Why not use real, objective data?

Yesterday I read closely the guest commentary offered by Sen. Scott Jenkins in the Standard; today the same space in the Standard is occupied by Paul Mero, leader of the Sutherland Institute. Like Sen. Jenkins, Mr. Mero writes in support of the voucher referendum. And just as I came away from Sen. Jenkins's commentary wondering why he didn't just describe the objective facts of Utah's needs, and the objective facts about the voucher plan on November's ballot, I had a similar feeling after reading Mr. Mero's item this morning. But more disappointing in today's note was Mr. Mero's reliance on what voucher programs have or haven't done in other states across the country, when we prove time after time that Utah isn't "like" other states across the country in so many ways, and his reliance on sources that anybody -- even I -- could find questionable with just a couple minutes of research on the internet. Again, if both sides of this discussion could stick to what the objective facts are, and what the voucher plan does and doesn't say, we would all be better informed.

To open his commentary, Mr. Mero professes concern here (http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/topofutahvoices/113031/) for Utah's minority populations, and he may well be concerned for Utah's minority populations. But last week, another writer, Eric Jacobsen, offered data that suggests vouchers don't help minority populations perform better in private schools than they perform in public schools. To disprove Mr. Jacobsen's point, Mr. Mero refers to his sources.

Dr. Jay P. Greene, endowed chair and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, a Tufts undergrad and Harvard Ph.D., referenced by Mr. Jacobsen, found that based on their benefits these voucher programs should be recommended for continuation if not expansion.

I came across the name of Dr. Greene a couple of weeks ago when trying to figure out who was behind the Heartland Institute, another pro-voucher organization. Here's what I wrote on August 22:

At the office's own webpage, http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/, I learned that it is not affiliated with the Arkansas Department of Education, but with the University of Arkansas's College of Education and Health Professions. It sounded perfectly legitimate -- a public university serving a public interest -- until I read further.

The office's webpage reads, "The Department of Education Reform is the newest department in the College of Education and Health Professions, established on July 1, 2005. The creation of the Department of Education Reform was made possible through a $10,000,000 private gift and an additional $10,000,000 from the University’s Matching Gift Program. This gift is one of the largest ever received by a college of education in the country. With these resources the department has six endowed professorships, ten doctoral fellowships, and funds for research and projects."

So an unnamed donor with an interest in "education reform" gave a gift of $10 million to the University of Arkansas, which matched the gift with public funds and opened a brand-new department whose products now include papers to be published by the Heartland Institute. And for that $10 million gift, they got a staff of six professors, 10 graduate students and various research aid to set up their operation. (Who in Arkansas would have $10 million to devote to such a narrow purpose, and would not want to give it publicly?)

Its director is Jay Greene. And Mr. Greene's biography, which is available on the public website, lists a good many articles he's written or co-written, with titles such as "Vouchers in Charlotte," "The Hidden Research Consensus for School Choice, Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education," "Private Schooling and Political Tolerance," "Private Schools and the Public Good," "Effectiveness of School Choice: The Milwaukee Experiment," "Sex, Drugs, and Delinquency in Urban and Suburban Public Schools," "The Education Freedom Index," and "A Survey of Results from Voucher Experiments: Where We Are and What We Know."

Now that we understand the point of view adopted by Mr. Greene and the Arkansas Department of Education Reform...

(And by the way, when I asked who in Arkansas had $10 million to devote to such a narrow purpose as this, I had forgotten the folks in Bentonville, who certainly have a lot of money, and who make no secret of their love for vouchers.)

So now that we see who Mr. Mero is quoting to support his argument, and we know the point of view of that expert and how he comes to that point of view, we can read Mr. Mero's text more clearly. He writes,

Across the board in these studies, African-American students do better in private schools with a voucher. That's good news in anticipation for what will occur here in Utah. In those studies, African-Americans comprise the largest demographic population in the cities where vouchers have been implemented.

But again, objective studies don't support Mr. Mero's assertions. Since it took me a little while to find these sources, I'll mention them again although I've mentioned them once before.

Washington, D.C. has a large African-American student population, and it has a voucher program. So it makes a perfect subject for objective study. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education published a study of that program, and it found no significant difference in the academic achievement of students attending private schools on a voucher and students attending public schools. That study is here (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20074009/). It can hardly be argued that the U.S. Department of Education is biased against vouchers in general, so the fact that it drew this conclusion and released it to the public may be important.

But Washington isn't the only example, and the U.S. Department of Education isn't the only organization doing objective studies of voucher plans. Both Cleveland, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have voucher programs, and the U.S. General Accounting Office published a study of their effectiveness in 2001. Like the study of Washington's voucher program, this one found no significant difference in the academic achievement of students attending private schools on a voucher and students attending public schools, in Cleveland or in Milwaukee. And the Milwaukee program is more than a decade old now, so it has had plenty of time to demonstrate any edge over public schools. The Cleveland and Milwaukee study is found here (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01914.pdf).

Then there's the report published in the Christian Science Monitor last year here (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0523/p01s03-usgn.html). It reported

The voucher program has given new life to venerable Catholic and Lutheran schools in the city, and has spurred the creation of dozens of new schools - many of them religious - that rely solely on voucher students. All told, about 70 percent of the voucher schools are religious. Some of those schools, like Hope, show signs of excellence, but not all.

In one of the worst instances, a convicted rapist opened a school, which has since shut down. Reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tried to visit all 115 schools then in the program last year, and found a mixed bag. Nine schools refused to let reporters in, and the paper cited "10 to 15 others where ... the overall operation appeared alarming when it came to the basic matter of educating children."

One school was opened by a woman who said she had a vision from God to start a school, and whose only educational background was as a teacher's aide. Others had few books or signs of a coherent curriculum. Yet they've been able to enroll students.

And,

Nationally, studies on vouchers have been mixed. A few showed signs of improved student achievement and evidence that competition improves public schools. Others showed negligible difference. "The evidence to date is very mixed," says Jack Jennings, director of the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy. "For [the] sake of kids ... it would be good to have an objective analysis."

Smaller voucher programs currently exist in Washington, D.C. and Cleveland, while Florida and Utah have specialized ones that target students with disabilities. A larger Florida voucher program was declared unconstitutional by that state's supreme court earlier this year.

"People feel good about having choice," says Martin Carnoy, a professor of education and economics at Stanford University. "But most of what they're having is the choice to move into a private school that is not so different from the public school they left."

If I can find these objective studies and investigations by the media with just a couple of hours of searching on the internet, anybody can.

Mr. Mero writes, "For regular Utahns this means that vouchers work everywhere they have been tried for those who have needed them most." But this statement is patently untrue; there is objective data that disproves his statement, and he offers no objective data to support it. If he offered even one credible study or report from a disinterested source, then we could hold it up next to others and weigh their points on the merits. But he makes no attempt at all, which is disappointing.

He continues, "We need the Utah voucher program to work for all struggling minority and low-income students who fall into that deplorable statistic of four out of 10 not graduating. We are fortunate that the Utah voucher program is exactly designed to serve these students."

I would be more convinced of his argument if he supported it with real, objective facts from credible sources, and if he pointed specifically to the parts of House Bill 148 that will produce the results he imagines. But he doesn't do that. Rather, he urges Utahns to adopt the plan because it will set a precedent -- becoming the first statewide universal voucher program in America. He writes,

It is time that we, Utahns, accept our role in educational history to lead the nation in helping children who truly need it most.

If only I believed we were all primarily focused on "helping children who truly need it most."