Milwaukee voucher schools, 2005-2006

What with school starting and my contract settlement, I haven't had time to keep up on the news as well as I'd like (I may write more about the settlement this weekend yet). And then, so much of the news is Katrina, it's depressing. But I want to start catching up on some of the things that I have missed. I will start with a schools-related piece.

Thursday, the paper ran a story on the possibility of stepped-up scrutiny schools in Milwaukee's voucher program:

Although the voucher program is based on the premise of offering parents more school choices, parents rarely shop around for a school, often have very little information available to them on what a school is like and often make choices not based on educational quality.

The public has had little information available about the voucher schools because as private schools, they are often exactly that--very private. They are required to disclose little information and are not required to take part in the state's standardized testing program. [. . .]

Even determining how many schools are going to be part of the voucher program this year is not easy. Two schools have dropped out since the end of last year, one voluntarily and one as a result of internal problems. More than 50 schools or potential schools applied to join the program; 17 were cleared by DPI. But as of Wednesday, the telephone numbers of two of those were disconnected.

The state has very little control over what schools in the voucher program teach. In recent years, DPI officials and advocates for the voucher program have cooperated in setting rules for the business operations of schools, on the theory that schools providing poor educational programs often are also poorly run. The rules were used to close several voucher schools where problems developed. A permanent version of the rules is scheduled to take effect next week.

Sadly, knowing that absolutely no repercussions came against poorly performing voucher schools following this summer's exposé gives me little hope that any real measures of accountability will be taken. The paper did a fine job in that series, even digging up what I consider to be the wooden stake through the heart of the "education marketplace" myth: Howard Fuller, who loves vouchers like his first-born child, said, responding to news that no schools has ever been shut down by the "marketplace," "The reality is that it hasn't worked like we thought it would in theory. I don't think anyone that is truthful can say that has occurred."

So once again we will have storefront after storefront of what I would call suped-up day care centers that simply don't do the trick. For every kid in a long-established and successful school, there are kids in untested, unproven, untrustworthy, and utterly unregulated settings. This should not stand.

The paper has at least compiled all of its reports from their visits to choice schools in one massive, unagainly web page. I don't think it will necessarily help those parents who need the most help navigating the "marketplace." On the other hand, we do learn some scary details: There's the woman who is very proud to have "three doctorates and a PhD"; there's the school where a "woman who accompanied the reporter during the visit said the school had a religious identity, but wouldn't describe what it was or how it was implemented[; she] would not give her name, and she did not answer other questions, including who owns the school." This doesn't even count all the schools started up for this year by officials of schools closed down by DPI last year!

At any rate, I once again renew the call I made some weeks back for a law requiring accreditation before a school can accept taxpayer dollars. Any takers?