Celebrating Traditional K-12 Public Education

Universal Choice: The “Shiny Ball Syndrome”

Picture the disco ball, spinning and shimmering under the spotlight with John Travolta dancing under it in Saturday Night Fever (Ok, I just dated myself). The disco ball captures attention, diverting focus from other things in the room. This imagery perfectly captures the idea of the “Shiny Ball Syndrome”, which has become a popular expression for becoming easily distracted¹.

Today, a similar phenomenon plays out in education policy debates, where advocates of universal choice and vouchers create their own "shiny balls" to divert attention to false narratives being pushed about problems associated with traditional K-12 public education. They count on the “shiny ball” distracting the people so that they don’t learn about the lack of real data to support their view of the positive impact of vouchers.

The purpose of this newsletter is to address two more “shiny balls” that allow many people to lose sight of the true issues associated with vouchers. The two areas to review include the cost of vouchers compared to funding of traditional public schools and the use of papers and studies supported by data to attack traditional K-12 public education without ever providing any data to support the success of vouchers.

The Common Sense Institute in their recent report on the facts and fiction of vouchers state, “No matter how funding is sliced, Arizona taxpayers fund traditional district school students at a much higher amount than other students. This is true regardless of gimmicks - federal funds, fixed costs, etc. And on the margin, it's mostly true for the General Fund too².” So where is the shiny ball?

They want you to get caught up in the cost of educating students. By getting into a discussion of the cost of educating a student you get into the weeds of the different funding sources, the cost of traditional K-12 public schools, or the cost of charter schools. The complexity of school funding and the competing sets of data to support a position allows a person to believe the data they want and not address the real issues associated with vouchers.

Determining the cost of educating students is complicated, but the key with vouchers is that 82% of the 54,029 students who attend private schools in Arizona never attended public school districts³. This means that voucher funds do not redistribute existing education dollars but instead represent an entirely new expenditure, placing additional strain on the state’s General Fund. By creating a debate on the comparison of funding for traditional K-12 public education and vouchers people do not understand the impact of this additional funding source on the state budget.

Peter Greene in his article, How Much Are Universal School Vouchers Costing Arizona?⁴ uses December 2023 numbers, from a report by the Learning Policy Institute, to show the increase of new money to the state budget was $295 million and the total cost of vouchers was over $700 million. The Grand Canyon Institute supports this number in their report, Cost of Universal ESA Voucher Program⁵. In this report they estimate an increase of $332 million for June 2023 to June 2024 data. They also project that cost will increase to $429 million in FY2025. The increased cost of vouchers to the General Fund is eliminated from the conversation if voucher proponents can just get people to focus on the comparison of the cost of traditional K-12 public schools vs. vouchers.

The next “shiny ball” is the trick to put out papers that make false narratives against traditional K-12 public schools. The key to the papers is to use data to support the argument, but they do not provide context for the data. Interestingly, at the same time when universal choice is presented as an option it is usually just simple promises without the data to support the promises. In large part this is due to the lack of data for private schools, home schooling and microschools.

An example of this is the Common Sense Institute report, Do Public Schools Serve All Students? Arizona’s black, brown, and special needs students are being left behind by the traditional public school system⁶. The information in this report and the assertions the authors make would take several newsletters to unpack, but the paper highlights the “Shiny Ball Syndrome.” This paper utilizes the definition of traditional public schools in the same manner as my definition of traditional K-12 public schools.

The introduction uses the tried and true method to lay blame on the traditional K-12 public education in the introduction and key findings. The section states, “When these schools fail to achieve results, the result is always to decry funding - there isn’t enough money, and just a little more will fix the problem⁷.” When in doubt for an argument, student achievement and increased funding are the go to arguments.

The focus of the report is on public schools and the disproportionate negative impact on student achievement and discipline rates on minority students. The blame is laid at the feet of public schools, but conveniently fails to address this issue as a societal issue. The problems associated with inequity in this country are large and to suggest that somehow public schools are failing because of the problem is overly simplistic review of the bigger issue.

The use of a chart in the study demonstrates the strategy to support the position and deflect from the real issues associated with vouchers. The chart highlights the top five school districts that are addressing and the bottom five school districts that are struggling with minority student achievement, student retention and discipline⁷. What is missing is the context for the school districts. The five best school districts are smaller school districts with minority enrollment under 50%, and in two cases under 20%, while the bottom five school districts are all on Native American reservations with minority enrollment of close to 100%.

This chart is particularly misleading because the opportunity for using vouchers is limited on tribal land. In addition, there are any number of much larger societal issues associated with life on this country’s reservations. The tactic to focus on the role of traditional K-12 public education and their “supposed” failure to address societal issues, while not recognizing the role of local, state, and federal government or the private sector to address these large issues has been part of the long-term strategy to erode public confidence in public schools.

The “shiny ball” strategy is to create papers with data to support the failure of the traditional K-12 public schools by using data to support an argument. However, the recommendations for a solution, vouchers, are not supported by data or context. The trick is also to use isolated situations that can’t be replicated at scale. This report is thirty-two pages long, but covers the potential for ESA in two pages. In those two pages no data is shared to demonstrate the effectiveness of vouchers or the ability to replicate at scale.

The final statement supports the paper’s position by stating, “Though the population may be small - students in our microschools, and approximately 70,000 K-12 grade students enrolled in ESAs - are composed of students who stand to lose everything without this public support⁸. This closing argument is not supported by any data in the report. In fact one of the authors of the report is the head of the small school highlighted in the report as being successful. A school with approximately 150 students.

The ‘shiny ball” tactics employed by voucher proponents may be distracting, but they cannot obscure the enduring strengths of traditional K-12 public education. As advocates, we must keep our eyes on the prize—a future where every child has access to a quality education, free from the distractions of shiny balls and false promises. We must continue to address the issues associated with vouchers and highlight the distractions being utilized to continue to erode public confidence in our schools. Together, we can continue to build on the remarkable achievements of traditional K-12 public schools, ensuring their vitality and relevance in an ever-changing world.

Notes:

¹ Jim Rushton, Avoid “Shiny Ball Syndrome” by Creating Roadmaps for Your Analytics System. (Armeta.com), 2023.

² Glenn Farley and Zachary Milne. ESA Facts and Fictions: What’s Really Going on With Education Savings Accounts in Arizona?. (CommonSenseInstitute.org/ Arizona), Phoenix, AZ. October 8, 2024.

³ Dave Wells. Cost of Universal ESA Voucher Program. (The Grand Canyon Institute), Phoenix, AZ. June 6, 2024. Pg. 3-4.

⁴ Peter Greene. How Much are Universal School Vouchers Costing Arizona. (www.Forbes.com) February 24, 2024.

⁵ Dave Wells. Cost of Universal ESA Voucher Program. (The Grand Canyon Institute), Phoenix, AZ. June 6, 2024.

⁶ Rev. Janelle Wood, Kamryn Brunner, and Avery Martinez. Do Public Schools Serve All Students? Arizona’s black, brown, and special needs students are being left behind by the traditional public school system. (CommonSenseInstitute.org/ Arizona), Phoenix, AZ. August 2024.

⁷ Rev. Janelle Wood, Kamryn Brunner, and Avery Martinez. Do Public Schools Serve All Students? Arizona’s black, brown, and special needs students are being left behind by the traditional public school system. (CommonSenseInstitute.org/ Arizona), Phoenix, AZ. August 2024. Pg. 5.

⁸ Rev. Janelle Wood, Kamryn Brunner, and Avery Martinez. Do Public Schools Serve All Students? Arizona’s black, brown, and special needs students are being left behind by the traditional public school system. (CommonSenseInstitute.org/ Arizona), Phoenix, AZ. August 2024. Pg. 32.