students. As noted by CREDO, if the cherry-picking theory were correct, the students switching to charter schools would start out at a higher level of achievement than their TPS peers. “In multiple analyses, we do not see significant evidence of an undue advantage to charter schools. In fact, we find the opposite is true: charter schools enroll students who are disproportionately lower achieving than the students in their former TPS (p. 26).”
As for Black, Hispanic, low-income, and English language learners:
Perhaps the most revealing finding of our study is that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities for their students and moved their achievement ahead of their respective state’s average performance. We refer to these schools as “gap-busting” charter schools. They provide strong empirical proof that high-quality, high-equality education is possible anywhere. (p.12)
This should be inspiring stuff!
But these gold-standard findings come at a time when the Democrats and Progressives in the Vermont legislature are going all out to eliminate such choice-based opportunities for our kids where they exist, rather than strengthen and expand them. Multiple bills this past session were introduced to curb or eliminate funding for Vermont’s tuitioning system, which allows families in districts with no public school to choose the best public or independent school that meets their child’s needs with money following the child.
Although Vermont doesn’t have charter schools, our approved independent schools perform a similar function. They are independently operated but receive public funding on a per-student basis. Like charter schools they are more flexible in their abilities to define their mission, adopt and adapt curriculum, and hire and fire teachers. And because their students can withdraw – along with their money – if the school fails to perform, they are far more accountable to the customer for their results.
This combination of flexibility to adapt paired with incentives to perform is the dynamic behind the quick, vast improvement CREDO found in charter school outcomes over just the past decade. It is the dynamic we should be – need to be — building more into our publicly funded education system.
Why? Because over this same past decade, Vermont’s traditional public schools have seen the opposite results: steady decline in student outcomes with persistent and worsening learning gaps for low income and minority students. Behavioral problems and mental health issues are on the rise, as is the cost of the system as a whole. The system isn’t broken. The system doesn’t work. At least for a lot of students who deserve better.
So, the results are in. Giving students a variety of mission driven options to meet their educational needs provides better outcomes and greater equity for less money. Are there more improvements that need to be made? Always! But, as the research shows, those improvements will come faster outside the traditional public school model. All we need now is a majority of state representatives and senators willing to put children and taxpayers before the special interests desperately trying to hold onto their lucrative status as a state-run monopoly.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
Categories: Commentary, Education
Thank you for this article. Finally, something I can get behind!!
It was shocking for me to learn that Vermont is one of only four states that have not yet passed laws allowing public charter schools.
I am a bit confused by your closing statement, “… the special interests desperately trying to hold onto their lucrative status as a state-run monopoly.” My children went to school many years ago and way before charter schools were an option. Please enlighten me as to who these special interests are?
The primary special interest that reaps the benefits of the public-sector unionized public school system is the democrat party. The VTNEA functions largely as a conduit for public money, laundered through teacher salaries and contributed to the democrats to entice them to maintain this rotten system.
What an excellent report this is. It not only demonstrates the need to allow parents and students educational choices, it provides the working manual for how to do so.
So, the question is, why do our legislators enable such an unworkable and dystopian education system?
Answer: it’s all about the money and the special interest groups controlling it. Not just the teacher unions. But the entire State sponsored social network that stalks their prey at the great public education monopoly watering hole. Besides the teacher unions, it’s the Vermont School Board’s Association, the Superintendent’s Association, The Principal’s Association, not to mention a now bloated and dysfunctional special education contingent.
One of the benefits of school choice, not mentioned here, is the diminished need for special education services that results when parents can choose schools that cater to their children’s individual needs.
Back when I served on a public-school board, Bill Mathis was the ringleader for the education monopolists on Vermont’s State Board of Ed. Not only did Mathis resist any form of school choice, the National Education Policy Center he directed in Boulder, CO received significant funding from the teacher unions for which he advocated. The conflict of interest was blatant.
Conflict of interest remains blatant in Vermont’s public education funding today too. Our legislators are on the take. Unfortunately, because such a significant cohort of the Vermont workforce is employed by the government, healthcare, and education sectors – and because Vermont leads the nation in non-profit NGOs that also benefit from the monopoly, I’m not sure what can be done to stop the gravy train.
I think the best bet, for now at least, is through the court system. What the legislature is doing is clearly unconstitutional, and there are already several pending court cases demanding parental control.
Rob deserves kudos for this clear and concise report. Now it’s up to individual Vermonters to follow Rob’s lead.
“Answer: it’s all about the money and the special interest groups controlling it. Not just the teacher unions. But the entire State sponsored social network that stalks their prey at the great public education monopoly watering hole. Besides the teacher unions, it’s the Vermont School Board’s Association, the Superintendent’s Association, The Principal’s Association, not to mention a now bloated and dysfunctional special education contingent.”
Really? References, please?
By the way:
“we have “a republic,” but only “if you can keep it.” The source of this quotation is a journal kept by James McHenry (1753-1816) while he was a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention. On the page where McHenry records the events of the last day of the convention, September 18, 1787, he wrote: “A lady asked Dr. Franklin, Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.” Then McHenry added: “The Lady here alluded to was Mrs. Powel of Philada.” The journal is at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.”
The cost savings Rob mentions are apparent in Vermont’s ‘tuitioning’ system.
When a student attends an approved independent school, the Agency of Education provides what is called the Average Announced Tuition for a given school year.
The 2023-2024 Average Announced Tuition of Union Elementary Schools is $16,756.00
The 2023-2024 Average Announced Tuition of Union 7th-12th Grade Schools is $18,266.00
Now consider that, in my local, Westminster, Vermont school district, we have a $5.1 million budget serving about 190 kids in our K thru 8 programs. That’s almost $27,000 per year per student. Even for first graders. And for that, approximately 60% of the students who graduate don’t meet minimum grade level standards in Language Arts (Reading and Writing), Math, or Science.
For comparison, consider the $26,000 cost to send an in-state child to one of Vermont’s State Universities (Castleton, Lyndon, and others) for a full year of undergraduate studies. And that includes room and board.
Go figure… if you can.
What concerns me is that Rob and others have been trying to get Vermonters to pay attention to what is arguably, the single most expensive cost driving their property taxes and rents. And, inevitably, only a few people ever bother to comment, let alone take an active role in lobbying their legislators.
Folks – it all boils down to how we educate our children. And I want to thank Rob, again, for this clear and concise report.
Question, would a public school’s scores be higher if it was able to exclude at a higher rate than charter schools, students with disabilities, students in primary poverty and students in compromised living situations? There is no indication that factors which may skew the populations of students enrolled in charter schools are taken into account. For example, the word disability doesn’t appear one time in the report. Poverty is in fact mentioned, but there is no indication that degrees of poverty are taken into account. The author above suggests gold standard, significantly, Stanford itself doesn’t claim that. A healthy skepticism of all things requires that in its current form, the report be considered no more than an apples to oranges comparison.
Mr. Searles et. al.:
From Rob’s missive.
“The research also eviscerates the false argument that independent charter schools either actively “cherry pick” or passively benefit from the self-selecting of more talented or better prepared students. As noted by CREDO, if the cherry-picking theory were correct, the students switching to charter schools would start out at a higher level of achievement than their TPS peers. “In multiple analyses, we do not see significant evidence of an undue advantage to charter schools. In fact, we find the opposite is true: charter schools enroll students who are disproportionately lower achieving than the students in their former TPS (p. 26).”
“Charter schools produce superior student gains despite enrolling a more challenging student population than their adjacent TPS.” (p.13)
Mr. Searles, from an anecdotal perspective, as a parent and a former public school board director, I saw that when parents were given the opportunity to choose the education program they believed best met the needs of their children, not only did their children’s outcomes improve, so did the outcomes for the parents.
And there are peered reviewed studies that support my perspective. Specifically, studies on Self Determination Theory.
“Increasing Student Success Through Instruction in Self-Determination:
An enormous amount of research shows the importance of self-determination (i.e., autonomy) for students in elementary school through college for enhancing learning and improving important post-school outcomes.”
https://www.apa.org/research/action/success.aspx
The research shows “… that students who are more involved in setting educational goals are more likely to reach their goals”, not only for so-called Regular Education students but for Disabled Students as well. It’s not the specific curriculum or pedagogy that determines an individual’s successful educational outcome but rather the act of choosing it in the first place, …whatever it is.
Conversely:
“[T]he more students were externally regulated the less they showed interest, value, and effort toward achievement and the more they tended to disown responsibility for negative outcomes, blaming others such as the teacher.”
This last finding describes the public-school monopoly’s one-size-fits-all pedagogy to a tee.
Charter schools are an attempt by 501c insiders to scam tax money away from the public school system. These wannabe insiders are slightly different to the insiders who now control public schools (teachers unions). The frustrated 501c crowd want to set up non profits to provide “educational care” much as the drug addiction treatment scammers provide “addiction care” and the medical scammers provide “gender affirming care”.
Charter schools likely produce superior results because they are allowed to cherry pick their student population. They can test students before selecting the best and they can even remove the under-performers annually sending them back to the public school system. They pay teachers less and often they are given access to existing public school facilities at preferential rates.
Their “success” is not magic.
VtRocks:
Charter schools are but one aspect of School Choice. Independent schools can be non-profit or for-profit organizations. And don’t forget homeschooling.
Re: Your remark that” Charter schools likely produce superior results because they are allowed to cherry pick their student population.”
– These reports specifically contradict this myth.
Re: “They pay teachers less….”
Teachers in independent schools are paid based on merit. The better they teach, the better their student outcomes, the more they earn.
As Rob’s missive explains,
” Although Vermont doesn’t have charter schools, our approved independent schools perform a similar function. They are independently operated but receive public funding on a per-student basis. Like charter schools they are more flexible in their abilities to define their mission, adopt and adapt curriculum, and hire and fire teachers. And because their students can withdraw – along with their money – if the school fails to perform, they are far more accountable to the customer for their results.”
Credo Education seems to have an axe to grind. Their website is full of success stories based on one year of educational “gain”. There seems to be little or no “balance” in their investigations.
These studies are little more than propaganda pieces designed to push an agenda. The base assumption that children are all future doctors and engineers who suffer from differential access to resources is bunkum. It’s bunkum because it assumes that all are otherwise equal with respect to interest levels, family situations and, yes, intelligence when this is not true.
I was educated at an inner city public school and from my experience 30% of the kids are thick and cannot absorb the material. 50% are capable but uninterested and about 20% are capable and interested. Teachers naturally focus on the smart interested kids and the morons (because they need the help). The middle group gets left behind unless they are disruptive. That’s just the way it is.
I do agree that education budgets are too high in this state. I also agree that greedy insider group work assiduously to ensure its privileged position is protected. I just think that opening up education budgets to a different, and even greedier group than the one that currently controls the system is a very bad for the taxpayer and the children.
With all due respect, VtRocks, your statement – “These studies are little more than propaganda pieces designed to push an agenda.” … is unsubstantiated and, therefore, if anything qualifies as ‘propoganda’, it does.
Clearly, your not reading Rob’s missive carefully and you’re disregarding the studies both he an I have referenced. To say that Credo Education ‘has an ax to grind’ is tantamount to progressive-left politicians and judges claiming that those who question the left’s narrative are guilty of sedition.
Consider your own anecdote. “50% are capable but uninterested”.
Did you read my comment to Mr. Searles ?
The research shows “… that students who are more involved in setting educational goals are more likely to reach their goals”, not only for so-called Regular Education students but for Disabled Students as well. It’s not the specific curriculum or pedagogy that determines an individual’s successful educational outcome but rather the act of choosing it in the first place, …whatever it is.
Conversely:
“[T]he more students were externally regulated the less they showed interest, value, and effort toward achievement and the more they tended to disown responsibility for negative outcomes, blaming others such as the teacher.”
Our public education monopoly is not only grossly inefficeint and ineffective, it’s becoming dangerous to our children. If you have any data to the contrary, please share it.
I agree with a lot of your points and I admit I have an axe to grind against charter schools because I have seen the cynical way some of these schools operate. I searched through the Credo education website and I couldn’t find one study that showed negative outcomes. Instead I saw carefully chosen “metrics” which portrayed charter schools in a good light. For instance the one year “educational gain” metric means nothing if a child is accepted to a charter school and does well in year one but is kicked out in year two because he could not maintain the gains.
NYC charter schools have been around for 20+ years and their outcomes are marginally better than public schools, but they are very much worse than the – now effectively abolished – public magnet schools. It’s is true they accept a high percentage of minority pupils but the attrition rate among those students is extremely high. They are boot camps that churn through kids and make their owners rich.
A minority work colleague of mine sent her son to a charter school that insisted on rigid personal discipline but did not teach math. They limited teaching to “business arithmetic”. Unsurprisingly, the young man got a 400 the math portion of his SAT. This is unacceptable to me.
I agree that school choice is essential. I also agree that the cost of educating kids in Vermont is ridiculously high while outcomes are only marginally better than the national average. On the other hand, I am extremely wary of aggressively marketed “magic formula” schools which depend on getting access to public education funds, facilities and even pupils in order to line their founders’ pockets.
And just to add to my comment. In that report, which is a blizzard of contradictory statistics, it says that while the average “gain” in charter schools has increased, a full 60% of charter schools produce worse results than their public school peers.
“ In math, above average achievement exists in 40 percent of charter schools, while 60 percent of schools have achievement that is lower than their state averages. Twenty-eight percent of schools in the data set are high-growth/high-achievement schools, returning great gains for their students. Zeroing in again on the low- growth/low-achievement quadrant, 348 schools (7.1 percent) have lower academic growth than their local alternatives and have student achievement that is below the 30th percentile of state achievement at the end of the school year.
The number of schools in the low-growth/low-achievement quadrant, though smaller in reading than in math, remains a key concern.“
You’re right, VtRocks. I find your specific CREDO citation to be confusing and possibly contradictory when it comes to certain math outcomes. However, while the citation you present says:
“In math, above average achievement exists in 40 percent of charter schools, while 60 percent of schools have achievement that is lower than their state averages.”
It doesn’t define the ’60 percent’ cohort the so-called ‘state average’ represents. I can’t tell whether or not the ‘state averages’ represent the average of Charter Schools in each State, or the average of all schools (Charters and Traditional Public Schools) in each State, or state averages of only TPS in each State.
I‘m going to ask the Center for Research on Education Outcomes to elaborate.
It is clear, however, regardless of this clarification from CREDO, Charter Schools don’t excel as well in Math as they do in Reading. But then again, Traditional Public Schools don’t excel in Math either – especially in Vermont.
In Vermont, in 2017, for example, only 32% of 11th grade students were deficient in Reading and Writing, while 64% of 11th grade students were below ‘proficient’ in the Smarter Balance Math assessments. But then, 79% of 11th graders were below proficient in Science.
And according to recent news reports for the current year, Vermont’s K-12 academic performance is declining further across the board. This perhaps explains why Vermont no longer publishes its comprehensive student performance results.
And keep in mind that the NAEP assessments (The Nations Report Card) test fewer than 5% of all students and taking the NAEP tests is voluntary. Take those results with a grain of salt.
In other words, the entire public-school assessment scenario is becoming more and more opaque. Surely, by design.
But again, you make a valid point on some of the CREDO data. But I find nothing to indicate that CREDO has an ax to grind. From their web-site: “We are unaffiliated with any of the ideological sides in the education debate.” We’ll see.
Take Your Children OUT of Public Schools. Without Your Children, the Marxists have NO ONE to Brainwash. End the Marxist Gravy Train of Destruction. Using YOUR Tax $$$$$ to attack you and your children is what they are doing. Do Not give your Money to “Charities”, it is a front for Human Trafficking or to “Politicians”. Why do “Politicians” retire Wealthy???? Why is there a 2-Party System, Democrats & Republicans? It is to keep the people arguing, that’s why. The 2-Party system was established by the Elites decades ago, so they could stay in power and push their Marxist Agenda to takeover America. It is actually a One-Party System, called the Uni-Party. But Now, it’s a Global Uni-Party, along with the WEF, WHO, CDC, UN, and our corrupt Federal and Local Governments. Why is the Border still Open? How come the Governors won’t use their Powers to close the Border when the Federal Government fails to do so? What happened to Law & Order and our Justice System? Look up Jekyll Island and 1913. Loads of information on how Americans are fleeced. Taxes are illegal, did anyone Vote to be taxed? I think not. These are the End Times. Awake all you who are asleep! The Church Age is Closing!
No surprising at all. The ironic part for today’s public school administrators, school boards and superintendents is that the low-income and minority students achievement is at a greater decline than other students in public schools. Everything they do is based on “equity” and race-based initiatives. Everyone gets a free school lunch now and every email from the highest paid include the need for public schools to dismantle white supremacist culture within schools. They all have overpaid DEI departments with the leader being paid ridiculous amounts to shout “RACISM”. And look at the results, not better performance but the exact opposite. It’s not really about the students obviously. If it were, they would change course but a Democrat will never admit they’re wrong, especially when getting paid!
We have to be careful using the metric “outperform”. When it comes to using the teachers’ union as a means of transferring money from the public treasury to the coffers of the democrat party, public schools certainly OUTPERFORM private schools. When it comes to keeping racial minority students down and dependent on government, public schools also greatly OUTPERFORM the public schools. When it comes to exacerbating the mental and behavioral difficulties of children, again the public schools really shine in this area. It all depends on what we are trying to accomplish…