The Trib-Star has an article on the subject of what schools should do about feeding kids whose parents don’t pay the bill for school lunches. The article specifically deals with Vigo County, but it’s an issue that comes up everywhere. On the one hand, none of this is the kids’ fault. On the other hand, there is fear of creating a free rider problem by parents who can pay but choose not to. One solution that makes a lot of people angry is the “cheese sandwich of shame” — an “alternate lunch” that feeds the kid but theoretically creates some pressure to do something about the outstanding bill.

I’m a softy, but I’m inclined to err on the side of feeding the kid and not creating an environment where they feel ashamed of not being rich enough to get the hamburger or whatever the standard lunch is. If I’m getting swindled out of my tax dollars and the result is that those dollars are going to feeding kids, I’m really o.k. with that. If the parents are really taking the school district for a ride, go after them with standard collections procedures. The argument is that collecting the money is more expensive than getting it up front. And, there is some truth to that. But, if the parents really have a lot of extra cash, it shouldn’t be too tough to collect — and, there are ways to impose additional fees for collection costs and attorney’s fees to sort of offset the costs of collection. If the parents don’t have much extra cash, maybe it’s o.k. to help out a little by giving their kids a free lunch.

Peter Balonon-Rosen, writing for State Impact Indiana has a good article on career and technical training initiatives in Indiana schools:

A new state law could allow job training programs to replace other high school graduation requirements. The law requires the State Board of Education to develop new pathways to high school completion.

It comes just as job training in Indiana high schools has taken on a new life — and new name.

“I think there’s a negative perception associated with the term ‘vocational training,’” Deuberry says. “Instead it is kind of like job training program. It’s so much bigger.”

. . .

Career and technical education programs are growing across Indiana. Today, students learn skills from welding to 3D printing to cooking – not just shop class skills, as was common in the past.

This is probably a good concept if done well but subject to abuse if done poorly. (Not very insightful: you could probably say that about almost literally any initiative.)  Earlier in the article, Balonon-Rosen mentions that policymakers have struggled with whether education should be about getting kids ready for college or for the workforce. Molly Deuberry, speaking for the Department of Education, says “both.” And that’s correct as far as it goes, but I cringed a little at the idea of “college” being the counterpart to “workforce” because you run into the same question in college. Is that just advanced vocational training?

The larger question, in my mind, is whether you are teaching the student to be a worker or teaching the student to be a person. The ability to make a living is a big part of what is going to make you a productive, happy, fully developed citizen and human. But, it’s obviously not the only thing. Schools have to focus on vocational capabilities as a significant part of what will make a student a good person and a citizen who will improve the community. College preparation is not necessarily the path to excellence in those non-vocational areas of life.

But, I’m straying a bit from the point. When I was a kid, it seemed like vocational classes were a place where the troublemakers were shunted off. As I walked the hallways, I saw lots of rough kids through the doors of shop rooms that I never set foot in. The danger is that these vocational classes won’t be used so much as an alternate route for a fully developed education as storage space for troublemakers.

But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way, and from the article it sounds like the aspiration of the career and technical training initiatives is to recognize that college isn’t for everyone. (And, as I say this, I’m extremely wary of sounding like Judge Smails in Caddyshack when he tells Danny, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”) A strong career and technical education path was one of the recommendations of the NCSL report on how to build a world-class educational system after the study group reviewed a number of other educational systems around the world. As I put it in a blog post from last year:

Develop a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting  the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population.

More from the report:

Singapore and Switzerland, in particular, have built strong systems of CTE with close ties to industry. Singapore uses a school-based model and Switzerland uses an employer-based model. In these countries, CTE is not perceived as a route for students lacking strong academic skills, but as another approach to education, skills development and good jobs. CTE is well funded, academically challenging and aligned with real workforce needs. It is hands-on, attractive to students and parents, and can lead to university for students who may seek professional and managerial positions later. For other students, CTE is a pathway to good jobs, by building technical skills that can be achieved much earlier than the traditional academic experience.

It bears mentioning that the report also called for social safety net infrastructure so the student comes ready to learn, a well-paid and highly trained force of teachers working collaboratively, and that the system be implemented as part of a comprehensive plan. These items are likely less palatable to Indiana policymakers than beefing up vocational education career tracks. Which, in turn, makes me concerned about whether the career and technical education track will be implemented as an alternate route to a high quality education or just a new name for the old approach to vocational education.

The “money follows the child” model of school funding can have a negative impact on local communities.

Claire McInerny, writing for State Impact Indiana, has a good article on challenges faced by Wabash County and City Schools due to the State’s approach to funding and the loss of students in their districts. The State takes a “money follows the student” approach to school funding which leads to problems when students move elsewhere. Efforts to keep the schools going have resulted in Wabash City Schools closing schools. Now their gifted program takes place in a former storage room.

Scenarios like this exist across the state. Over the last decade, almost all rural school districts lost students. And because state funding is based on enrollment, when students leave, so does cash.

On top of this, consolidation and school closures upset parents, who may elect to move their children, which means even less money.

I’ve argued against money-follows-the-child funding on any number of occasions. It’s misguided because children are not widgets — some cost more than others to fund. It’s also misguided because the public dollars aren’t an entitlement for individual students. After all, lots and lots of people without children pay into the system. Those dollars are ultimately investments communities are making in themselves. Recognition should be given to the fact that public money is ultimately paying for a public good — a public good that both educates the children and creates a public institution that makes the community a better place to live.

It looks like, under the current funding model, Wabash City and Wabash County are looking at County-wide consolidation.

This blog has not, for years, been on any kind of reliable publication schedule. Sometimes, it’s three times per day, then I go a week without anything. That probably explains the longevity — I’ve not put any kind of pressure on myself. It hasn’t done much for readership levels. If I wanted a lot of readers, I’d post 3-5x per day on Daylight Saving Time, class basketball, and why this or that politician is truly a monster.

Anyway, I’m going through one of my ebbs — which is coming at an inopportune time since this we’re getting toward the end of session when the General Assembly tends to get into most of whatever pernicious nonsense it decides to bring upon itself. So, I thought I’d mention what was occupying me instead of seeing what the General Assembly was getting into in terms of abortion, religion, following the “education choice” will-o-the-wisp, and whatever else.

Under the state’s funding formula, West Lafayette is in the bottom 2% of schools in terms of state funding. In fact, since 1993, the state’s school funding choices have worked against West Lafayette schools at almost every turn.  However, we’re a community that values its education. So, in 2010, the people of the community stepped up and passed a local school funding referendum. Partially as a result of this, we have one of the best (arguably the best) school districts in the state. Under the state’s school funding referendum model, a community has to keep passing these things every 7 years or so if it wants to keep the funding in place. So, I’m taking part in an effort to keep the local funding in place. One of the things this requires is knocking on a lot of doors. I’ve never actually done any canvassing before. Turns out, it’s pretty enjoyable. It helps a lot that I believe in the cause and most people in the community seem to be supportive. Getting out and talking to people is, for the most part, energizing. And, this morning, I brought my daughter along as my wingman. She seems to have an aptitude for it. (I warned you all this was coming when she was two.)

So, that’s eating up quite a bit of free time. Coaching the kids’ soccer teams starts up next week, so I wouldn’t be surprised if things are a little quiet around here in April. For those of you in the West Lafayette School District, I encourage you to vote “yes” to the school funding question on May 2. If you want to learn more, volunteer, and/or spruce up your lawn with a sign, head on over to SupportRDP.com.

Who are you going to believe, a comforting ideology or “experts” with their “analysis of available evidence”?

A new study out of Stanford concludes that voucher programs do not improve educational outcomes. (Unfortunately, I read this immediately after reading a piece that said contrary evidence will cause ideologically committed people to adhere even more firmly to their factually unsupported beliefs. So, maybe I’m doing more harm than good by sharing the Standford report.)

Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs. In the few cases in which test scores increased, other factors, namely increased public accountability, not private school competition, seem to be more likely drivers. And high rates of attrition from private schools among voucher users in several studies raises concerns.

. . .

In the only area in which there is evidence of small improvements in voucher schools—in high school graduation and college enrollment rates—there are no data to show whether the gains are the result of schools shedding lower-performing students or engaging in positive practices. Also, high school graduation rates have risen sharply in public schools across the board in the last 10 years, with those increases much larger than the small effect estimated on graduation rates from attending a voucher school.

. . .

The report suggests that giving every parent and student a great “choice” of educational offerings is better accomplished by supporting and strengthening neighborhood public schools with a menu of proven policies, from early childhood education to after-school and summer programs to improved teacher pre-service training to improved student health and nutrition programs. All of these yield much higher returns than the minor, if any, gains that have been estimated for voucher students. (Emphasis added)

The report also notes that voucher evaluations often do not reflect the hidden costs — such as erosion of the quality of the teaching profession by private school practices such as hiring younger, lower cost teachers and not compensating them at a long-term level necessary to sustain them throughout their career. This depletes the level of experience available in the pool of teachers. It also notes that voucher schools are able to avoid retaining higher cost students and that there are administrative costs associated with managing voucher programs. It also argues that there is a cost to voucher programs in the form of distracting from potentially more successful strategies like early childhood education and nutrition programs.

School vouchers are an example of embracing ideology over evidence.

Kevin Carey, writing for the Upshot, has a column about recent studies that indicate vouchers are not improving educational outcomes. There has really never been strong evidence showing that voucher students do better than students attending traditional public schools. And, recent studies, show that they probably do worse. Given that traditional public schools add value to the community over and above the individual educations they provide to the students who attend, we should conclude and begin unwinding this voucher experiment. To improve public schools, we should look to systems in other countries that are outperforming ours and seek to emulate those things they are doing better.

The first results discussed by Mr. Carey came from Indiana where:

Researchers examined an Indiana voucher program that had quickly grown to serve tens of thousands of students under Mike Pence, then the state’s governor. “In mathematics,” they found, “voucher students who transfer to private schools experienced significant losses in achievement.” They also saw no improvement in reading.

The next came from Louisiana where:

They found large negative results in both reading and math. Public elementary school students who started at the 50th percentile in math and then used a voucher to transfer to a private school dropped to the 26th percentile in a single year. Results were somewhat better in the second year, but were still well below the starting point.

Finally, Ohio, where a study financed by the pro-voucher Waltons concluded, “Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools.” Massachusetts seems to have a more successful program than Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio, but it is marked by “nonprofit public schools, open to all and accountable to public authorities. The less “private” that school choice programs are, the better they seem to work.”

In Indiana, the motivating impulse for voucher enthusiasts seems to be a combination of: a) undermining the influence of teachers’ unions; b) subsidizing the preferences of those who would want a private religious education; and c) providing access to that sweet, sweet education money to friends and well-wishers of voucher proponents.

We’re not going to free-market our way out of our educational problems. Again, we don’t need to re-invent the wheel. Other places are having better success with their educational systems. We need to identify methods that are successful and copy them.