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Effort<http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/09/a-flagging-obama-transparency-effort/>
Whitehurst: “Duncan Is Not
Lying”<http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/10/whitehurst-duncan-is-not-lying/>
Posted by Andrew J. Coulson <http://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson>
Brookings senior fellow Grover Whitehurst has just come to the defense of
education secretary Arne
Duncan<http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0409_duncan_whitehurst.aspx>over
charges that Duncan sat on (or remained “willfully
ignorant<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/duncans_fundamental_dishonesty.html>”
of) a study showing that the D.C. voucher program is boosting achievement.
The Senate passed a bill sunsetting funding for the program on March 10, but
Whitehurst contends Duncan wouldn’t have known about the study’s results
until a week or so later (it was released on April 6th).
Until last November, Whitehurst was head of the Institute for Education
Sciences (IES), which released the new voucher study. He obviously knows its
timelines and procedures. But even Whitehurst acknowledges that there
is ”substantial reason to believe that the secretary didn’t want to draw
attention to the report,” citing the choice of a Friday release (Friday
releases were deliberately discontinued by the IES years ago) and the
mysterious absence of the news briefing that typically accompanies the
release of such reports.
So what is a fair observer to think of Secretary Duncan based on
Whitehursts’ revelations? Duncan may not have had an opportunity to sit on
the report, because he may not have known about it. But Duncan had ultimate
control over its release and it looks as though he went out of his way to
bury it.
Why would a secretary of education bury a study showing that one government
program (vouchers) produces better outcomes than another government program
(D.C. public schooling) at one quarter the
cost<http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/03/dc-vouchers-better-results-at-a-quarter-the-cost/>?
No flattering
explanation comes to mind. Perhaps someone else will come forward to defend
Duncan on this point.
Or perhaps the secretary himself might like to share with the American
people why this study was buried at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in
the basement of an abandoned building with a hand scrawled “beware of
leopard” sign affixed to it. Maybe he would like to let us know why he isn’t
touting private school choice as a model for the states to emulate at a time
when outcomes are languishing and money is tight. The only justification he
has offered for not doing so is risible: it doesn’t serve enough kids. As
Cato’s David Boaz pointed out earlier today, it is only limited in size
because, uh…, Congress statutorily limited its
size<http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/09/can-arne-duncan-fix-all-the-schools/>.
We know that many more parents would like vouchers. We know from the
international evidence <http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6015> that the
supply of schools rises to meet demand, just as supply rises to meet demand
in other fields.
But we also know that the Democratic party is beholden to the teachers
unions and that the National Education Association sent a letter to
congressional
Democrats<http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/03/19/nea-to-dems-hey-we-paid-good-money-for-you/>
—
not to all of Congress, mind you, it’s addressed “to Democrats” — demanding
that they kill the D.C. voucher program.
Because of the constant pressure exerted by the NEA, Democrats who might
otherwise have supported the program have voted to let it — and the hopes of
1,700 poor kids — die. To reverse their decision, a countervailing public
pressure must be brought to save it.
And that is why Grover Whitehurst is mistaken when he says that ”the future
of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is far more important than the
contretemps” over the secretary’s handling of the voucher study. The future
of the program *depends* on that “contretemps.” Were it not for the public
outcry, there would be no political pressure on Democrats to rethink their
decision to feed these children back into the D.C. public schools.
And as someone who is much happier under divided government than under the
unitary rule of either major party, I hope that Democrats figure out that
long-term political calculus demands support for educational freedom. When
the $100 billion ”stimulus” spending on public schools accomplishes little
or nothing — as it will — the public will be even angrier at the politicians
extorting them into those schools. And the party associated with defending
that system to the bitter end against the wishes of families won’t recover
for a long while.
Andrew J. Coulson <http://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson> • April 10,
2009 @ 7:00 am <http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/>
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