Boycott Underscores Disparities in Schools Chicago Student Protest in Suburbs (from Washington Post)

How else can the urgency of the problem be communicated? It's obvious that high dropout and failure rates, in addition to community resource starvation is not enough to get the attention of policy-makers. So they seem to recognize, understand, and agree that the problem needs to be fixed. So where is the action? -Dr. Louie F. Rodriguez
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Post
Boycott Underscores Disparities in SchoolsChicago Students Protest in Suburbs
By Kari LydersenWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, September 5, 2008; A02
CHICAGO -- It is the first week of school for Nadell Jackson, 13, and his brother Natavis, 14, and they are hoping to "get smarter and learn a lot more," in Nadell's words. But they often have to share books at the schools they attend on this city's South Side, meaning they can't take books home to study. Nadell craves better science books, and Natavis would like to see more after-school sports.
Science books and extracurricular activities are not lacking at New Trier Township High School in the northern suburb of Winnetka, which spends more than $15,000 annually on each student, compared with $10,000 per student in Chicago.
To protest this disparity between Chicago public schools and those in wealthier suburbs, the Jackson brothers were among about 1,000 students from Chicago who boycotted the first day of class Tuesday and instead showed up at New Trier and another suburban school asking to enroll. This demonstration was orchestrated by an Illinois state senator, James T. Meeks (D-Chicago), who is also a pastor at Salem Baptist Church on the South Side.
"We have to leave some books in class because there aren't enough; we need more computers; the auditorium has broken seats. We have to pay so much for the prom because the school can't help fund it," said De'Erica Munoz, 17, who commutes two hours each way to a high school on Chicago's North Side from her South Side neighborhood because the schools are better. But, even the North Side school she attends is subpar compared with those in New Trier.
"This looks like a college campus," she said as she looked around the New Trier school. "We should have the same opportunities as suburban kids."
The nonprofit Education Trust calculates that although the average gap in per-pupil spending across the country between high-income districts and low-income ones was $938 in 2005, the gap was $2,235 in Illinois. Only New York had a larger gap that year.
"These schools are segregated," said Rhonda Storball, a post office worker who moved to the suburbs specifically so her two children could attend better schools. She said she is now the only African American in her neighborhood and that her children had trouble adjusting to their new schools because their Chicago education left them behind academically.
On Tuesday, New Trier opened its gym and auditorium for Chicago students to fill out registration forms. But in keeping with state law, the students will be rejected because they do not live in the district.
Arne Duncan, chief executive of the Chicago school system, called the state's property-tax-based funding structure for education "fundamentally broken."
"It is totally separate and totally unequal," he said. "The children of the rich get a different education than the children of the poor. We continue to fight that battle every way we can."
In August, the Chicago Urban League filed a civil rights lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against the state of Illinois and state board of education. The suit alleges that the current funding of education violates the state constitution.
On Wednesday, Meeks brought busloads of boycotting students to downtown office buildings to protest. He called off the boycott Wednesday evening, saying he was still seeking a meeting with the governor and top legislators.
A recent analysis by the nonprofit Chicago-based Community Renewal Society found that statewide, lower-income districts have voted for higher property tax rates than wealthier areas, but the resulting funds raised for schools are still inadequate because property values are lower.
Though they agree school funding needs an overhaul, Mayor Richard M. Daley and Duncan stridently opposed the boycott, with Duncan calling it "the right fight but the wrong strategy." He visited seven African American and Latino churches on Sunday urging students to show up for school. He said first-day attendance was high despite the boycott, thanks to school district efforts including canvassing and distribution of free school supplies.
Meeks proposed a pilot project to spend $120 million over three years to create new schools and measure the academic results. He offered to call off the boycott if Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and state legislators met with him during the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The meeting did not take place.
"The governor likes the concept but wants to hear more," Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero said. "That they weren't able to get together in Denver shouldn't be the end of it. It's still something he wants to pursue."

Under the Voucher Radar (from Ed Week)

Something we should keep our eyes on in Florida and the rest of the country, especially since we are in a presidential election year. --Dr. Louie F. Rodriguez
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education Week
Published Online: August 29, 2008
Published in Print: September 3, 2008
Commentary
Under the Voucher Radar
By Kevin G. Welner
Tuition tax credits for private schools, a policy
increasingly popular among advocates of school choice, present us with several
riddles. When is a charitable donation not charity? When is a public
expenditure not public spending? And what policy can be virtually
indistinguishable from a voucher in its effects, but be treated by courts as
something very different? The answer to this last question, and the key to
answering the first two, is a type of tuition tax credit I call a “neovoucher.”
Traditional vouchers offer parents government funding for tuition at
nonpublic schools. Neovouchers rely on a more complicated, and thus less transparent,
process:
First, a taxpayer donates money to a private, nonprofit organization.
Then that organization bundles the donations and issues them to parents as vouchers
toward tuition at nonpublic schools. Finally, the taxpayer-donor receives some
or all of the donated money back, in the form of a tax credit from the state.
The money thus goes from taxpayer, to nonprofit organization, to
parent, to school. The taxpayer then is reimbursed by the state. This answers
the first riddle. In Arizona, Florida, and Georgia, that reimbursement is 100
percent. The taxpayer’s “charitable donation” is little more than a
reassignment of his or her tax obligation to the neovoucher program. Three
other states have similar programs: Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Rhode
Island. In those states, the tax credit ranges from
65 percent to 90 percent of the donation—still ample, but leaving some room for
actual charity.
Currently, about twice as many students (approximately 100,000)
receive neovouchers as compared with traditional vouchers. Yet we know very
little about them or what effect they are having on our education system.
Proponents of neovouchers contend that they provide opportunities for
greater academic and life success, particularly for underserved children. This
is a powerful and important claim that deserves to be given a fair evaluation.
Unfortunately, none of the six states with neovoucher laws collects sufficient
information to allow us to evaluate this claim, or to answer a host of other
important questions such as these:
• What are the effects of neovouchers on achievement and competition?
• What are the incomes and ethnicities of the families that receive
neovouchers?
• Does the use of neovouchers produce greater stratification of school
enrollments, or do these vouchers serve to mitigate existing stratification?
• Which schools receive neovouchers? What are the characteristics of
those schools?
• What percentage of neovouchers go to students switching from public
to private school?
• What is the overall effect of neovoucher policies on public
spending?
• Do neovouchers produce demand pressures that increase the supply of
nonpublic schools, increase tuition, or both?
To date, we have at best partial answers to these important questions.
In Arizona,
for instance, there is some evidence that neovouchers are used by wealthier
families with children who already attend private school. Will other states
have different results? Without the data, we simply don’t know.
Neovouchers’ convoluted funding mechanism may be an inefficient way of
allocating tax dollars, but it serves an important legal purpose. Which answers
the second riddle: Since no new money ever actually enters the state’s coffers,
proponents can argue that state money has not been spent on religious
education. This reasoning was adopted by a majority of judges on the Arizona
Supreme Court (Kotterman v. Killian, 1999), in a state that, like
many others, has a constitutional provision forbidding expenditure of public
dollars on religious schools.
The elaborate neovoucher system also serves a political purpose
because traditional vouchers have acquired formidable negative baggage. (In
fact, voucher supporters often attempt to blunt public opposition by inventing
new terms such as “opportunity scholarships.”)
States are embracing
‘neovoucher’ tuition-tax-credit plans without knowing what their long-term
risks or benefits might be.
Beyond these intended effects of neovoucher policies, though, are
other notable policy consequences. The tax-credit process places decisions on
public funding in the hands of only those private citizens who file itemized
tax returns, rather than taking the standardized deduction. Such taxpayers tend
to be a relatively wealthy subset of all taxpayers. Using Arizona data from 2000 to 2004, for example,
I found that those with a taxable income of around $24,000 are about as likely
to file an itemized return as to take the standardized deduction. At $40,000,
they are twice as likely to file an itemized return. That likelihood begins to
escalate sharply at higher income levels. Taxpayers in the bracket from
$100,000 to $199,999 are 24 times more likely to itemize than not.
With traditional vouchers, democratically elected lawmakers decide on
the rules for eligibility, and no part of the private school sector is given
preference over another. Neovouchers, by contrast, permit a subset of taxpayers
to decide which students and schools receive assistance. Each person claiming a
tax credit in effect substitutes his or her spending preferences for those of
an elected legislative body. On the surface, this may seem attractive. But the
public-policy implications are profound.
In Arizona,
schools and students supported by neovouchers have disproportionately been
found in more-affluent neighborhoods. The local “donors” have used the
neovoucher system to effectively help pay for the education of their own
children, an option not available to families who do not file itemized tax
returns or who owe only minimal (or no) state taxes. At a time when most states
are trying to close achievement gaps, Arizona’s
neovoucher program appears to be disproportionately subsidizing the education
of children in its wealthiest families.
Neovoucher plans have had considerable success in avoiding the
controversy and opposition that have plagued other voucher proposals. The
advocacy behind them has also been persistent and quite impressive. When
legislation is introduced in a particular state, it is invariably accompanied
by supportive articles put forward by the local free-market think tank, as well
as by influential national groups.
Equally impressive have been the results, as evidenced by the recent
adoption of neovouchers in Georgia,
Iowa, and Rhode Island. Lawmakers in Arizona,
Florida, and Pennsylvania have also amended their older
neovoucher policies. They have raised contribution caps per donor, increased
overall tax-credit annual-contribution ceilings, and expanded eligibility
rules. This growth has far outpaced legislative interest in gathering
information about the impact of these programs, which makes systematic empirical
investigation of the policies’ weaknesses and strengths virtually impossible.
***
Some recipients of neovouchers undoubtedly have more educational
options than would otherwise be the case. But we don’t know how many such
students there are, whether or not neovouchers more efficiently provide such
enhanced choices than other policy options would, or what the educational
outcomes are for students who do use neovouchers. What is knowable now,
however, is that neovouchers move policy away from democratic control over
education, and from a societal commitment to public schooling. This, for me, is
a real concern.
Opponents of neovouchers have attacked the policy as “money
laundering,” “a shell game,” and “back-door vouchers.” And the obfuscation of
public expenditures by neovoucher legislation does deserve a closer look. But
the value of neovoucher policies will ultimately depend on how well they
accomplish our shared educational goals. Unless and until the neovoucher states
require the collecting and reporting of meaningful data, all we really have is
one more riddle: Why would advocates of a wonderful reform try to shield its
results from public view?
Kevin G. Welner, an education
researcher, is an associate professor and director of the Education and the Public Interest
Center at the University
of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of NeoVouchers: The Emergence of
Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling, to be published this month by
Rowman & Littlefield.
Vol.
28, Issue 02, Pages 27,32