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Letter to Members of the House Education Policy and Reform Committee re: General Education Access Grants

March 22, 2006

Respected Legislators,

I am deeply concerned about proposed legislation that would transfer public subsidies to private schools. 

Schools are not intended to be a market-driven enterprise.  Public schools are community and neighborhood institutions whose support extends beyond the school students and staff to adult education, civic meetings and family resources.  Our public schools have standards and accountability, both for the money they spend on children and for monitoring and improving educational outcomes.  Private schools do not.   Private schools control which students to admit and can make a student leave for any number of reasons.  They are not bound by the same state requirements for teacher qualifications, or support to our most vulnerable students.

In Minneapolis, we have made significant gains in educating our 67% of students who receive free and reduced lunches, ¾ of which live in extreme poverty.  We are also showing results, both in test scores and graduation rates for our 4,500 students who are homeless or highly mobile.   In our public schools, our poorest students have an opportunity to attend the same schools with their middle and upper-class peers. 

With large-scale voucher programs, fewer of the poor have this opportunity.  Through vouchers, higher income private students receive an increase in income at the expense of the poorest students, whose per-student investment decreases significantly, forcing them into further poverty.  These students’ parents are not able to supplement the voucher amount with their own money.  They are left to attend inferior schools.  

Researcher Geoff Whitty, who has researched school choice in the U.S., Great Britain and New Zealand, finds little evidence that increasing educational markets increases student achievement.   His research proves out, in fact, that educational markets deepen existing inequities.  Research from Milwaukee, Florida and Ohio suggests two-tier systems that deepen racial divides.

In January, 2006, professors Sarah and Christopher Lubienski from the University of Illinois released results of their research of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter and private schools:  when children of similar socioeconomic status were compared, public school children scored higher in math than private school fourth and eighth graders on the standard NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) test. 

Providing uniform quality education is a Minnesota State Constitution mandate.  Minnesota is not remiss on offering choice to families.  Our state scores in the top five for school choice.  Rather than fully investing in our public schools and fostering leadership and resources within existing schools, vouchers entice families out of their neighborhoods into more homogeneous programs that further segregate our children.  They are a distraction from the real work of supporting our students and uplifting them in their own communities.  Our children’s failures are not their deficit, but a deficit of a system of institutional classism.  Vouchers recycle classism and lower our state standards for being accountable to every student.  Our money is better spent on bolstering our public schools with a proven track record for educating diverse groups of students right within their own communities.

Kate Towle
MPS District Parent Advisory Council Representative