If only getting an education from the market was a simple as deciding that you want one.

@marcportermagee Have you ever looked at the data produced by FL's transparency reqs? In 2010-11, more than 1k private schools participated in the program. Only 70 have gain scores reported. I don't call that transparency.

A majority of ESA users purchase a “school” not a bundle of goods & services. We can & should collect/report exit data for these. BTW, the reason most families purchase a school is because few are willing to bear the logistical costs of unbundling. See the success of Apple vs diy custom-built PCs for a non-school example of bundling.

@marcportermagee Start over! We need a think tank that produces ideas and evidence on the problems that Americans say matter. CAP has failed to do this. Part of Ds failure relative to Rs is that they don’t have an effective think tank to drive their policy agenda. See

Where? I have not seen it reported outside of evaluations which typically consider “attrition.”These reports can tell us something about the health of the program generally but do not help us understand which providers, if any, drive the results or which districts are most affected by failures in private schooling. (Side note: exit is not neutral as research shows that publicly financed private school students who exit are lower achieving than they would be otherwise.)

@ericlerum @MichaelPetrilli People forget that every regulation was invented to solve a problem that once existed. It’s easy to argue for no-strings attached funding, harder to live with the results.

@73Newport I think you misunderstand the point. Leaders listen to implementers because they are on the front lines of translating good ideas into practice.

@marcportermagee @jeremylsinger Agreed but posting charts like this without caveats invites people who don’t know better to draw faulty conclusions from the data.

Yes, I think those are foundational elements of a productive educational marketplace. But given that competition isn’t the primary mechanism in which schools get better, I think there are costs to optimizing around it. That’s because choice amplifies uncertainty and creates hassle for families - searching, applying, getting in, and traveling farther to get to school. Most parents want proximity, convenience and good academics. Choice doesn’t provide these things reliably.

@ImColbyLyons @tetheredtoed1 The impt thing to remember about markets is that the “entrepreneurs” are not benevolent. Markets can be disciplined thru competition in ways that benefit consumers - when information asymmetries are small, switching costs are low, etc. These conditions do not exist in schooling.

@ImColbyLyons @tetheredtoed1 We agree that markets don’t automatically produce things that consumers want. Regulations can help or hurt. Depends on what they require. The worst schools in Milwaukee were all borne in the city’s low regulation era.

@Kress_Sandy @pfmanna @Sam_Schulman @selmekki @8BlackHands1 @jaypgreene @Misssnuffy_ I’m skeptical that higher ed is more formidable than the interests that opposed value added, including unions. My take: there was less invested in prep from the get go, largely because the leading policy ideas were over optimized on the power of incentives to effect change.

I’m not surprised we haven’t seen much juice for the squeeze because I don’t think we’ve squeezed very hard! There’s been precious little state leadership on issues related to prep & even less philanthropic funding. And most states have failed to take affirmative stances on issues of T&L, perpetuating fanciful notions that we can’t define the work of effective teaching or curriculum because what works varies. My question is this: why did the reform movement spend so much time, money and political capital on value added and so little (comparably) on prep?

@MrZachG @b_fink Such. A. Waste.

I don’t think anyone contests the value of T effectiveness. But there is a question of how we get more effectiveness. Reformers put all their eggs in the incentive basket. I sometimes wonder where we would be if we repurposed all the time & money spent trying to discipline the workforce via accountability into changing prep programs so that leaders & teachers were prepared to implement effective instructional practices. My bet is much farther along than present.

Totally. I wonder though whether schools don’t already employ large #s of paraprofessional staff who - if we hired, trained, & supported more effectively - could be deployed towards this small group instructional mission. We have lots of adults in schools currently doing little more than babysitting.

@ImColbyLyons Milwaukee has publicly-financed private schools since 1990 & presently hosts a robust private schooling sector. Sadly, most families continue to struggle to get what they want.

@ImColbyLyons @tetheredtoed1 I do not oppose choice. The question is whether families can access the things they want and the clear answer is no. History & experience show that markets do not automatically produce things that consumers desire. This gap grows when information asymmetries are large.