The traitor within?

[White Beard]

True, America didn’t invent slavery, but we sure “innovated” the hell out of it.

We should be clear that American-style slavery began in Barbados and the first slaves were Irish captives of the British crown. The money-hungry younger sons of (primarily) British nobility came up with the idea of growing sugar in the Indies and buying workers cheap. The king wanted them dead, and working them to death sounded like good business.

Problem was, the Irish died like flies. As a form of execution it was dandy, but there was work to do, dammit, so they had the bright idea of buying Africans from the Dutch, and that worked out great for them, but not so great for the ex-Africans.

For a real eye-opener, google the Barbados slave code, written by that famous philosopher of freedom, John Locke. His work became the basis for slave conduct and management in the Americas.

I’ve got to stop here, but the real American innovation in slavery was de-facto enslavement of an entire human phenotype. That had never been done before, and that made “free” blacks quite insecure in their freedom. It created a color-coded servant class that still exists today.

 

[packerfan79]

school vouchers lol yea right..more divisiveness...pretty soon you'll be promoting gerrymandering

Wow. You think helping people get out of shitty schools is divisive? Is this a serious statement?

I guess you would have opposed integration of schools in the south, also.

You are showing that your partisanship is above all else.

You have no new ideas so double down on the same shit.

Please explain how keeping kids in shitty schools is helping anything. Your brain washing is complete.

Unfreaking believable.

It's incredibly difficult to give you guys the benefit of the doubt when you oppose any change. Keep towing the party line.

 

[CaptainDankness]

There has been research that has strongly suggested that IQ is negatively impacted by lack of opportunity and class structures. Rather than low IQ being the cause of poverty; its the consequence of it. This is most starkly seen in the USA, which is one of the most inequitable and stratified societies in the entire modernized world. We have by far the largest prison population, by far the worst health care system, and by far the largest wealth gap. Despite the founding rhetoric of this country, the notion of aristocracy has been thriving here since day one and is only getting much worse. There's over 560 billionaires in this country and any one of them could fix the pipes in Flint Michigan and still be a billionaire after they were done. Those same pipes are delivering leaded water to the poorest of homes and not the wealthier neighborhoods. Think about that.



Asians and Jews tend to do so well because they support their youth as they enter adulthood. Often as a community they create opportunities for each other and in the case of Jews they provide financial support via the Mitzvah. Indian families that I have known help find each other jobs and if one owns a hotel they tend to hire the children of their friends and family. If one of them can't afford college they work together to make it happen and they don't charge them a bunch of interest like the way the American financial aid system does. Instead of the predatory view that the next generation exists to exploit, their cultures treat them as the future and help make that dream a reality.

Also, while one may make the argument that transgender people have abnormal psychology, you do not "know" they have serious mental illness. We have a very twisted view of serious mental illness in this country. We tend to view deviance and lack of functionality as the only yardsticks of mental wellness, while completely ignoring psychopathy, pedophilia, and kleptomania in people who are productive and highly placed in society. I do know some pretty messed up trans people, but I also have found the majority of them to be very kind people who just haven't been treated very well in life.

I don't know really, but it sure seems like something is up in the black ghettos. It's not just education or jobs, really the gangsters probably oppress black people the most. Chicago's black neighborhoods are worse than Iraq and Afghanistan, they're saying the people there actually have PTSD just like soldiers.

Really makes no sense to me. Something needs to be done, of course BLM hate police and I'm not building a factory in that area of Chicago without feeling safe.

I also never said you can't be a nice person with a mental illness. Plenty of mentally ill people are nice. When you have someone who is suicidal and has a delusion that they were supposed to be born a woman, it's a pretty serious mental illness. Many transgenders actually kill themselves after the surgery, they need help. Nothing wrong with being gay, drag whatever, but to have ones penis turned into something like a vagina, yeah it just seems a bit extreme.

 

[CaptainDankness]

Actually the time period that the 'New World'....or 'The Americas' were using slaves stretches far beyond the relatively short time slavery was legal and practiced within the USA ....The Aztecs and the Incas had slaves, and the Mogul (Islamic) Empire took slaves by the millions in India and elsewhere over several hundred years...

There is a lot of, eh, what looks like self-loathing over slavery in some western countries due to their histories being linked with it in some way or other. Since it was so widespread in the past it was kinda hard not to be linked with it in some way for most nations.

All we can hope to do with the past is learn from it, and not repeat the same mistakes.

The strangest thing is we are not proud of our history. The West outlawed slavery meanwhile in 2018 slavery still exists, just not in the West.

 

[packerfan79]

I don't know really, but it sure seems like something is up in the black ghettos. It's not just education or jobs, really the gangsters probably oppress black people the most. Chicago's black neighborhoods are worse than Iraq and Afghanistan, they're saying the people there actually have PTSD just like soldiers.

Really makes no sense to me. Something needs to be done, of course BLM hate police and I'm not building a factory in that area of Chicago without feeling safe.

I also never said you can't be a nice person with a mental illness. Plenty of mentally ill people are nice. When you have someone who is suicidal and has a delusion that they were supposed to be born a woman, it's a pretty serious mental illness. Many transgenders actually kill themselves after the surgery, they need help. Nothing wrong with being gay, drag whatever, but to have ones penis turned into something like a vagina, yeah it just seems a bit extreme.

No having your dick chopped off is totally rational. Expecting politicians to do their freaking jobs is extreme.

The millionaires and billionaires who are constantly demonized should volunteer to fix every ill in the country. Oh, and they should pay 50 + % of their income in taxes to.

Funny how the mayor of Chicago demands The federal government do something about the crime. What the last 20 gun control measures only made it worse. Let's try gun control, it's never worked before, it surely will work this time. It has to work. It's a democratic party rule if a fix doesn't work it's the fault of the Republican party that did not institute the policy.no matter what it's the Republicans fault. Duh

 

[shithawk420]

I just saw this on instagram and thought it was an interesting read. I wonder of stuff like this contributes to the hatred and distrust of law enforcement? As a Black man myself there are plenty of small towns I wouldn't feel safe in that are all white towns. Only difference is that if I something were to happen to me in one of those towns the crime would most likely never get solved.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-jon-burge-dead-20180919-story.html

I just joined this site but am really thinking about heading back to RIU. The open racism allowed on here is unbelievable. I saw the other thread where members were openly discussing race and IQ, disgusting to say the least

I live in a rural town of 500 people.there is one black guy.he is cool and doesn't create any problems.there is no anti black in white communities any more.anti thug is another story.doesnt matter what color

 

[Klompen]

I live in a rural town of 500 people.there is one black guy.he is cool and doesn't create any problems.there is no anti black in white communities any more.anti thug is another story.doesnt matter what color

Again, anecdotal experience does not equal statistical fact. While that may be entirely true in that specific case, that does not mean its true of all small white towns. I live in one of the whitest states in the union and I have seen local cops go way out of their way to drive black people out of town and punish anyone who has any affiliation with them. I knew one girl who had a black boyfriend who didn't even live in that county, and the local sheriff arrested her several times when she'd come to visit her family over completely made-up charges and had to let her go every time. She needed me to come pick her up one time because they just decided she couldn't drive her own car just because they said so. On our way back we got stopped and searched repeatedly across several counties by friends of that sheriff. I've seen so much shit like this that your anecdotal experience doesn't convince me there isn't a problem.

 

[Water-]

the way to defeat bad arguments is with good arguments, not by running away. if people like you all run away from the debate, you leave the stage to those that you disagree with. this site is involved in an experiment with free speech, real free speech, you should be happy we are fighting back against the censorship slowly taking over the internet. just because people are allowed to express their opinions doesn't mean every member agrees with said opinion.

in the end no one is forced to read threads they don't like



if thats true its sad, why would allowing free speech make people leave? isn't it better to know where people stand? yes it leads to some uncomfortable situations, but it leads to some very interesting discussions too.

History shows us were people stand.

History shows what happens when you give hate a platform to express itself to the masses.

Why would anybody that belongs to a group of people that have historically been abused and oppressed want to hang around where people are allowed to continue the kind of speach that led to their suffering in the first place?

Racists and bigots are not open minded people that are suddenly going to change their opinion because of what someone wrote on ICMAG. They only want to spread their hate and ignorance.

From the perspective of a "white" male it sounds like free speech, but if you came from an oppressed group than you might not see it as an interesting conversation but just a continuation of the past.

And a lot of people are sick and tired of the past, therefore they will find a place to go that does not remind them of unhappy things.

Maybe if the Tokers Den was not included in the list of recent posts than it would not be constantly in peoples face that visit the site. And they could have a choice of whether they wanted to see these threads or not and just focus on growing herb.

 

[Klompen]

I don't know really, but it sure seems like something is up in the black ghettos. It's not just education or jobs, really the gangsters probably oppress black people the most. Chicago's black neighborhoods are worse than Iraq and Afghanistan, they're saying the people there actually have PTSD just like soldiers.

Really makes no sense to me. Something needs to be done, of course BLM hate police and I'm not building a factory in that area of Chicago without feeling safe.

I also never said you can't be a nice person with a mental illness. Plenty of mentally ill people are nice. When you have someone who is suicidal and has a delusion that they were supposed to be born a woman, it's a pretty serious mental illness. Many transgenders actually kill themselves after the surgery, they need help. Nothing wrong with being gay, drag whatever, but to have ones penis turned into something like a vagina, yeah it just seems a bit extreme.

I've worked with animals for years and one thing I can tell you for a fact is that if you take away their freedom and keep their resources scarce they go crazy. I've rescued quite a few traumatized animals over the years and that basic animal psychology is totally true of people as well. Only, its even worse with people because you take people off to prison for non-offenses like pot use and it forces them into criminal culture. It even makes it harder for them to seek legitimate work once they are released. Our prisons are poorly run, corrupt, and largely do not reform people. If you have to join a gang in prison just to survive or not get raped that's exactly what you do. Then when you get out, that's where your loyalties will be. The system didn't protect you, so you look to those who did. Its a cycle that spirals downward and then that downward spiral is used as justification for making the problem even worse.

Oh and not all trans people are suicidal. Some certainly are, but then again they are some of the most abused people in society. I happen to agree to a limited extent that it represents psychological deviance, but that's no reason to smear an entire category of people. Some people (like Jamie Lee Curtis for example) are born with both genders in a very literal sense, while others are born with one set of physical parts and brain and glandular parts that are another type. Its a complex issue, but trans people are far more likely to be the victim of someone else than of themselves.

 

[Cannavore]

It's the Democrat regions of the country where the economics are the most out of whack with the poverty for the poor through the roof, while the economies of the uber rich soar, soar, soar.

It's the Democrats who have brought the nation to it's knees, time and time again.

We KNOW people have been misinformed, and taught wrong, we can see children graduating nearly a third behind EVERYBODY when hey attend public schools.

We just saw a bunch of LAW ENFORCEMENT SPECIALISTS get caught trying to DERAIL the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

We see judges who won't obey laws, and then won't enforce laws.

Those government employees are MOSTLY DEMOCRAT.

We see police who won't obey laws, and then won't enforce laws. Those POLICE UNIONS are OVERWHELMINGLY DEMOCRAT.

We see TEACHERS and PROFESSORS who don't TEACH: but who simply teach THUGGERY and VIOLENCE and INTOLERANCE: of ANYONE doing ANYTHING. You're wearing the WRONG KIND of HAT. YOU'RE wearing the WRONG KIND of CLOTHES you can't WEAR anything of ANY RACE other than your OWN.

These violent, lying, fraud barking kooks are nearly COMPLETELY Democrat.

We have kids graduating after 12 years of DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED ''education'' graduating so stupid and anti social, we refer to our SCHOOLS as the HORRIBLE PLACES where

CHILDREN are BULLIED till they commit SUICIDE.

Children are SHUNNED and tried to be KEPT OUT OF THE SCHOOLS for practicing ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT. Modern schools are OPENLY TRYING TO KEEP ASIANS OUT: RACE SEGREGATION
because they make the local brainless zombies LOOK like what they are.

In the k-12 system they graduate nearly a FULL THIRD behind HOME SCHOOLED FUNDIES who DON'T HAVE CABLE in the OZARKS.

In EVERY single EDUCATIONAL METRIC ever DESIGNED to SHOW people how HORRIBLY the GOVERNMENT
has TAKEN OVER FROM WITHIN.

Till the average person there graduates behind PRIVATE schooled kids, till the average person there graduates behind PAROCHIAL schooled kids, and the average person there graduates behind
HOME-SCHOOLED kids.

EVERYBODY ELSE
ECLIPSES the ones the GOVERNMENT TOOK OVER the SCHOOLS FOR and simply
STOPPED TEACHING
and
STARTED LYING and STEALING and PROGRAMMING PEOPLE to HATE anyone but - go figure, GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES and the LIBERALS who PRAY to AUTHORITY.

When we had to send the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to let little kids GO to SCHOOL what had happened?

DEMOCRATS had TAKEN OVER the GOVERNMENT and simply REFUSED to LET the BROWN KIDS ATTEND SCHOOL.

No, you don't DESERVE to go to school ''with us.''

When the government was taken over by the KU KLUX KLAN in the early 20th Century - what HAPPENED?

Democrats simply TOOK OVER the GOVERNMENT from WITHIN
then started doing whatever the f*** they wanted and F*** THAT CONSTITUTION. It's a LIVING DOCUMENT and WE GOTTA FIND SOMEBODY to PUNK.

THEN it was black and brown people.

Later it became white christians and Asians as the

NUMBERS started to look like the GOVERNMENT would be best taken over and F*** RULE of LAW by brown and black DEMOCRATS.

What kind of quacks get mixed up with such people?

We're all reading about it here. Seeing what they say to people.

Seeing how they're trained to simply mob, and harass, and ridicule anyone and anything they can.

Glib lying is THE daily offering.

Think about all the things the Democrats have done. What does it almost ALWAYS involve?

TAKING OVER THE GOVERNMENT FROM WITHIN
and SPITTING on RULE of LAW or of CONSTITUTION or
ANYTHING but WHAT they want to do.

And they ALWAYS want to CUT EVERYONE THEY CAN out of the pie

DEMONIZE them, and RUIN them while PERSECUTING and ROBBING them BLIND.

Like they did with Blacks and brown people for 150 years,

like they did even after they lost the Civil War and took over the South and many other areas of the country where the KLAN was the LARGEST MONOLITHIC POLITICAL MOVEMENT in THIS NATION

for MANY DECADES between the 1880s and the 1930s - AND BEYOND.

The Federal Government had to send the MILITARY to DEMOCRAT AREAS, to MAKE them let people who PAID taxes - go to SCHOOL in places they PAID to GO.

That was the DEMOCRATS who did that and we all KNOW about them taking over the government from within,

WE JUST SAW A BUNCH OF DEMOCRATS INFEST LAW ENFORCEMENT at the DOJ and FBI

the way they have INFESTED the POLICE UNIONS for DECADES,
having COMPLETELY TAKEN THEM OVER,

and start TRASHING RULE of LAW and USING the LAW as a WEAPON to DESTROY and ROB their POLITICAL ENEMIES.

The DEMOCRATS in the IRS
The DEMOCRATS in the FBI
The DEMOCRATS in the DOJ,

WRITING reports CLEARING people they haven't even INVESTIGATED YET,

BUYING FAKED EVIDENCE CLEARLY FALSE
then LEAKING some
using it as EVIDENCE for MORE investigation.

BUSTED.

Democrats did it to the natural sciences, telling the people of the planet that the cold, light blocking atmosphere is a HEATER.

Telling CHILDREN and ADULTS in COLLEGE that '' the LAWS of PHYSICS don't WORK... ONE planet OVER.''

As we robotically landed 13 craft on that one planet.

And sent another 10 or 12 robotically through their atmospheres.

''The LAWS we FLY things on AUTOPILOT by don't WORK one planet over. There is a MAGICAL GASSINESS that makes things many degrees hotter than the LAWS of PHYSICS allow.''

Just taking over and F*** SCIENCE.

Just like in the 1930s when they just TOOK OVER and F*** MEDICAL science. POT'S DEVIL WEAD, YAW AWL NEAD TWO GIT ON YEW SUMMA THIM NEW OPIOIDS THAY GOT DOWN TO THA PURGRESSIVE HOSPITALS WE GOT NOW!

Today the entire WESTERN MEDICAL WORLD is CHOKED by OPIOID abuse.

Thanks Democrats for taking over and simply ERASING EVIDENCE to the CONTRARY of your LYING FRAUDULENT CHEMISTRY SCAMS.

I'm sure all those people from the late 1930s to today are SO GLAD they're DYING from opioid abuse rather than living longer and happier and healthier on pot.

Their excuse? There is no excuse they simply don't feel like people deserve the right to do what's healthy and inexpensive for them.

Which is why none of them have ever legalized pot after they ILLEGALIZED it.

''It ain't purgressive''

"it ain't what thim Europeans izza doin.''

That's where they got the idea to make pot illegal.

"It ain't abowt signts and kimmistrie and awl that,
it's abowt seemin like we'z purgressive like thim Europeans.''

Leading the way to OPIOID ADDICTION GLOBALLY.

Rah,
Rah,
Rah.

No,

Democrat CRIMINALITY
Democrat SHAME
Democrat HIJACKING of EVERYTHING they TOUCH
and TURNING to CRIME.

Hyper partisanship is disgusting

 

[theJointedOne]

Wow. You think helping people get out of shitty schools is divisive? Is this a serious statement?

I guess you would have opposed integration of schools in the south, also.

You are showing that your partisanship is above all else.

You have no new ideas so double down on the same shit.

Please explain how keeping kids in shitty schools is helping anything. Your brain washing is complete.

Unfreaking believable.

It's incredibly difficult to give you guys the benefit of the doubt when you oppose any change. Keep towing the party line.

From another voice-

In my 49 years, when I've seen people talk about ideas for public education--and particularly of late--they're really talking about a redistribution of opportunities. They're talking about a redistribution of wealth. I understand that the whole notion of choice has a very, very important and valuable competitive nature. I believe in that nature. I believe in that opportunity. But I also know that there are schools that already are trying to fight for just getting their roof fixed. They're trying to make sure that they have technology available for some kids, not even for everybody yet, that they have an opportunity to have adequate textbooks and labs for science experiments to be done, on exams that they now have to take. So to start talking about removing dollars from the base that would otherwise go to support that kind of an instructional high quality program is to walk away from children who are in these schools. And I think that government and public service in general can't walk away from poor, black, Latino . . . poor children in general. . . . If that school is broken, then fix it. We have enough examples on the ground in this country of poor schools, of failing schools, that got turned around with good leadership, good instruction, wonderful teachers, a committed community, people who put the necessary and right emphasis on instruction.. . . If you really want to fix the school, you can fix the school. You can fix it very quickly. But I argue that you can also just as easily walk away from it. Now we're going to allow your kids to get out of it. Well, what about the kids who can't find a seat in that other school that presumably is a better school--what about them? Where do they go? What labs do they have? What preparation do their teachers have? What support will their leaders have? What kind of materials and supplies and laboratory equipment and so forth will the kids in that school have? What are you going to do? Are you going to just simply say, "Well, we've gotten a third of your kids out of here, and now the two-thirds of you that are remaining, basically don't need this?" That's absurd. Not only is it absurd, it's insidious. . . .

 

[theJointedOne]

How bad are school vouchers for students?


Far worse than most people imagine. Indeed, according to the analysis conducted by the authors of this report, the use of school vouchers—which provide families with public dollars to spend on private schools—is equivalent to missing out on more than one-third of a year of classroom learning. In other words, this analysis found that the overall effect of the D.C. voucher program on students is the same as missing 68 days of school.
This analysis builds on a large body of voucher program evaluations in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., all of which show that students attending participating private schools perform significantly worse than their peers in public schools—especially in math.1 A recent, rigorous evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program from the U.S. Department of Education reaffirms these findings, reporting that D.C. students attending voucher schools performed significantly worse than they would have in their original public school.2

The analysis is timely given President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ main education priority: to privatize education by creating and expanding voucher programs nationwide. In the Trump budget released in February, the president has suggested doubling investment in vouchers.3* But while President Trump and Secretary DeVos often assert that research backs their proposals, the evidence is lacking.

In order to add necessary context to the recent voucher research—and the debate over the budget—the authors compare the negative outcomes of one of these voucher programs—the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program—to other factors that negatively affect student achievement. That analysis also finds that the effect of vouchers on student achievement is larger than the following in-school factors: exposure to violent crime at school, feeling unsafe in school, high teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism.4

To be clear, the far-reaching negative effects of factors such as feeling unsafe in school cannot be overstated. For example, there is a large body of work that discusses the negative impact of exposure to violent crime on children’s well-being, including academic performance.5 Certainly, many of these factors are serious and are known to have a negative impact on multiple areas of child development. However, the comparisons made in this report focus only on how each in-school factor—violence at school, feeling unsafe, teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism—affects school achievement.

Further, using the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) formula, the authors of this report also found that the overall effect of the D.C. voucher program on students is the equivalent of 68 fewer days of schooling than they otherwise would have received had they remained in their traditional public school. In other words, the students who participated in the D.C. voucher program lost more than one-third of a year of learning.6 To be clear, translating this effect into days of learning is an approximation intended to help assess relative impact. In this case, 68 days lost is clearly substantial lost ground for students participating in the D.C. voucher program.

Importantly, the authors’ comparisons rely on both a selection of rigorous, recent voucher studies with test score impacts and one rigorous quasi-experimental study for each comparison topic. That being said, using alternative studies could lead to different results. The methods for selecting both specific voucher studies and comparison studies to add context are detailed in this report’s Appendix. Finally, the evaluation of the D.C. voucher program so far assesses one year of achievement data and future findings may be different. However, these findings are very similar to those from other longer-term voucher studies, which are described in this report.

Caveats aside, the negative achievement outcomes of voucher programs uncovered by recent studies have not deterred the Trump administration;7 its stance on vouchers exemplifies a larger tendency to a dismiss evidence that does not align with the administration’s priorities.8 This dismissal of evidence plays an unfortunate role in both undermining the nation’s public schools and confusing parents who seek access to high-quality public school options.

An overview of recent voucher research
Earlier studies of voucher programs appeared to show some promise. Many of those evaluations—in New York City, Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., as well as in the states of Florida, Minnesota, and Louisiana—reported a modest increase or neutral impact on student achievement and graduation rates.9 The findings of some of these studies, however, have more recently been called into question as methodological flaws were discovered when adding additional years or replicating the study.10 As a result, recent voucher program evaluations employ more rigorous research methods such as experimental and quasi-experimental designs and refine their use of certain variables. These design changes and data additions allow for more stable and definitive interpretations of the results.

More recent evaluations of voucher programs in three states—Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio—have all come to similar conclusions and show that voucher programs have negative or neutral effects on student achievement.11 Importantly, all impacts described in this report are relative to public schools. Unlike other experimental designs where participants may receive a placebo or the intended intervention, the intervention in these cases is a private school voucher and the comparison is a traditional public school. Therefore, on the whole, these results show that relative to their peers in public schools, students in voucher programs are losing ground.

The latest evaluation examined the outcomes of students using vouchers in Indiana for two, three, or four years between the 2011-12 and 2014-15 school years. The Indiana study has the largest sample size—and the largest voucher program—across all studies examined in this report. More than 34,000 Indiana students received vouchers in the 2016-17 school year.12 The study used a matching methodology to compare the test scores of students who transferred to participating voucher schools with similar students who remained in public schools. It found that students who used vouchers did not see academic gains in their new schools and that they performed worse, on average, than their matched peers in the public schools that they left.

Notably, the study also found variation in voucher impacts depending on the sample of students investigated and how long those students stayed in the program—those who stayed longer experienced fewer negative impacts than those who only stayed for two years. However, in English language arts, students with disabilities in voucher programs experience an average learning loss each year when compared with students without special education identification.13

The most recent evaluation of the Louisiana voucher program, from the 2011-12 to 2013-14 school years, also showed a negative impact.14 The Louisiana program expanded statewide in 2012 after serving only students in New Orleans since 2008.15 In the 2015-16 school year, the program served more than 7,000 students.16 Using an experimental design, the evaluation found that, on average, participating voucher students’ performance in both reading and math dropped for two years and then, according to one model with a restricted sample size, saw performance rebound to end up remaining somewhat level to public school students’ performance in math after three years.17 However, the using an expanded sample size, the second model in the same paper found that student performance after three years continued to suffer from negative impacts. Ultimately, the model showing continued negative performance is more relevant and accurate, as it is based on a substantially larger sample size. Other researchers agree and assert that the continued negative findings across all three years are the most accurate results to highlight.18

The Louisiana findings are significant and show declines that are the equivalent of the average math student—at the 50th percentile—dropping to the 34th percentile after three years of participation in the Louisiana voucher program. The researchers of this evaluation find that this large effect is driven by even larger significant, negative effects for students who started in earlier grades—first through third grades—and somewhat smaller nonsignificant, negative effects for students who started in later grades: fourth through sixth.19

Researchers have studied vouchers in Ohio as well. Also a statewide program, Ohio gave vouchers to more than 18,000 students in the 2013-14 school year.20 The state has since expanded the program to grant vouchers to up to 60,000 qualifying students.21 Unlike other voucher programs, the Ohio program is targeted to only students attending low-performing public schools. The findings in Ohio, which used a quasi-experimental design and compared students who are similar across a multitude of factors, are similarly negative for students in math and reading after attending a voucher school. This study is the only one out of the four voucher programs recently evaluated that finds significant negative impacts in both math and reading.22

In addition to these four state-based studies of voucher program impacts on test scores, some recent studies do show positive effects on graduation rates, parent satisfaction, community college enrollment, and other nonachievement-based outcomes, but it is unclear if these outcomes are lasting and valid.23 For example, research shows that nationally, graduation rates for students in public schools and peers participating in voucher programs equalize after adjusting for extended graduation rates.24 Some critics suggest that private schools may graduate students who have not successfully completed the full program.25 Also, in regard to parent satisfaction, while some studies do show greater satisfaction among parents whose children participate in voucher programs, the most recent evaluation of the D.C. voucher program shows that any increase in parent or student school satisfaction is not statistically significant.26

Finally, there is some evidence that the performance of students in public schools increased after the creation of voucher programs—as was the case in Florida and Ohio during the implementation of voucher programs in those states.27 However, it is unclear why these modest increases occurred.28 Nonetheless, these recent rigorous voucher evaluations showing substantive academic losses for students who do participate in voucher programs serve as a heavy counterpoint to these modest results for students remaining in public schools.

D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and student achievement
This paper focuses on the most recent evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is the only voucher program funded and authorized by federal law and uses a randomized control trial design.29

Enacted in 2004, the D.C. voucher program provides publicly funded vouchers for low-income families who have a school-age child and reside in Washington, D.C. Eligible families receive vouchers through a lottery process. Families can enter the lottery if they meet program eligibility—D.C. residency and a household income at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line. The district gives priority based on a few factors, including attendance in a low-performing public school and siblings in the program. If a student is selected, the family can apply and enroll in private school or decline and remain in a public school.30 About 70 percent of families who are offered a voucher choose to enroll in a private school.31 The D.C. voucher program accepts about 600 students per year.32 Once you receive a voucher through the lottery, you are eligible to continue with the program until graduating high school.

Vouchers grant up to $8,653 for elementary and middle school annual tuition, and up to $12,981 for high school tuition.33 If the tuition or other fees exceeds the voucher amount, parents must cover the difference.34

In the spring of 2017, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent research arm of the Education Department, published a study that found that D.C. students who used a voucher scored 0.12 standard deviations lower in math than students who were not offered a voucher and remained in a public school.35 The evaluation assessed the outcomes of students from the 2012, 2013, and 2014 lotteries. This 0.12 score drop is the equivalent of an average student in the 50th percentile dropping to the 45th percentile after participating in the D.C. voucher program for one year.36 According to the IES study, participating in the D.C. voucher program had no statistically significant effect on reading achievement.37

These results mean that in math,38 the 1,166 participating voucher students fell behind their peers who remained in public schools, despite an annual federal investment of $60 million in the D.C. voucher program. Both groups of students performed similarly in reading.39 Notably, this study only analyzes one year of impact data; however, the results are in sync with the recent longer-term findings discussed above in Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio.

IES’s study of the D.C. voucher program is an important addition to existing voucher research. While there are voucher programs available in 13 other states,40 the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only voucher program with a congressionally mandated evaluation.41 IES worked in partnership with Washington, D.C., to structure the voucher program as a randomized controlled trial so that researchers could use the most rigorous scientific research method—an experimental design—to evaluate outcomes.42 Researchers call experimental designs the gold standard because they leverage random, lottery-based assignment of students to either the treatment or control group—voucher schools or public schools, respectively—to more accurately assess the difference between the two groups of students.43 While these types of studies can be more expensive and cumbersome to implement, they largely provide methodologically unassailable results.

A week after IES published the evaluation, which reported the negative effects of the D.C. voucher program, the Republican-led Congress passed a bipartisan budget deal with a prohibition to the use of the experimental design evaluation method in any future federally funded studies of the D.C. voucher program.44 Instead, IES must use “an acceptable quasi-experimental research design.”45

This change does not affect the ongoing D.C. voucher evaluations that are already in progress—namely, to explore the long-term effects of D.C. vouchers, including graduation rates. All future evaluations of the federally funded D.C. voucher program will therefore employ methodologies with more limitations, making it more difficult to definitively interpret results. As a consequence, the findings of the most recent evaluation of the D.C. voucher program using the experimental method is now even more important to consider in the ongoing voucher program debate.

Explaining the negative impacts of voucher programs
The authors of all four recent voucher studies—in Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio—have suggested some theories for the decline in student achievement, such as capacity and loss of instructional time.

The researchers in the district tested three theories about the negative impacts and found that only one of them may explain some of the learning loss experienced in voucher schools.46 More specifically, they investigated the possibilities that control group students were in higher-performing public schools; that voucher schools continue to offer less instructional time than public schools; and finally, that student mobility—the fact that a student is moving and adjusting to a new school—may be the underlying cause of the negative impact.47

Of these three, only the instructional time factor proved to be a likely cause. As in the 2010 evaluation, the researchers found that private schools offer less instructional time than public schools. On average, private schools offer 65.5 minutes less per week in reading instruction and 48.3 minutes less per week in math instruction.48 More quality instructional time is linked to higher student achievement.49 Therefore, with each additional year that students are enrolled in the voucher program, they lose even more instructional time.

In Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio, researchers speculated that participating private schools may lack the immediate capacity and resources to educate students who are academically behind, who are English-language learners, or who have disabilities.50 This potential lack of capacity is of particular concern for the participating populations in all four contexts, because the students who tend to use vouchers are more likely to be behind academically. In Indiana, they are also more likely to be English-language learners.51

Finally, many public schools who lost students to vouchers are on an upward performance trajectory.52 Therefore, part of the learning loss experienced by voucher students compared with the learning of their public school peers could be attributable to the fact that those public schools are on an upward performance trajectory. This is consistent with a recent study that found, on average, that over the past two decades, public schools’ performance has caught up to or exceeded the performance of private schools.53

Making sense of vouchers’ effect on student achievement
To put the negative effects of vouchers in perspective, the authors of this report compared the effect of the D.C. voucher program on student achievement in math with the effects of other negative in-school factors—feeling unsafe in school, violent crime at school, teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism.54 Beyond school, the authors even found that vouchers have a greater negative impact on student achievement than smoking, according to one study. While this context is compelling, comparing and understanding the impacts of smoking are beyond the scope of this analysis.55

As part of the study, the authors show each negative impact as the equivalent of a specific drop for a student who was average in math—in the 50th percentile—to a lower rank in the same distribution. This conversion uses the effect size—in the case of the D.C. voucher program, -0.12 standard deviations—to find the equivalent percentile drop from the 50th percentile on a normal curve.56

The comparable results are meaningful and startling. The impact of attending a participating D.C. voucher school on math achievement is a larger decrease than all other factors that the authors reviewed. A public school student who is average in math—in the 50th percentile—declines to the 45th percentile after participating in the D.C. voucher program for one year.

An average math student who experiences high teacher turnover drops from the 50th percentile to the 48th. Feeling unsafe in school, experiencing at least 10 teacher absences, and exposure to school crime have the same equivalent effect, dropping to the 49th percentile.


A decline in percentile points means that students are substantially falling behind relative to their performance in public school or relative to their similar public school peers, depending on the study. All the losses associated with these different detrimental interventions are significant. And yet, this comparison shows that students attending a voucher school experienced the largest relative learning loss across all five studies of negative impacts.

Further, using CREDO’s days of learning conversion, this standard deviation unit decrease is the equivalent of losing 68 days of learning—more than one-third of an entire school year.57 This conversion assumes that students learn, on average, the equivalent of one-quarter of a standard deviation unit—0.25—per year.

It is important to note that each study that the authors used only evaluates the impact of one factor in student achievement, when in reality, students are exposed to a variety of environmental and other factors, many of which have the potential to affect test scores. Therefore, it is possible—and likely—that students are exposed to more than one of the negative factors. For example, a student who witnesses violence in school may also feel unsafe in school. Further, when comparing these effects with the impact of participating in a voucher programs, it is also possible that students in both public schools and voucher programs experience additional impacts from some of the factors described in these comparison studies. However, there is no overwhelming evidence that would suggest bias in this comparison; there is no reason to believe that these known factors—teacher turnover, absenteeism, feeling unsafe in school, and exposure to violent crime at school— would occur more in the private sector versus the public sector or vice versa58.

As noted above, this analysis uses only one rigorous, well-regarded study on each topic. Therefore, using alternative studies could lead to different results. The methods for selecting both specific voucher studies and comparison studies to add context are detailed in the Appendix. Selection criteria included rigorous methods, recent results, and studies that are representative of their field. The statistical significance; negative or positive sign direction; and magnitude are similar to other rigorous studies addressing these topic areas. In some cases, other similar studies may find an effect in reading but not in math, for example, but maintained the same sign, as well as similar significance and magnitude. This comparison focuses on math impacts only to allow for an aligned analysis of effects. Further, the evaluation of the D.C. voucher program only assessed one year of achievement data; however, these are similar to the longer-term impacts found in the other three recent rigorous studies compared here.

Ultimately, this comparison shows that the negative impact of the D.C. voucher program exceeds the impact of other factors which society deems harmful.

The response of voucher advocates
The wave of voucher studies with negative findings in recent years have put some advocates in a bind. As studies consistently show negative outcomes, voucher proponents have backtracked or tried to spin the findings. For example, many voucher proponents point to other measures of voucher effectiveness, such as increased parent satisfaction.59 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a strong proponent for expanding voucher programs as a way to increase enrollment in parochial schools, wrote in a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) that “parental surveys, the number of families renewing scholarships, student graduation and matriculation, and basic accounting requirements, for example, are sufficient to assess and maintain the integrity of the program.”60

However, parent satisfaction is an especially slippery metric, as participating voucher schools often do not follow the same accountability and transparency parameters required of public schools. Private schools may not administer standardized assessments and, therefore, parents may lack comprehensive information to assess how their children are performing compared with statewide, grade-level standards.61 Furthermore, a recent study in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that parents struggle to select effective schools.62

While all reported successes of voucher programs should be further explored, including impact on graduation and college attendance rates, this research does not discount their significant troubling effect on student achievement. Statements such of that of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops show that many voucher advocates recognize that using achievement to evaluate the worth of voucher programs would likely hurt their potential for growth. Rather than addressing the root of the problem—voucher programs leading to large student achievement declines—proponents hope to sweep the issue under the rug.

President Trump and Secretary DeVos take a similar stance. DeVos repeatedly refused to commit to holding private schools that accept public dollars to any accountability provisions, including those that would ensure that schools report student achievement outcomes and even the most basic information on school enrollment.63

Importantly, even if schools do report student achievement results, researchers, policymakers, and parents will find it difficult to compare students’ performance in public versus private schools unless states also decide to require private schools to administer the same tests to both public and private students.64 It seems unlikely that this will change as voucher programs expand, particularly since equal accountability is deemed unimportant by the education secretary.65

Conclusion
Boosting student achievement is vital for America’s future.66 Raising outcomes in the nation’s school system will both maximize the potential of every child and foster the skills of tomorrow’s workforce. While choice in the education sector can spur innovation and offer parents and children options to best meet individualized needs, evidence indicates that voucher programs do not improve results for students and will not achieve that aim. Indeed, vouchers will likely hurt student growth and lower overall outcomes.67 Moreover, as low-performing and low-income students are often overrepresented in voucher programs,68 students with the greatest need will likely experience preventable declines in student achievement.

Looking forward, the federal government should focus its funding and influence on research-based education policies that have been shown to improve academic achievement. Encouraging the replication of high-performing charter schools, expanding access to high-quality pre-K programs, or increasing the equitable distribution of teachers are all much better and proven educational investments.69

Unfortunately, President Trump and Secretary DeVos instead aim to divert public funding to fuel the expansion of voucher programs.70 If evidence indicates that vouchers are worse for students than many other factors that society believes are detrimental to student growth and achievement, how can the federal government condone, let alone allocate, scarce funding resources to promote private school vouchers?

Appendix
CAP translated and compared the effect sizes of six studies in varying topic areas to provide the context needed to aid in interpreting these impacts. Importantly, two distinct processes guide the authors’ methods: study selection and converting effect sizes to percentile changes and days of learning.

Study selection
Voucher study selection
The voucher studies included in this report are the four most recent and rigorous voucher program analyses to be released in the past five years. Other work analyzing voucher program effects has similarly divided these four current studies from prior work.71 The specific focus of this brief is the study of the D.C. voucher program. The D.C. voucher program was selected as a study focus for this report due to the federal investment in the program; the federal mandate for the IES to study the impacts of the program; and the randomized control trial methodology used to investigate its impact. These three factors make the D.C. voucher program an important lens for education policymakers and practitioners to understand and use when considering investment in this program or similar programs. However, all four studies of voucher programs included in this report leverage rigorous—either experimental or quasi-experimental72—methodologies and are similarly important for education policymakers and practitioners to understand. Importantly, all four studies also have similar findings of negative impacts on math scores and in one case, on reading scores as well. These studies serve to further validate the impacts found in each individual study. This corroborating evidence is notable, as the D.C. voucher program only assessed one year of achievement data; however, the results are comparable to the other three current studies described.

Other study selection
The additional five current studies with negative educational impacts described in this report, which serve to add context to the voucher study impacts, were all selected based on four parameters: the presence of in-school factors associated with negative impacts, rigorous methods, recent results, and representative of their field—that is to say, the statistical significance; negative or positive sign direction; and magnitude are similar to other rigorous studies addressing these topic areas. In some cases, other similar studies may find an effect in reading but not in math, for example, but maintained the same sign, and similar significance and magnitude.. The comparison in this brief focuses on only math impacts to allow for a comparable analysis of effects. Importantly, this analysis uses only one rigorous, well-regarded study on each topic. Therefore, using alternative studies could lead to different results.

Effect size conversion
CREDO’s effect size conversion to days of learning
As noted in this paper, the days of learning conversion is an approximate translation, meant to add context and aid in the understanding of relative effect size.73 Unlike the actual effect size, the days of learning conversion should not be interpreted as a precise measurement of learning for policy use. Using research estimating the average growth from fourth to eighth grade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress from Eric Hanushek and Margaret Raymond, CREDO determines that one standard deviation unit of growth is the equivalent of 570 days of learning.74 Therefore, to convert effect sizes to days of learning, the effect size is simply multiplied by 570 to achieve an approximate days of learning impact. In this report, the days of learning conversion yields days lost rather than additional days of learning gained, as all the effect sizes are negative. Similarly, CREDO has also used their days of learning conversion to yield days lost when describing the impact of attending online charter schools.75

Effect size conversion to percentile change
While effect sizes are standardized and comparable, they are not always intuitive. Therefore, to provide context and aid in interpretation of important and negative voucher programs impacts, the authors translated effect sizes to specific changes from the 50th percentile. More specifically, effect sizes can be interpreted as the new percentile standing of the average control group member if they had been in the treatment group. This interpretation assumes a normal distribution where the average control group member is at the 50th percentile. For example, a treatment group effect size of 1.00 can be described as moving the average control group member from the 50th to the 84th percentile. Therefore, using readily available, online z-score calculators,76 the authors translated each negative effect size into a specific percentile drop from the 50th percentile.77

This translation to a percentile change from the 50th percentile allows the authors to make more easily understood and accurate comparisons across studies. For example, as stated in the paper, the D.C. voucher program had the average effect of moving students from the 50th to the 45th percentile, while not feeling safe in school had the average effect of moving to the 49th percentile. It is important to note, however, that the standard deviation to percentile conversion is not linear, therefore, these percentile changes must always be in reference to a starting point, in this case, the 50th percentile.

 

[Cannavore]

private & charter schools should be abolished

 

[gaiusmarius]

History shows us were people stand.

History shows what happens when you give hate a platform to express itself to the masses.

Why would anybody that belongs to a group of people that have historically been abused and oppressed want to hang around where people are allowed to continue the kind of speach that led to their suffering in the first place?

Racists and bigots are not open minded people that are suddenly going to change their opinion because of what someone wrote on ICMAG. They only want to spread their hate and ignorance.

From the perspective of a "white" male it sounds like free speech, but if you came from an oppressed group than you might not see it as an interesting conversation but just a continuation of the past.

And a lot of people are sick and tired of the past, therefore they will find a place to go that does not remind them of unhappy things.

Maybe if the Tokers Den was not included in the list of recent posts than it would not be constantly in peoples face that visit the site. And they could have a choice of whether they wanted to see these threads or not and just focus on growing herb.

personally i have been lobbying my fellow mods to have a separate section in the toker den for current events etc. i do understand that some people don't want to be confronted with this stuff when they come here looking for grow or smoke related stuff. so i do get that.

on the other hand i think the free speech experiment is something worthwhile. everything we have today comes from free speech, every right, every social policy, it all starts as an idea, many times the idea is scoffed at and ridiculed as well as being censored by the powers that be, specially when it's first brought forward. it's ridiculous that i have to explain this. free speech is essential for society to progress in any way. yes some ideas are bad and scary, but forbidding free speech to protect against such is like using a sledge hammer to kill the mosquito on your forehead. the negative consequences in lost genius, of allowing anyone to censor free speech are a thousand times worse then the small moments of discomfort it causes to read idiocy, bigotry and racism once in a while, specially when you have the freedom to argue against such idiocies.

 

[Klompen]

The biggest argument against voucher programs is the fact that affluent families pull their kids out and so they make no efforts to improve the quality of the places. Just look at in Washington state near Amazon and other high tech firms; those schools that have the kids of rich tech workers have marble facades and brand new everything while the schools down the road that don't have any of their kids are falling apart. Its shameful. The wealthy have no real sense of patriotism in this country. No loyalty or sense of responsibility, just looking out for themselves and their own families.

 

[packerfan79]

How bad are school vouchers for students?


Far worse than most people imagine. Indeed, according to the analysis conducted by the authors of this report, the use of school vouchers—which provide families with public dollars to spend on private schools—is equivalent to missing out on more than one-third of a year of classroom learning. In other words, this analysis found that the overall effect of the D.C. voucher program on students is the same as missing 68 days of school.
This analysis builds on a large body of voucher program evaluations in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., all of which show that students attending participating private schools perform significantly worse than their peers in public schools—especially in math.1 A recent, rigorous evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program from the U.S. Department of Education reaffirms these findings, reporting that D.C. students attending voucher schools performed significantly worse than they would have in their original public school.2

The analysis is timely given President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ main education priority: to privatize education by creating and expanding voucher programs nationwide. In the Trump budget released in February, the president has suggested doubling investment in vouchers.3* But while President Trump and Secretary DeVos often assert that research backs their proposals, the evidence is lacking.

In order to add necessary context to the recent voucher research—and the debate over the budget—the authors compare the negative outcomes of one of these voucher programs—the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program—to other factors that negatively affect student achievement. That analysis also finds that the effect of vouchers on student achievement is larger than the following in-school factors: exposure to violent crime at school, feeling unsafe in school, high teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism.4

To be clear, the far-reaching negative effects of factors such as feeling unsafe in school cannot be overstated. For example, there is a large body of work that discusses the negative impact of exposure to violent crime on children’s well-being, including academic performance.5 Certainly, many of these factors are serious and are known to have a negative impact on multiple areas of child development. However, the comparisons made in this report focus only on how each in-school factor—violence at school, feeling unsafe, teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism—affects school achievement.

Further, using the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) formula, the authors of this report also found that the overall effect of the D.C. voucher program on students is the equivalent of 68 fewer days of schooling than they otherwise would have received had they remained in their traditional public school. In other words, the students who participated in the D.C. voucher program lost more than one-third of a year of learning.6 To be clear, translating this effect into days of learning is an approximation intended to help assess relative impact. In this case, 68 days lost is clearly substantial lost ground for students participating in the D.C. voucher program.

Importantly, the authors’ comparisons rely on both a selection of rigorous, recent voucher studies with test score impacts and one rigorous quasi-experimental study for each comparison topic. That being said, using alternative studies could lead to different results. The methods for selecting both specific voucher studies and comparison studies to add context are detailed in this report’s Appendix. Finally, the evaluation of the D.C. voucher program so far assesses one year of achievement data and future findings may be different. However, these findings are very similar to those from other longer-term voucher studies, which are described in this report.

Caveats aside, the negative achievement outcomes of voucher programs uncovered by recent studies have not deterred the Trump administration;7 its stance on vouchers exemplifies a larger tendency to a dismiss evidence that does not align with the administration’s priorities.8 This dismissal of evidence plays an unfortunate role in both undermining the nation’s public schools and confusing parents who seek access to high-quality public school options.

An overview of recent voucher research
Earlier studies of voucher programs appeared to show some promise. Many of those evaluations—in New York City, Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., as well as in the states of Florida, Minnesota, and Louisiana—reported a modest increase or neutral impact on student achievement and graduation rates.9 The findings of some of these studies, however, have more recently been called into question as methodological flaws were discovered when adding additional years or replicating the study.10 As a result, recent voucher program evaluations employ more rigorous research methods such as experimental and quasi-experimental designs and refine their use of certain variables. These design changes and data additions allow for more stable and definitive interpretations of the results.

More recent evaluations of voucher programs in three states—Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio—have all come to similar conclusions and show that voucher programs have negative or neutral effects on student achievement.11 Importantly, all impacts described in this report are relative to public schools. Unlike other experimental designs where participants may receive a placebo or the intended intervention, the intervention in these cases is a private school voucher and the comparison is a traditional public school. Therefore, on the whole, these results show that relative to their peers in public schools, students in voucher programs are losing ground.

The latest evaluation examined the outcomes of students using vouchers in Indiana for two, three, or four years between the 2011-12 and 2014-15 school years. The Indiana study has the largest sample size—and the largest voucher program—across all studies examined in this report. More than 34,000 Indiana students received vouchers in the 2016-17 school year.12 The study used a matching methodology to compare the test scores of students who transferred to participating voucher schools with similar students who remained in public schools. It found that students who used vouchers did not see academic gains in their new schools and that they performed worse, on average, than their matched peers in the public schools that they left.

Notably, the study also found variation in voucher impacts depending on the sample of students investigated and how long those students stayed in the program—those who stayed longer experienced fewer negative impacts than those who only stayed for two years. However, in English language arts, students with disabilities in voucher programs experience an average learning loss each year when compared with students without special education identification.13

The most recent evaluation of the Louisiana voucher program, from the 2011-12 to 2013-14 school years, also showed a negative impact.14 The Louisiana program expanded statewide in 2012 after serving only students in New Orleans since 2008.15 In the 2015-16 school year, the program served more than 7,000 students.16 Using an experimental design, the evaluation found that, on average, participating voucher students’ performance in both reading and math dropped for two years and then, according to one model with a restricted sample size, saw performance rebound to end up remaining somewhat level to public school students’ performance in math after three years.17 However, the using an expanded sample size, the second model in the same paper found that student performance after three years continued to suffer from negative impacts. Ultimately, the model showing continued negative performance is more relevant and accurate, as it is based on a substantially larger sample size. Other researchers agree and assert that the continued negative findings across all three years are the most accurate results to highlight.18

The Louisiana findings are significant and show declines that are the equivalent of the average math student—at the 50th percentile—dropping to the 34th percentile after three years of participation in the Louisiana voucher program. The researchers of this evaluation find that this large effect is driven by even larger significant, negative effects for students who started in earlier grades—first through third grades—and somewhat smaller nonsignificant, negative effects for students who started in later grades: fourth through sixth.19

Researchers have studied vouchers in Ohio as well. Also a statewide program, Ohio gave vouchers to more than 18,000 students in the 2013-14 school year.20 The state has since expanded the program to grant vouchers to up to 60,000 qualifying students.21 Unlike other voucher programs, the Ohio program is targeted to only students attending low-performing public schools. The findings in Ohio, which used a quasi-experimental design and compared students who are similar across a multitude of factors, are similarly negative for students in math and reading after attending a voucher school. This study is the only one out of the four voucher programs recently evaluated that finds significant negative impacts in both math and reading.22

In addition to these four state-based studies of voucher program impacts on test scores, some recent studies do show positive effects on graduation rates, parent satisfaction, community college enrollment, and other nonachievement-based outcomes, but it is unclear if these outcomes are lasting and valid.23 For example, research shows that nationally, graduation rates for students in public schools and peers participating in voucher programs equalize after adjusting for extended graduation rates.24 Some critics suggest that private schools may graduate students who have not successfully completed the full program.25 Also, in regard to parent satisfaction, while some studies do show greater satisfaction among parents whose children participate in voucher programs, the most recent evaluation of the D.C. voucher program shows that any increase in parent or student school satisfaction is not statistically significant.26

Finally, there is some evidence that the performance of students in public schools increased after the creation of voucher programs—as was the case in Florida and Ohio during the implementation of voucher programs in those states.27 However, it is unclear why these modest increases occurred.28 Nonetheless, these recent rigorous voucher evaluations showing substantive academic losses for students who do participate in voucher programs serve as a heavy counterpoint to these modest results for students remaining in public schools.

D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and student achievement
This paper focuses on the most recent evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is the only voucher program funded and authorized by federal law and uses a randomized control trial design.29

Enacted in 2004, the D.C. voucher program provides publicly funded vouchers for low-income families who have a school-age child and reside in Washington, D.C. Eligible families receive vouchers through a lottery process. Families can enter the lottery if they meet program eligibility—D.C. residency and a household income at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line. The district gives priority based on a few factors, including attendance in a low-performing public school and siblings in the program. If a student is selected, the family can apply and enroll in private school or decline and remain in a public school.30 About 70 percent of families who are offered a voucher choose to enroll in a private school.31 The D.C. voucher program accepts about 600 students per year.32 Once you receive a voucher through the lottery, you are eligible to continue with the program until graduating high school.

Vouchers grant up to $8,653 for elementary and middle school annual tuition, and up to $12,981 for high school tuition.33 If the tuition or other fees exceeds the voucher amount, parents must cover the difference.34

In the spring of 2017, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent research arm of the Education Department, published a study that found that D.C. students who used a voucher scored 0.12 standard deviations lower in math than students who were not offered a voucher and remained in a public school.35 The evaluation assessed the outcomes of students from the 2012, 2013, and 2014 lotteries. This 0.12 score drop is the equivalent of an average student in the 50th percentile dropping to the 45th percentile after participating in the D.C. voucher program for one year.36 According to the IES study, participating in the D.C. voucher program had no statistically significant effect on reading achievement.37

These results mean that in math,38 the 1,166 participating voucher students fell behind their peers who remained in public schools, despite an annual federal investment of $60 million in the D.C. voucher program. Both groups of students performed similarly in reading.39 Notably, this study only analyzes one year of impact data; however, the results are in sync with the recent longer-term findings discussed above in Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio.

IES’s study of the D.C. voucher program is an important addition to existing voucher research. While there are voucher programs available in 13 other states,40 the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only voucher program with a congressionally mandated evaluation.41 IES worked in partnership with Washington, D.C., to structure the voucher program as a randomized controlled trial so that researchers could use the most rigorous scientific research method—an experimental design—to evaluate outcomes.42 Researchers call experimental designs the gold standard because they leverage random, lottery-based assignment of students to either the treatment or control group—voucher schools or public schools, respectively—to more accurately assess the difference between the two groups of students.43 While these types of studies can be more expensive and cumbersome to implement, they largely provide methodologically unassailable results.

A week after IES published the evaluation, which reported the negative effects of the D.C. voucher program, the Republican-led Congress passed a bipartisan budget deal with a prohibition to the use of the experimental design evaluation method in any future federally funded studies of the D.C. voucher program.44 Instead, IES must use “an acceptable quasi-experimental research design.”45

This change does not affect the ongoing D.C. voucher evaluations that are already in progress—namely, to explore the long-term effects of D.C. vouchers, including graduation rates. All future evaluations of the federally funded D.C. voucher program will therefore employ methodologies with more limitations, making it more difficult to definitively interpret results. As a consequence, the findings of the most recent evaluation of the D.C. voucher program using the experimental method is now even more important to consider in the ongoing voucher program debate.

Explaining the negative impacts of voucher programs
The authors of all four recent voucher studies—in Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Indiana, and Ohio—have suggested some theories for the decline in student achievement, such as capacity and loss of instructional time.

The researchers in the district tested three theories about the negative impacts and found that only one of them may explain some of the learning loss experienced in voucher schools.46 More specifically, they investigated the possibilities that control group students were in higher-performing public schools; that voucher schools continue to offer less instructional time than public schools; and finally, that student mobility—the fact that a student is moving and adjusting to a new school—may be the underlying cause of the negative impact.47

Of these three, only the instructional time factor proved to be a likely cause. As in the 2010 evaluation, the researchers found that private schools offer less instructional time than public schools. On average, private schools offer 65.5 minutes less per week in reading instruction and 48.3 minutes less per week in math instruction.48 More quality instructional time is linked to higher student achievement.49 Therefore, with each additional year that students are enrolled in the voucher program, they lose even more instructional time.

In Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio, researchers speculated that participating private schools may lack the immediate capacity and resources to educate students who are academically behind, who are English-language learners, or who have disabilities.50 This potential lack of capacity is of particular concern for the participating populations in all four contexts, because the students who tend to use vouchers are more likely to be behind academically. In Indiana, they are also more likely to be English-language learners.51

Finally, many public schools who lost students to vouchers are on an upward performance trajectory.52 Therefore, part of the learning loss experienced by voucher students compared with the learning of their public school peers could be attributable to the fact that those public schools are on an upward performance trajectory. This is consistent with a recent study that found, on average, that over the past two decades, public schools’ performance has caught up to or exceeded the performance of private schools.53

Making sense of vouchers’ effect on student achievement
To put the negative effects of vouchers in perspective, the authors of this report compared the effect of the D.C. voucher program on student achievement in math with the effects of other negative in-school factors—feeling unsafe in school, violent crime at school, teacher turnover, and teacher absenteeism.54 Beyond school, the authors even found that vouchers have a greater negative impact on student achievement than smoking, according to one study. While this context is compelling, comparing and understanding the impacts of smoking are beyond the scope of this analysis.55

As part of the study, the authors show each negative impact as the equivalent of a specific drop for a student who was average in math—in the 50th percentile—to a lower rank in the same distribution. This conversion uses the effect size—in the case of the D.C. voucher program, -0.12 standard deviations—to find the equivalent percentile drop from the 50th percentile on a normal curve.56

The comparable results are meaningful and startling. The impact of attending a participating D.C. voucher school on math achievement is a larger decrease than all other factors that the authors reviewed. A public school student who is average in math—in the 50th percentile—declines to the 45th percentile after participating in the D.C. voucher program for one year.

An average math student who experiences high teacher turnover drops from the 50th percentile to the 48th. Feeling unsafe in school, experiencing at least 10 teacher absences, and exposure to school crime have the same equivalent effect, dropping to the 49th percentile.


A decline in percentile points means that students are substantially falling behind relative to their performance in public school or relative to their similar public school peers, depending on the study. All the losses associated with these different detrimental interventions are significant. And yet, this comparison shows that students attending a voucher school experienced the largest relative learning loss across all five studies of negative impacts.

Further, using CREDO’s days of learning conversion, this standard deviation unit decrease is the equivalent of losing 68 days of learning—more than one-third of an entire school year.57 This conversion assumes that students learn, on average, the equivalent of one-quarter of a standard deviation unit—0.25—per year.

It is important to note that each study that the authors used only evaluates the impact of one factor in student achievement, when in reality, students are exposed to a variety of environmental and other factors, many of which have the potential to affect test scores. Therefore, it is possible—and likely—that students are exposed to more than one of the negative factors. For example, a student who witnesses violence in school may also feel unsafe in school. Further, when comparing these effects with the impact of participating in a voucher programs, it is also possible that students in both public schools and voucher programs experience additional impacts from some of the factors described in these comparison studies. However, there is no overwhelming evidence that would suggest bias in this comparison; there is no reason to believe that these known factors—teacher turnover, absenteeism, feeling unsafe in school, and exposure to violent crime at school— would occur more in the private sector versus the public sector or vice versa58.

As noted above, this analysis uses only one rigorous, well-regarded study on each topic. Therefore, using alternative studies could lead to different results. The methods for selecting both specific voucher studies and comparison studies to add context are detailed in the Appendix. Selection criteria included rigorous methods, recent results, and studies that are representative of their field. The statistical significance; negative or positive sign direction; and magnitude are similar to other rigorous studies addressing these topic areas. In some cases, other similar studies may find an effect in reading but not in math, for example, but maintained the same sign, as well as similar significance and magnitude. This comparison focuses on math impacts only to allow for an aligned analysis of effects. Further, the evaluation of the D.C. voucher program only assessed one year of achievement data; however, these are similar to the longer-term impacts found in the other three recent rigorous studies compared here.

Ultimately, this comparison shows that the negative impact of the D.C. voucher program exceeds the impact of other factors which society deems harmful.

The response of voucher advocates
The wave of voucher studies with negative findings in recent years have put some advocates in a bind. As studies consistently show negative outcomes, voucher proponents have backtracked or tried to spin the findings. For example, many voucher proponents point to other measures of voucher effectiveness, such as increased parent satisfaction.59 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a strong proponent for expanding voucher programs as a way to increase enrollment in parochial schools, wrote in a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) that “parental surveys, the number of families renewing scholarships, student graduation and matriculation, and basic accounting requirements, for example, are sufficient to assess and maintain the integrity of the program.”60

However, parent satisfaction is an especially slippery metric, as participating voucher schools often do not follow the same accountability and transparency parameters required of public schools. Private schools may not administer standardized assessments and, therefore, parents may lack comprehensive information to assess how their children are performing compared with statewide, grade-level standards.61 Furthermore, a recent study in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that parents struggle to select effective schools.62

While all reported successes of voucher programs should be further explored, including impact on graduation and college attendance rates, this research does not discount their significant troubling effect on student achievement. Statements such of that of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops show that many voucher advocates recognize that using achievement to evaluate the worth of voucher programs would likely hurt their potential for growth. Rather than addressing the root of the problem—voucher programs leading to large student achievement declines—proponents hope to sweep the issue under the rug.

President Trump and Secretary DeVos take a similar stance. DeVos repeatedly refused to commit to holding private schools that accept public dollars to any accountability provisions, including those that would ensure that schools report student achievement outcomes and even the most basic information on school enrollment.63

Importantly, even if schools do report student achievement results, researchers, policymakers, and parents will find it difficult to compare students’ performance in public versus private schools unless states also decide to require private schools to administer the same tests to both public and private students.64 It seems unlikely that this will change as voucher programs expand, particularly since equal accountability is deemed unimportant by the education secretary.65

Conclusion
Boosting student achievement is vital for America’s future.66 Raising outcomes in the nation’s school system will both maximize the potential of every child and foster the skills of tomorrow’s workforce. While choice in the education sector can spur innovation and offer parents and children options to best meet individualized needs, evidence indicates that voucher programs do not improve results for students and will not achieve that aim. Indeed, vouchers will likely hurt student growth and lower overall outcomes.67 Moreover, as low-performing and low-income students are often overrepresented in voucher programs,68 students with the greatest need will likely experience preventable declines in student achievement.

Looking forward, the federal government should focus its funding and influence on research-based education policies that have been shown to improve academic achievement. Encouraging the replication of high-performing charter schools, expanding access to high-quality pre-K programs, or increasing the equitable distribution of teachers are all much better and proven educational investments.69

Unfortunately, President Trump and Secretary DeVos instead aim to divert public funding to fuel the expansion of voucher programs.70 If evidence indicates that vouchers are worse for students than many other factors that society believes are detrimental to student growth and achievement, how can the federal government condone, let alone allocate, scarce funding resources to promote private school vouchers?

Appendix
CAP translated and compared the effect sizes of six studies in varying topic areas to provide the context needed to aid in interpreting these impacts. Importantly, two distinct processes guide the authors’ methods: study selection and converting effect sizes to percentile changes and days of learning.

Study selection
Voucher study selection
The voucher studies included in this report are the four most recent and rigorous voucher program analyses to be released in the past five years. Other work analyzing voucher program effects has similarly divided these four current studies from prior work.71 The specific focus of this brief is the study of the D.C. voucher program. The D.C. voucher program was selected as a study focus for this report due to the federal investment in the program; the federal mandate for the IES to study the impacts of the program; and the randomized control trial methodology used to investigate its impact. These three factors make the D.C. voucher program an important lens for education policymakers and practitioners to understand and use when considering investment in this program or similar programs. However, all four studies of voucher programs included in this report leverage rigorous—either experimental or quasi-experimental72—methodologies and are similarly important for education policymakers and practitioners to understand. Importantly, all four studies also have similar findings of negative impacts on math scores and in one case, on reading scores as well. These studies serve to further validate the impacts found in each individual study. This corroborating evidence is notable, as the D.C. voucher program only assessed one year of achievement data; however, the results are comparable to the other three current studies described.

Other study selection
The additional five current studies with negative educational impacts described in this report, which serve to add context to the voucher study impacts, were all selected based on four parameters: the presence of in-school factors associated with negative impacts, rigorous methods, recent results, and representative of their field—that is to say, the statistical significance; negative or positive sign direction; and magnitude are similar to other rigorous studies addressing these topic areas. In some cases, other similar studies may find an effect in reading but not in math, for example, but maintained the same sign, and similar significance and magnitude.. The comparison in this brief focuses on only math impacts to allow for a comparable analysis of effects. Importantly, this analysis uses only one rigorous, well-regarded study on each topic. Therefore, using alternative studies could lead to different results.

Effect size conversion
CREDO’s effect size conversion to days of learning
As noted in this paper, the days of learning conversion is an approximate translation, meant to add context and aid in the understanding of relative effect size.73 Unlike the actual effect size, the days of learning conversion should not be interpreted as a precise measurement of learning for policy use. Using research estimating the average growth from fourth to eighth grade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress from Eric Hanushek and Margaret Raymond, CREDO determines that one standard deviation unit of growth is the equivalent of 570 days of learning.74 Therefore, to convert effect sizes to days of learning, the effect size is simply multiplied by 570 to achieve an approximate days of learning impact. In this report, the days of learning conversion yields days lost rather than additional days of learning gained, as all the effect sizes are negative. Similarly, CREDO has also used their days of learning conversion to yield days lost when describing the impact of attending online charter schools.75

Effect size conversion to percentile change
While effect sizes are standardized and comparable, they are not always intuitive. Therefore, to provide context and aid in interpretation of important and negative voucher programs impacts, the authors translated effect sizes to specific changes from the 50th percentile. More specifically, effect sizes can be interpreted as the new percentile standing of the average control group member if they had been in the treatment group. This interpretation assumes a normal distribution where the average control group member is at the 50th percentile. For example, a treatment group effect size of 1.00 can be described as moving the average control group member from the 50th to the 84th percentile. Therefore, using readily available, online z-score calculators,76 the authors translated each negative effect size into a specific percentile drop from the 50th percentile.77

This translation to a percentile change from the 50th percentile allows the authors to make more easily understood and accurate comparisons across studies. For example, as stated in the paper, the D.C. voucher program had the average effect of moving students from the 50th to the 45th percentile, while not feeling safe in school had the average effect of moving to the 49th percentile. It is important to note, however, that the standard deviation to percentile conversion is not linear, therefore, these percentile changes must always be in reference to a starting point, in this case, the 50th percentile.

I am sure their are many studies that would contrast the findings of the studies of the above study. That being said even if everything you is correct, what give you or I to restrain parents from making the decisions of what education our children receive. I would venture to guess if you compared the students in private school to the public schools, the private school students performed better. Maybe the additional challenge of a better school is overwhelming. I would like to see a long term study that shows lifetime achievement comparatively.

If it's so easy and fast to fix the failing schools why aren't they fixing them? I can only speak for California schools, but the state is 49th in education. Not because we don't spend. We spend a shit ton of money on education in California. We just don't get the results.

My kids go to an better school than most, because we did the leg work so they could. We also work with our kids. That could be the deciding factor. My kids are far ahead of the majority of their classmates. Their teachers always tell us they are ahead of us other students. I hope one day all kids can get a great education.

 

[Water-]

personally i have been lobbying my fellow mods to have a separate section in the toker den for current events etc. i do understand that some people don't want to be confronted with this stuff when they come here looking for grow or smoke related stuff. so i do get that.

on the other hand i think the free speech experiment is something worthwhile. everything we have today comes from free speech, every right, every social policy, it all starts as an idea, many times the idea is scoffed at and ridiculed as well as being censored by the powers that be, specially when it's first brought forward. it's ridiculous that i have to explain this. free speech is essential for society to progress in any way. yes some ideas are bad and scary, but forbidding free speech to protect against such is like using a sledge hammer to kill the mosquito on your forehead. the negative consequences in lost genius, of allowing anyone to censor free speech are a thousand times worse then the small moments of discomfort it causes to read idiocy, bigotry and racism once in a while, specially when you have the freedom to argue against such idiocies.

Do you really think being African American invovles only "small moments" of discomfort? They are faced with contast racism in a country with a brutal history that they have been victim to
. I doubt that it seems small to them when it never goes away.

 

[gaiusmarius]

Do you really think being African American invovles only "small moments" of discomfort? They are faced with contast racism in a country with a brutal history that they have been victim to
. I doubt that it seems small to them when it never goes away.

please don't do that, you know i was talking about free speech here on the forum and the moments of discomfort when you read some idiot talking about genocide or equally outrageous stuff. context matters, i'm the last person who believes in racial superiority of any kind.

i hate when people do that, it's so disengenous. classic straw man.

edited to add: for the record, the answer is; NO! i don't believe that being African American involves only small moments of discomfort in daily life. but then i never made any such claim.

 

[Water-]

please don't do that, you know i was talking about free speech here on the forum and the moments of discomfort when you read some idiot talking about genocide or equally outrageous stuff. context matters, i'm the last person who believes in racial superiority of any kind.

i hate when people do that, it's so disengenous. classic straw man.

edited to add: for the record, the answer is; NO! i don't believe that being African American involves only small moments of discomfort in daily life. but then i never made any such claim.

I dont think that you believe in racial superiority.

African Americans use this site in their daily life and you seem to be implying that encountering racism here is not or shoul dnot be effecting them in real life.

It appears callous.

Someone already made post to say it was upsetting them and he was dismissed because he is a minority here.

 

[gaiusmarius]

I dont think that you believe in racial superiority.

African Americans use this site in their daily life and you seem to be implying that encountering racism here is not or shoul dnot be effecting them in real life.

It appears callous.

Someone already made post to say it was upsetting them and he was dismissed because he is a minority here.

please show me anyone being racist to another member, this shouldn't be tolerated and will be deleted. i'm talking about the realm of ideas. we already have rules against insulting eachother, no matter who we are.