The Fiction of Educational Outcomes

Yesterday, I posted on an op-ed by Fred Hiatt about the Washington, DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, a system of vouchers for DC kids to attend other schools. Lots of people commented on the column, but one reaction in particular galled me. Matthew Yglesias is certainly not the only one who thinks this, but since he came up first, he will bear the brunt of my ire as a substitute for everyone else who looks at choice programs like this. I have no idea what Yglesias really thinks about school choice, but this is what he wrote:

As Hiatt's column points out, parents with kids in the program are generally much happier than parents with kids not in the program, and there are many more applicants for "Opportunity Scholarships" than there are scholarships to hand out.

One thing missing from Hiatt's long, entirely laudatory, article about DC vouchers, however, is any evidence that educational outcomes are improving as a result. That seems, however, like an important point!

Yglesias does point out that happy parents are important but seems to give the impression that "education outcomes" are more important.

And so in response to Yglesias I say, in my best Clark Gable as Rhett Butler impression, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"

Here is the more important question, what does "educational outcomes" mean? Educational outcomes is one of those buzzwords that sounds important and scientific, but really has no meaning that can be articulated in plain English with any consistency. We think we know what it means, but educational outcomes is a term so subjective that can mean almost anything to anyone. In particular, people who use it like Yglesias does, it often means, "anything that will kill the voucher program."

To be meaningful, the phrase "educational outcomes" needs some sort of easily defined and easily understood standard, such as "100% of students testing at the proficient level" or "80% of students having a 3.0 Grade Point Average on a 4.0 scale," or "Every student shall be able to do multiplication tables from 1 to 25" or something similar. In short, there needs to be an objective STANDARD by which an educational outcome can be measured. Otherwise, the educational outcome becomes a moving goal line suited more to political posturing than actual teaching and learning.

If "educational outcome" is to be the standard by which a voucher program is to be measured, the the standard needs to be defined much better and more importantly it must be applied to each and every publicly funded educational institution and program, without exception. That is the rub though for anti-choice advocates. They want a stick with which to beat up on choice programs like open enrollment, charter schools and vouchers, but seemingly don't want the standard applied evenly.

If the "educational outcome" is so important, then define it clearly and objectively and apply evenly across the board. If the standard is not met for three years or what ever time period you choose (but applied to every program or school), then you can't simply close a charter school or terminate a voucher program that doesn't meet the standard, you must also close any traditional public school that doesn't meet the standard. I don't mean close as in reassign the leadership cadre or a few dozen teachers. I mean close as in bolt the doors, lock the windows, turn off the lights, cut off electricity, no student goes to the school, and everyone who worked there is now looking for another job closed. If you treat a charter school that way, you must treat traditional schools that way.

Of course the chances of that happening are pretty remote and only those states and school districts with any confidence in their entire public education establishment would even think about it, let alone actually implement such a standard.

So, until that standard is applied to all publicly funded educational programs, without exception, don't talk to me about educational outcomes. Any other application of the term "educational outcome" is simply political posturing and has no meaning.