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Home My WebLink AboutSchool vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits COMMENT - National Post - 10/24/2017 - National Post - 10/24/201710/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post NATIONALPOST NEWS m FULL(OMMENT , SPORTS a CULTURE m LIFE m MORE - DRIVING , (LASSIFIEDS W JOBS m SUBSCRIBE , FINAN(IALPOST School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits par( wts Ireep tip°h, chikh°e. rt w(va"y,fi-ain hm--incame Icids, more school choice won't level the An empty classroom at McGee Secondary school in Vancouver on Sept. 5, 2014. http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 1/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post BLOOMBERG VIEW governments go wrong. Incentives for quality were low, October 24, 2017 so the schools were being run for the benefit of the 11:54 AM EDT employees rather than the putative customers. And of Filed under course the problem was especially prevalent in low - Full Comment income neighbourhoods where parents had little political Comment power and few alternatives. Facebook There is a cure for such problems: the market. Competition and choice could align incentives properly, ��///%%1)11 Twitter FULL COMMENT VIDEO � f producing schools that delivered the same kind of quality and service that your local supermarket does. 0Email Of course, it's uncomfortable to suggest that we should More leave something as important as education to the vagaries of the market. Some parents don't make enough W ,,,, C',un,,idian money to pay for adequate education. Some parents could not or would not invest the energy to find a good school. Society has an interest in producing educated citizens with the skills to enter the modern marketplace, and moral decency demands that we make sure every child starts out with a shot in life. So even libertarians quailed at suggesting that we should just shut down all the government schools. Friedman proposed that schools should compete for student dollars Luckily, economist Milton Friedman had suggested the solution way back in 1955: that we could have a more market-driven education system without entirely abandoning the government's role. The government should continue to pay for at least some kinds of education, and to oversee minimum quality standards that would prevent unlucky children from falling through LATEST COMMENT the cracks. But schools should have to compete for student dollars. Chris Selley: Both accused acquitted as nearly pointless Sudbury byelection charge http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 2/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post Scholarships, and public voucher programs, we were finally going to get some choice into the educational marketplace. Like many of my fellow libertarians, I genuinely believed that this would be an economic and social revolution that would, over time, lift millions out of poverty and alleviate all manner of social ills. Twenty years on, my optimism seems to have been far too exuberant. Some studies suggest that voucher programs do modest good; others suggest that they do very little; and a few suggest that the impacts are actually negative. My overall takeaway from the literature is that voucher programs probably do a little bit of good. But the emphasis is on the word "little"; they are not a cure-all, or even much of a cure for anything. It was reasonable to think, in 1997, that voucher programs could change the world. Now we have two decades of evidence. Twenty years later, the evidence shows voucher programs do only modest good How did we get it so wrong? Many explanations have been proffered, starting with, "You libertarians were getting high on your own supply." Maybe markets just aren't that great. That explanation would be more convincing if non -market attempts at school reform had gone better. But during the same period, vast sums were poured into liberal projects like smaller class sizes, and the results have been entirely uninspiring. Now the mania is for universal pre -K, not so much because there's compelling evidence for great outcomes, but because at least we haven't tried it yet, and therefore don't know that it won't work. not or necessity Christie Blatchford: Summary of the gas plant trial defence -'How were we to know was wrong?' John Ivison: Since there's no fiscal meltdow in sight, the Liberals will just keep on spending TORONTO WEATHER 8 °C Partly cloudy _ Feels like 4 " Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Complete Farccast—> 12 13 16 11 http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 3/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post make private vouchers unnecessary; perhaps it takes the market a while to respond to a voucher system by producing excellent schools; and (depressingly) perhaps it doesn't make much difference what we do in the schools, because most educational effects are driven by a combination of genetics and home environment. But there's another possibility, suggested recently in an NBER working paper: Maybe vouchers don't improve school quality too much because quality is not what parents look for when they're choosing their children's schools. Peer group can matter to student outcomes as much as pedagogy „/0 At first blush, that seems both condescending and improbable. Are we really saying that poor parents don't care about the quality of their child's education? No, of course not. But the quality of the pedagogy isn't the only thing that shapes student outcomes in schools. The peer group matters a great deal; families with higher socioeconomic status are better able to navigate the educational system, and they value education very highly, traits they pass on to their children. Those parents also work hard to improve the quality of the schools their children attend. The socioeconomic status of the students in a school is somewhat easier for parents to observe than the quality of the pedagogy. It's not then all that surprising that when researchers sat down to analyze parental decision- making in New York City public school, peer group seemed to be what parents were looking at. And peer group matters a great deal. http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 4/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post is keeping their children away from those kids (at least in large numbers), that hope cannot be fulfilled. Improving the quality of instruction can make everyone better off; peer group, on the other hand, is a zero-sum game, where every child who improves their peer group must be counterbalanced by one who is pushed out. School choice may have other benefits, like encouraging high-income parents to stay in cities, where their incomes bolster the tax base, and provide funds for other sorts of remediation. And of course, it gives parents more options, which is a good thing in and of itself. For these reasons, among others, I still support it. But it no longer gives me the hope it once did. Bloomberg View Comments Share your thoughts FEATURED STORIES FULL COMMENT ADVE TIS WN Chris Selley: Both accused acquitted as nearly pointless Sudbury byelection charges dismissed Match Andrew Coyne: The troubling truth about our deficits - they are of choice, not of necessity http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 5/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post TOP STORIES Christie Blatchford: Summary of the gas plant trial defence —'How were we to know it was wrong?' John Ivison: Since there's no fiscal meltdown in sight, the Liberals will just keep on spending Chris Selley: New Metrolinx CEO offers a welcome outsider perspective John Robson: People would be outraged by an honest budget, so we demand smoke and mirrors Mach How a Canadian built a DIY nuclear bunker from 42 buried buses and plenty of concrete At 10,000 -square -feet, the scope of Ark Two is staggering. There is a brig, mortuary, dentist's chair, decontamination room and daycare How prepared is Canada for a nuclear attack?'We get on our knees and pray' It's unclear how well North Korea has mastered missile guidance systems — meaning a misfire is possible. And Canada could also become a 'demonstration target' North Korea is just the tip of the stockpile: Here are all the nuclear warheads in the world visualized !!! illilI'sliFilaln3iah iF3li�tlilli`li A by -the -numbers breakdown of how countries such as the United States, Russia, India, France and Israel compare Here's what ends human civilization: The leading contenders to kill us all Robots and asteroids are likely threats, but we'll probably be wiped out by good, old-fashioned disease http://nationalpost.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits 6/7 10/25/2017 School vouchers don't improve educational outcomes. Elitist parents may be the culprits I National Post ', FRIDA HOVER• C= D 9 Comments I'll lily y1i I1I 1111101 IIIIIIIIIII O OIIu�NUINO v,mily IuVI 11 VIIIU. �. 11.1m, , � to , ,.� 4n,� No 11� �0 � Im1�mi0N1 Mf. ,. m��m� HOVER FOR FLYER Add a comment... U 4 �t l al fa I � ,:, i laDessa Vasco It is not about income levels, but about various "...phobias" being pushed by leftist governments and social engineering. Stick to academics and things will be fine. Wynne et al keep forgetting that kids belong to their parents not to government. ...Ask Dr.Tourloukis how he feels about Wynne using tax dollars to fight him in court just because he asked for advanced notice of when gender theory and sexuality will be taught to his primary grade children. Like - Reply - 12 - 20 hrs - Edited ILyirndiia (Edwards And they won't have islam rammed down their throats in private schools. Like - Reply - 4 - 18 hrs Lyle Robinson Lyndia Edwards Who has "islam (sic) rammed down their throats"? YOu're not a bigot by any chance, are you? Like - Reply - 16 hrs " Michael Staffieri • St. Michael's College School egalitarian leftist crap in this article.... vouchers give parents control and individual schools vie for the vouchers so if you're rated last in the school district you better pull up your pants and innovate ... in jurisdictions that have done it ... administration costs were slashed and grade point averages rose... if you want a school without oversex education, that should be available to every parent... special education schools would also crop up ... vouchers also reduce the power of public sector teachers unions. If a central planner at a school board gets it wrong, it's wrong for everyone... whereas if there is more autonomy among the schools, best practices emerge Like - Reply - 11 - 21 hrs Patrick MclMuuirlplhy "ouchers give parents control " Unfortunately, some parents are stupid. Like - Reply - 19 hrs Michael Staffieri • St. Michael's College School Patrick McMurphy it's the few we have to save and that's why we need the state to be co -parents for all children.. brilliant Like - Reply - 1 - 19 hrs http://national post.com/opinion/school-vouchers-dont-improve-educational-outcomes-elitist-parents-may-be-the-culprits v�.rti6..iOYir//%% 1 FRIDA p� „f r 7/7 /!-- This code was added to remove the metadata from document view in Weblink -->