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House Approves School Choice for DC Students
Friday, September 5, 2003
On September 5, 2003, the House approved $10 million to permit parents in the District of Columbia to send their children to better schools. The Policy Committee looked at the issue in 1998.
Policy Perspective
Rock-Bottom Test Scores in Nation’s Capital Can Be Spur To Reform
How D.C.’s Schools Can Lead the Nation
April 20, 1998
Every parent knows that early education is essential to a child’s future. But new reading and math achievement tests in the District of Columbia show that D.C.’s public schools are failing an entire generation of students. D.C. students have the same potential as every American child, yet the more time they spend in D.C. schools, the more poorly they do compared to other American children.
Today, just as the District of Columbia is poised to reap the benefits of tremendous economic growth, its young people may not be able to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities. Good jobs are plentiful, and the unemployment rate in the region is one of the lowest in the nation. It is imperative that children growing up in the Nation’s capital receive the kind of education that will permit them to take advantage of these opportunities.
Congress is constitutionally responsible for the District of Columbia. If a national education policy is ever to be taken seriously, then Congress must first show it can achieve results in this modestly-sized city by the Potomac.
D.C. in the 1990s: Awash With Opportunity for New Graduates
The District of Columbia is one of the wealthiest regions in the nation. Despite a population of only 500,000, the District has a gross economic product of almost $50 billion, with nearly two-thirds coming from non-governmental sources such as services, finance, insurance and real estate, and transportation and utilities. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, District residents’ per capita personal income was $34,129 in 1996—higher than any state in the union, and almost $10,000 above the national average. The District also compares favorably to other metropolitan areas. D.C. metropolitan-area average annual pay is ninth in the country, behind such lucrative locales as New York, San Francisco, and the wealthy suburbs of New Jersey. Furthermore, the District is expected to remain wealthy area for the foreseeable future: its gross economic product is projected to increase at least 20% by 2025.
Today’s students will benefit from these job opportunities only if they learn the skills employers will need in the years to come. Already, the region suffers from a shortage of skilled workers. The unemployment rate in the D.C. metropolitan area was only 3.9% in 1996, significantly below the so-called "natural" unemployment rate of 5.5%. The District itself, however, suffers from unemployment well above the natural rate, indicating that District residents, many of them products of the D.C. schools, are unable to satisfy employers—even in one of the nation’s best markets for job seekers.
In the 21st century, the D.C. economy will be even more dependant on knowledge-based workers. Unfortunately, knowledge-based workers will need two basic skills—reading and math—that D.C. schools are failing to provide to their students.
Recent Test Results From D.C. Schools
Last year, for the first time, District students took the Stanford 9 math and reading achievement tests—the nation’s best-known achievement test. The Stanford 9 is a privately owned and operated test used by school systems across the country. It is the ninth version of the exam, which millions of American schoolchildren have taken since it was created in 1923. Stanford takes great care to ensure that the test is not biased in any way, including having a panel of prominent minority-group educators review the test. The results show that D.C. students’ scores, upon entering the D.C. public schools, are roughly comparable to average student scores nationwide. The longer students remain in District public schools, however, the more their scores fall below both their initial levels of achievement and the national average. In fact, in the highest grades tested, the number of D.C. students who lack basic skills was twice the national average in reading, and one and a half times the national average in math.
Reading
Fifteen percent of the first-graders tested ranked "below basic" for reading on the Stanford 9 test. This means they had little or no mastery of the skills needed to enter second grade. This figure is roughly comparable to the national average of 12%. But the number of students "below basic" grew dramatically as children continued in the D.C. schools: 41% of the second graders tested ranked "below basic," and 53% of tenth graders tested were "below basic."
Math
Thirty-seven percent of the third graders tested (the youngest students to take the math test) ranked "below basic" in math. The next level tested in math, the sixth grade, showed
55% "below basic"—an increase of 33% after three years in D.C. public schools. By the tenth grade, a staggering 89% were "below basic" in math. Another 8% ranked as "basic"—possessing only partial mastery of the most rudimentary math skills. Only three percent of District tenth graders were either proficient or advanced in math.
Many of the individual schools are far worse than even these dismal overall scores. At no less than 22 D.C. public schools, over 90% of the students rank "below basic" in math. At three of these schools, 100% of the students tested ranked "below basic." Not one student at any of these schools showed any of the math skills needed for their grades.
Worse, as the Washington Post reported on January 8, 1998, these results do not include "almost 4,000 tests that could not be scored because so few answers were filled out." This is 10% of the reading tests that were scored, and a quarter of the math tests that were scored. In other words, 4,000 D.C. students lacked the skills needed to fail the test. They were all below zero.
The Solution: Educational Choice, for the Kids
The D.C. public schools must change if their graduates are to succeed in life. And Congress—which bears the constitutional responsibility for the governance of the District—must help.
Already, Congress and the American people have been generous with tax dollars: according to the most recent Department of Education figures, the District spends $9,335 per pupil, the fourth highest in the nation. This year, it will cost more than one-half billion dollars to run the District’s public education system. Clearly, money alone is not enough.
Instead, both Houses of Congress have separately passed the District of Columbia Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 1997. This measure, which passed the House as part of the 1997 D.C. appropriations package, has already been introduced as freestanding legislation by Majority Leader Dick Armey (H.R. 1797). The bill will provide tuition scholarships to about 2,000 low-income students in the District of Columbia to enable them to attend the school of their choice, as well as providing extra tutoring assistance for 2,000 public-school students.
D.C. parents clearly want better opportunities for their children than the D.C. public schools provide. The non-profit Washington Scholarship Fund announced that it would provide 1,000 new scholarships to enable low-income District children to attend the private or religious school of their parents' choice. As of the January 31, 1998 application deadline, 7,573 children had applied for the 1,000 scholarships. According to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, "This response is the strongest evidence yet that parents are frustrated by their lack of access to the best possible education for their children."
Research from school systems that offer educational choice demonstrates that giving parents the opportunity to choose their children’s schools improves learning, and test scores, for children throughout the entire system. Data from Milwaukee, for example, show clear increases in reading and math scores—so much so that, according to a recent study, "If similar success could be achieved for all minority students nationwide, it could close the gap separating white and minority test scores by somewhere between one-third and one-half." And parental choice provides competition that can help reduce costs in public and private schools alike, resulting in better education that is also more affordable. New York City’s Catholic schools, for example, educate students at approximately one-third the cost of the city’s public schools.
According to Samuel Staley, Vice President for Research of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, "Several studies of public school competition with other public and private schools have found competition improves public school performance. We need to create similar markets for students within school districts to provide the right incentives for using current resources productively and efficiently."
Brian Bennett, Director of School Operations for the School Futures Research Foundation, agrees: "The most striking example of the competitive change that can result is no doubt found in Albany, New York, where a most generous philanthropist, Virginia Gilder, offered a $2,000 scholarship to every child in one of the city's lowest performing schools--and one-sixth of the student body left. Changes then instituted by the local board were dramatic--the principal of the old school was ousted, nine new teachers were brought in, two assistant principals were added, and the school received investments in books, equipment, and teacher training that had been neglected for years. Competition works to improve the education of all children." As Peter M. Flanigan, the investment banker who founded the Student/Sponsor Partnership in New York, put it, "The alternative to a crushing monopoly is competition. When a monopoly faces real competition it always reacts by improving itself."
The D.C. Student Opportunities Scholarship Act will enable D.C. students to succeed in the expanding economy in which they live. While President Clinton promised to veto the Opportunity Scholarship Act, even if it meant killing all funding for the District, these latest D.C. test scores show the status quo is unacceptable. We can no longer trap thousands of students in schools that fail to prepare them for the marvelous opportunities at their very doorstep. Mr. Clinton owes it to the children of America’s capital city to sign the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Act the moment it reaches his desk.
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