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A response—and invitation—to the Palm Beach Post

The Palm Beach Post, in its usual style, breaks out the hatchet for reporting the amendment vote.  But this (yes, it’s a news report, not op-ed commentary) is just too much.

In each of the past two legislative sessions, the Senate has approved legislation that would impose some oversight and "accountability" measures to the programs, but both times has been stopped by Bush’s office and his allies in the House, who have wanted looser standards.

Yet another voucher "accountability" bill is on the agenda this session. It has passed the House and could be heard as early as today on the floor of the Senate.

“Accountability” in sneer quotes?  So the proposed legislation is faking it?  Can’t you restrain this sort of obnoxiousness for the editorial page?

This is such a watered-down, drive-by explanation of the legislation in question that it ends up being terribly misleading.  Furthermore, it’s not only a “second verse, same as the first” repeat of worn-out arguments, it reveals that a disappointing level of ignorance on the part of the PBP with respect to how the FCAT is designed.  Let’s first elaborate on the accountability legislation presently before the Florida legislation.  Once again, we will refer to our response to the Palm Beach Post last week:

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce the Palm Beach Post to HB 7041 and S10 (correction—that would be SB 256-ed.).  These are sister bills going through the Florida House and Senate intended to introduce eligibility and accountability requirements to the McKay Scholarship Program. 

Oddly enough, you can check the status of this and similar legislation at the website for the Florida Alliance for Choices in Education.  And you’ll never believe this (no, really–we don’t expect you to believe it), but said organization supports the legislation.  Let’s repeat that: the Florida Alliance for Choices in Education, one of the premier school choice organizations in the Sunshine State, supports increased accountability requirements for school choice programs. Not only do they support this legislation, but they and independent accrediting agencies in the state have supported similar bills that have been introduced during the last two or three legislative sessions–bills that lawmakers on both sides have kicked around, used as pawns, fought over and generally left for dead as the congressional session drew to a close. 

And lest the PBP accuse us of glossing over the legislation, here’s a quick rundown on what the legislation requires: each school taking voucher students will be required to administer a norm-referenced test recognized by the Department of Education.  The scores will be delivered to each parent and a third-party agency which will then report the scores to the state for the purposes of long-term tracking of voucher schools performance.  More from last week’s post:

See, one of the most tiring misconceptions about school choice programs is that schools operate entirely free of any sort of oversight.  So it’s time for another real-world, common-sense assertion: if a parent sees that his/her child is not learning, said parent will take his/her kid and tuition and move elsewhere.  It is in a school’s best interests to demonstrate to a parent that it is doing what it is being paid to do.  Therefore, no school in its right mind will operate without meaningful testing.  Believe it or not (again, we expect you probably won’t), most private schools already administer standardized tests.  In short, we suggest that the constant demands for increased accountability are another way of saying parents are too stupid to see if a school is working. 

With that, let’s turn to one of the biggest complaints the PBP and like-minded Florida papers (which is to say, pretty much every other newspaper in the state) have with the charter voucher school program (sorry–our mistake): they aren’t required to take the FCAT.  But unlike the PBP, let’s actually take a minute to examine the FCAT’s design.  As stated on the Florida DOE website:

The FCAT, administered to students in Grades 3-11, contains two basic components: criterion-referenced tests (CRT), measuring selected benchmarks in Mathematics, Reading, Science, and Writing from the Sunshine State Standards (SSS); and norm-referenced tests (NRT) in Reading and Mathematics, measuring individual student performance against national norms.

So, to restate: the FCAT has a criterion-referenced test and a norm-referenced test.  The basic difference between the two (go here for more specifics) is in how the test scores are interpreted:

• The CRT is used to evaluate students against state standards.  For example, a CRT for math might judge whether a student has learned what the state wants him/her to understand about algebra. 
• The NRT is used to determine how test-takers do relative to one another. A sample of students takes the test, and all other test takers are judged against that sample.  (Remember “percentile” scores on those tests you took in school?  Those were norm-referenced tests.)  Please note that the norm-referenced portion of the FCAT measures “individual student performance against national norms”.  (This will be critically important in a minute.)

Well, let’s go back and again examine the legislation currently pending in the Florida legislature.  According to page 33 of HB 7041—that’s the bill introduced in the House (go here)—any school accepting a voucher student will be required to annually administer “one of the nationally norm-referenced tests identified by the Department of Education.”  In other words, all voucher schools would have to start using nationally norm-referenced tests—the same kind used in the FCAT.  

School choice critics demanding that voucher schools administer the FCAT do so presumably out of a desire for “accountability”—they want to make sure the kids are doing at least as well as their public schools peers.  Well, news flash for the Palm Beach Post: this legislation is your dream come true.  Because not only have most voucher schools been doing this for several years now, this legislation would require those few schools not already testing to start doing so.  Since most voucher students have been taking nationally norm-referenced tests for some time, comparison of their performance to their public-school peers has been a reality for some time.  The accountability legislation currently being considered would simply codify what has already been taking place and require those few voucher students not presently taking such tests to begin doing so.  

In short, the “accountability” sneer quotes noted above were put there out of lazy ignorance or dishonesty.  The PBP reporters either didn’t know what is in the legislation and didn’t care to learn, or they were perfectly aware of what was in the legislation and declined to mention it, even in passing.  (Personally, we think the reporters in question couldn’t be troubled to actually find out a bit more about the legislation.  But maybe you, the thoughtful Edspresso reader, believe differently.) 

So why do we argue that voucher schools should be free of the FCAT?  Because of the other side of the coin: the criterion-referenced tests.  The CRTs are a reflection of the state standards.  Requiring a school to take on the state’s standards means, ultimately, that that school will be required to take on the state’s curriculum.  And if private schools are compelled to do that, they will cease to be an effective solution for kids in underperforming schools.  The reason that private schools are able to routinely outperform their public counterparts is that they can do things their own way—they can sidestep the bureaucracy to innovate and assemble curricula that best fits their goals.  These schools are private entities; if compelled to take up the state’s curriculum, they will lose their independence.  As long as they can demonstrate through norm-referenced tests that they are measuring up to other schools locally and nationally, choice schools are and should remain at liberty to pursue curricula that they prefer.

In short, forcing the FCAT upon schools that are already measuring their students’ growth is both unreasonable and unnecessary.  But as we pointed out last week and above, the major activist groups in Florida have been pushing for this legislation, and similar bills introduced in past sessions, in order to respond to accountability complaints.  But apparently, said legislation still doesn’t satisfy the likes of the Palm Beach Post. 

But you know what?  Rather than dismiss the Palm Beach Post completely, let’s instead engage the paper head-on.  Here’s our open question for the editorial staff of the Palm Beach Post.  For a moment, let’s bend reality and pretend the Florida Supreme Court didn’t throw out the voucher program last January and instead allowed the program to stand.  Had that happened, what changes (aside from requiring the FCAT) would you want to make to the program for it to be an acceptable education alternative to Florida children?  

We’re entirely serious about this.  All you’ve done since the thing was passed into law is kick it around.  But here’s your chance to play armchair education policymaker.  We are highly interested to hear what you would change to make the voucher program an acceptable education alternative to the children of Florida.  Feel free to submit your thoughts in the comment thread below, through your own editorial page, or feel free to e-mail your response to editorREMOVETHIS at edspresso dot com.  As editor of this website, I give you my personal and public pledge that, if you choose to post your response in the comment thread below or send your response directly to me, I will not alter your remarks in any fashion.

Will the Palm Beach Post take up the challenge?  We’ll see.