国家在私校投入数十亿 ： 贫富间学习差距惊人 [美国媒体]

This country spends billions on private schools — and has a terrible learning gap between poor and wealthy

国家在私校投入数十亿 ： 贫富间学习差距惊人

In practice, most low-income students can only pick between their local public schools, which many say are under-resourced, and cheaper private schools, which face their own budget challenges

实际上，大多数低收入家庭的学生只能在当地的公立学校(许多人说学校资源不足)和廉价的私立学校(面临预算不足的挑战)之间进行选择。

【日期】2018年3月1日



This story also appeared in PBS Newshour
This story is the third of a three-part series that examines how other countries approach the idea of school choice. Read about school choice in New Zealand and Sweden.

这个故事也出现在 PBS新闻时间
这个故事是三集系列里的最后一部分，探讨其他国家对择校的看法。了解下新西兰和瑞典如何择校。

PARIS — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says she first became passionate about school choice after visiting a private school in Michigan that provided scholarships to low-income students. Although the scholarships gave students a “chance to succeed and thrive,” she knew that for every student who received a scholarship, “there were others stuck in schools not meeting their needs,” she said in a speech this March. She added, “The realization of this injustice moved me to get involved.”
The Trump administration’s budget proposal this year asked for $250 million to “replicate successful private school choice programs and build evidence around what works.” The Senate scuttled the plan, but DeVos suggested vouchers could become part of the tax overhaul instead. Congress included a provision making a popular higher education savings program available for K-12 private schools tuition in the new tax code, a move which DeVos praised.
In theory, vouchers and other private school choice programs open up the same menu of educational opportunities to all, according to DeVos and other school choice supporters. Parents are freed from financial constraints and can pick a school in which their child will thrive, leading to improved academic outcomes for all children.
In practice, research shows mixed outcomes for the roughly 448,000 American students who attend private schools through taxpayer-funded programs. Some thrive, but many do not. And not all students who make use of voucher programs are low-income. Other countries have gone much further than the U.S. to subsidize their private schools. Their results are also mixed.

巴黎教育部长贝特西理查说她头一回对学校选择感兴趣，是因为她参观了密歇根的一所私立学校，该校为低收入学生提供奖学金。
尽管奖学金给了学生一个“成功的机会”，但她知道，对于每一个获得奖学金的学生来说，“还有一些人被困在学校里，没能满足他们的需要。”今年3月，她在一次演讲中说。她还补充说，“认识到这种不公正促使我参与其中。”
特朗普政府今年的预算提案提供2.5亿美元，用于复制成功私校选择计划，并围绕工作有效性建立证据。”参议院否决了这一计划，但DeVos表示，代金券可以成为税收改革的一部分。国会在新税法中包括了一项规定，将一项受欢迎的计划“高等教育储蓄”用于K-12私立学校的学费，DeVos对此表示赞赏。据DeVos和其他学校选择支持者称，理论上，代金券和其他私立学校选择项目为所有人提供了同样的教育机会。父母摆脱了经济上的限制，可以选择一所适合他们孩子茁壮成长的学校，从而提高所有儿童的学业成绩。
在实践中，研究结果显示，大约448000名美国学生通过纳税人资助的项目就读私立学校。有些不错，但更多的不咋样。并不是所有使用代金券计划的学生都是低收入者。其他国家在资助私立学校方面比美国做的更多。他们的结果也是好坏参半。

France is already serving as a test case for the belief, like that espoused by DeVos, that private school choice can increase equity. The nation heavily subsidizes private schools, which enroll more than 17 percent of French students, compared to 10 percent in the U.S. In parts of the country, like Brittany, more than 40 percent of students are enrolled in a private school.
But France hasn’t erased all the barriers that prevent lower-income families from accessing the best schools, even with huge amounts of government money poured into helping them get a leg up. The country still has a multi-tiered system, with low-income students frequently shut out of the most elite private and public schools. In practice, most low-income students can only pick between their local public schools, which many say are under-resourced, and cheaper private schools, which face their own budget challenges.

法国打了头阵，就像DeVos所支持的那样，人们相信私立学校放开选择可以增加公平性。国家对私立学校给予了大量补贴，私立学校招收了超过17%的（贫困）法国学生，而在美国只有10%。在英国的一些地方，比如布列塔尼，超过40%的学生就读于私立学校。
法国没能消除低收入家庭进入最好学校的所有障碍，即使政府投入了大量资金帮助他们成功（入读）。该国仍然有一个多层次的制度，低收入学生经常被精英私立和公立学校拒之门外。实际上，大多数低收入家庭的学生只能在当地的公立学校(许多人说教育资源不足)和廉价的私立学校(面临预算不足的挑战)之间进行选择。

France has one of the highest gaps in performance between low- and high-income students in the developed world as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam given every three years to most developed and many developing nations.
These results aren’t purely a result of how France funds its schools; there are many other factors that contribute to this problem. Other European nations also heavily subsidize private education and have better results for poor students than France. But France’s system is a cautionary tale of how a country can offer an expansive private school choice system, but still fail to achieve equity.
The French system works like this: Private schools sign a contract with the government in which they agree to accept children of any racial or religious background, to follow the national curriculum and hire state approved teachers. They also agree to regular government inspections. In return, teacher salaries – typically the largest budget item for any school – are fully funded by the government. Schools also receive additional per pupil money from local municipalities.
About 7,500 private elementary, middle and high schools are currently under contract. They receive almost $9.9 billion, combined, from local and federal government coffers, about two-thirds of their total revenue. Nearly 12 percent of the total federal budget for elementary, middle and high schools goes to private schools.
The French system started in 1959 as a way to solve a supply and demand problem. There were too many baby-boomers for the public schools to handle. The subsidies allowed private schools to keep tuition costs down; by the mid-80s, the policy was viewed as a means of providing more choice to families who otherwise would be unable to access those schools.

按照国际学生评估计划(PISA)的衡量，法国是发达国家里贫富学生之间差距表现最大的国家之一，该项目每三年对发达国家和发展中国家进行一次考试。
这些结果并不纯粹是法国资助学校的结果，还有许多其他因素导致了这一问题。其他欧洲国家也大量资助私立教育，但是贫困学生的成绩比法国要好。这对法国的制度是一个警示，说明一个国家无论如何拓展选择给（平困生）提供进入私立学校的机会，但仍然无法实现（教育）公平。
法国的制度是这样运作的：私立学校与政府签订合同，同意接受任何种族或宗教背景的儿童，遵循国家课程大纲，并雇用国家认可资格的教师。并同意政府定期进行检查。作为回报，教师工资--通常是所有学校最大的预算项目--都由政府全额支付。学校还从地方市政当局向每个学生提供额外的资金。
目前约有7 500所私立小学、中学和高中签订了合同。他们总共从地方和联邦政府的收入中获得了99亿美元，约占总收入的三分之二。近12%的联邦预算用于小学、中学、高中和私立学校。
法国的制度始于1959，目的是解决供需问题。婴儿潮一代出生的人太多，公立学校无法应付。这些补贴使得私立学校能够降低学费成本；到了80年代中期，这项政策被认为是为那些本来无法进入这些学校的家庭提供更多选择的一种手段。

The average private school tuition for schools with a government contract is 1,000 euros (about $1,180) annually, according to Thomas Jallaud, director of FABERT, an organization that advises parents trying to pick a private school. That price is well within the grasp of middle-class families. Many schools depend on the subsidies for their existence, and make it a point to keep their tuition rates below the average to ensure almost anyone who wants to enroll, can.
But some educators in France say that this isn’t enough to make sure that all families have the same options. For starters, a subset of schools doesn’t have contracts with the government – including some of the top private schools in the country – and they’re often prohibitively expensive. The median tuition of independent private schools that don’t receive government subsidies is around 7,500 euros, Jallaud said.
Elisabeth Chatenet, principal of école Maternelle Paul Gervais, a public preschool in southeastern Paris, opposes spending taxpayer money on private schools. Her school has a diverse mix of students, both racial and economic. Every year, she sees her strongest students go off to private primary schools, while weaker students enroll in public schools.
Even though private schools can’t discriminate on the basis of race or religion in their admissions, critics say they can skim the highest-performing, least-needy students off the top, using academic and behavioral criteria.
Prior to coming to Paul Gervais, Chatenet worked in a public school in one of Paris’ poorest neighborhoods for several years. Many of her pupils lived in public housing, which she described as rat-infested and riddled with lead paint that made the children sick. It’s no surprise that private schools often boast better results than public ones, she said. “It’s like a race where they [don’t] have the same chances.”

与政府签合同的一般私立学校的学费是1000欧元（约1180美元）左右，法伯特主任托马斯·贾劳德建议家长选择私立学校。这个价格中产阶级家庭中能够接受。许多学校依靠补贴来维持他们的运转，并将学费保持在平均水平以下，以确保所有想入学的人都可以就读。
但法国的一些教育工作者说，这不足以确保所有家庭都有相同的选择。首先，一部分学校没有与政府签订合同--尤其是国内一些顶尖的私立学校--而且它们的价格往往高得令人望而却步。贾劳德说，不接受政府补贴的独立私立学校的学费中值约为7500欧元。
伊丽莎白·查特内是巴黎东南部一家公立幼儿园保罗·热尔维的校长，她反对把纳税人的钱花在私立学校上。她所在的学校有各种各样的学生，既有不同种族的，也有贫困生。每年，她都会看到她最优秀学生去私立小学上学，而差一的学生则就读于公立学校。
尽管私立学校在招生过程中不能以种族或宗教为基础进行歧视，但批评人士说，他们可以利用学术和行为标准，将表现好和不需要帮助的学生“掐尖”。
在来到PaulGervais之前，Chatenet在巴黎最贫穷社区之一的一所公立学校工作了几年。她的许多学生都住在公共住房里，她说这里老鼠出没，满是铅漆，孩子们因此生病。她说，不出所料的私立学校学生的成绩往往比公立学校好。“这就像一场比赛，他们没有相同的机会。”

On the 2015 PISA science results, France’s public-school students scored 20 points lower than those in private school. The organization that administers the exam, OECD, said the difference could be explained by the fact that public schools serve significantly more low-income students, who tend to perform worse on tests. If public and private schools served students with the same socioeconomic backgrounds, public schools would actually out-perform private schools. This held true for 22 OECD countries, including the United States, where voucher programs have failed to eliminate disparities in access and achievement.
The results of Louisiana’s voucher program are particularly poor, research shows; many experts say that’s partly because schools can choose whether or not to participate in the program, much like the French system. Many of the most elite private schools don’t accept voucher students.
Other programs don’t do enough to eliminate the financial barriers keeping the poorest families from choosing private schools. Voucher and tax credit scholarship programs vary greatly by state, but don’t always guarantee full coverage of tuition. (Tax credit scholarship programs allow corporations and individuals to donate money to scholarship funds in return for a tax credit.) In Florida, for instance, parents can get up to $5,886 per student to put toward private school tuition. The average cost of tuition, though, is $7,095 for an elementary school and $8,914 for a high school.
Several states that created voucher-like programs targeted at low-income families have since raised the income cap for eligibility, to include middle-class families as well. Critics warn this moves programs further from their intended purpose: closing the opportunity gap. The OECD has found that vouchers targeted specifically to low-income families significantly decrease socio-economic segregation between public and private schools compared to vouchers that any family can use, regardless of income.
After Devos was confirmed, many expected she and President Trump would push for tax credit scholarship programs that would focus on low-income students, said Jon Valant, fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Trump specifically mentioned such a system in his first address to Congress. But the savings account provision in the new tax plan would allow families to avoid paying taxes on payments for private school tuition, a benefit that would largely accrue to wealthier families who are able to put that money aside.

在2015国际学生评估的科学研究结果中，法国公立学校学生比私立学校学生低了20分。管理考试的机构oecd表示，这种差异的原因可能是公校招收的低收入学生较多，而这些学生在考试中表现更差。如果公立和私立学校学生背景差不多，公立学校成绩实际上会超过私立学校。对于包括美国在内的22个参与考试的国家都是如此，这些国家的代金券方案未能消除成绩方面的差距。
研究表明，路易斯安那州代金券计划的结果尤其糟糕；许多专家表示，部分原因是学校可以自主选择是否参加该计划，就像法国的制度一样。许多最优秀的私立学校不接受代金券学生。
其他项目在消除贫穷家庭选择私校的经济障碍方面做得不够。各州的代金券和税收抵免奖学金计划差别很大，但并不都是保证全额支付学费。(税收抵免奖学金计划允许企业和个人向奖学金基金捐款，以换取税收抵免。)例如，在佛罗里达，家长每人可获得高达5886美元的私立学校学费。然而，一所小学的平均学费是7095美元，高中的费用是8914美元。
几个州制定了针对低收入家庭类似代金券的计划，并提高了收入上限，包括中产阶级家庭。批评人士警告说，这将使项目进一步偏离预期目标：缩小（择校）机会的差距。OECD组织发现，比起任何家庭都可以使用代金券，专门针对低收入家庭的代金券显着减少了公、私立学校之间的社会经济隔离。
狄维士证实，很多人期望她和特朗普总统将推动税收抵免奖学金计划，将重点放在低收入家庭的学生身上，布鲁金斯学会布朗教育政策中心研究员JonValant说。特朗普在向国会发表的第一次讲话中特别提到了这样一个体系。但新税收计划中的储蓄账户条款允许家庭减免因支付私校学费而纳税，这一福利将在很大程度上惠及那些能够有钱存入这类账户的富裕家庭。

“That is a policy decision. They easily could have targeted that to more disadvantaged families,” Valant said. “Really poor families do not have a lot of money to stick in those accounts.”
In France, the lower-cost private schools that contract with the government often face budget struggles mirroring those of public schools. These schools need government subsidies to stay open, but government funds don’t cover the full cost of educating students. Yet, if the schools raise their tuition too much, or at all, to pay for improvements or to upgrade their buildings, technology and curriculum, they risk driving away families who can’t afford to pay.
école Notre Dame Vezin, a private school located just outside of Rennes in Brittany, charges 240 euro per year. If families can’t afford that, the school can make exceptions, said Principal Anthony Duval. “There’s a priority of access,” he said. The Catholic school enrolls students from all backgrounds, including some Muslims, even though the Catholic Education Association requires the school to offer religious culture classes.
In addition to the money the school receives from the state to pay for teacher salaries, Notre Dame Vezin also gets 200 euros from the municipality for each student over 6 years old That’s the same amount the municipality gives public schools for each student who enrolls from the town.
But while municipalities pay for public school facilities, Notre Dame Vezin is on its own for the upkeep of the school’s buildings, parts of which are 100 years old. A significant portion of tuition money goes towards that, Duval said. Following a population boom in town, his school has struggled to accommodate the increased enrollment and rented two portable classrooms to make space for its 230 students. The school is saving up to build three permanent classrooms. (The last time the school expanded, 40 years ago, parents pitched in to construct a new building in order to keep costs down.)
The government funding and the small tuition families pay can’t cover all the things Duval would like to do to improve the quality of education for his students. For one, he bemoans the fact that his school is falling behind others in the use of technology. Sitting in the back of one of the portable classrooms, he surveyed the 25 hard-at-work 7- and 8-year-olds filling in a worksheet about verb conjugation and noted that he has only 12 iPads for 230 students right now. “I would like to have one per pupil,” he said.

“这是一项政策决定。他们很容易就能把目标对准处境更不利的家庭。“Valant说。“真正贫穷的家庭没有足够的钱存入这些账户。”
在法国，与政府签约的较低成本的私立学校往往面临着与公立学校类似的预算困境。这些学校需要政府补贴才能维持运转，但政府资金不足以支付教育学生的全部费用。然而，如果学校涨了太多的学费，又或者用来支付了改善费用，更新教室、技术和课程，他们就的赶走那些无力支付学费的家庭。
位于布列塔尼雷恩郊外的一所私立学校，巴黎圣母院-，每年收费240欧元。校长安东尼·杜瓦尔说，如果家庭负担不起，学校可以破例减免。他说：“这是一个需要优先考虑的问题。”天主教学校招收各种背景的学生，包括一些穆斯林，尽管天主教教育协会要求学校提供宗教文化课程。
除了学校从州收到的教师工资的钱外，圣母大学还会从市政府获得补助，每一名6岁以上的学生补助200欧元，这数额与市政府给公立学校的提供的相同。
但是，尽管市政当局为公立学校的设施买单，但维辛圣母学院的校舍维修工作却是靠自己的力量完成的，其中部分建筑已有100年的历史。杜瓦尔说，很大一部分学费都花在了这里。在城镇人口激增之后，他所在的学校一直在努力适应扩招的需求，并租用了两间便携式教室，为230名学生腾出空间。学校正在攒钱建造三间永久教室。(这所学校上一次扩建是在40年前，为了降低成本，家长们出资建造了一座新大楼。)
政府补助和家庭缴纳的小额学费，不足以支付杜瓦尔为了提高教学质量想要做的所有事情。首先，他抱怨说，学校在技术使用方面落后于其他学校。坐在一间便携教室的后座上，他对25名7岁和8岁的学生进行了调查，他们填写了一张动词变位的表格，他指出3学校现在只有12台iPad，要供给230名学生使用。他说：“我想给每个学生一台。”

Duval says without government subsidies, the price of attending his school would be out of reach for many of his students, who would then go back into the public system. He argues that’s a reason public schools should support the subsidy system: to avoid the flood of students they would have to educate without it.
Yet critics of the French system say that spreading government funds across the two sectors means all schools are stretched thin, leaving some public schools, in particular, without the resources they need to serve the students they have. France spends about $7,200 per pupil at the primary level, compared to the United States which spends an average of nearly $11,000, according to the OECD. (At the secondary level, the disparity is less stark: France spends $11,500 per student compared to $12,700 in the United States.)
Morgane Le Bris, principal of école Mur de Bretagne, a public elementary school about two hours west of Rennes, spends her days managing a mixed-age class of 17 first graders and 10 second graders. The 6- and 7-year-olds sit at desks organized in rows as Le Bris scurries across the scuffed floors switching between the two grade levels.
On a Monday morning in October, she prompted the 6-year-olds to practice spelling out three-letter combinations with laminated cards. As they worked out which letters combined to form “pro,” Le Bris turned to read aloud to the 7-year-olds. She shifted gears, called a 6-year-old up to the board to write out an answer, then turned back to finish reading to the 7-year-olds. She looked up at the work on the board as she handed out a worksheet about the story to the 7-year-olds.
The school, which has 144 students, is located right next door to the town’s private school. Le Bris says there’s a small, but perpetual, exchange between the two schools. This year her school lost five students and gained one. She doesn’t resent the private school’s receipt of government funds. But she wishes she had more money to bring her classes down to size.
“I would like to have fewer students in my class. I could work better if I didn’t have 27, if I had 20,” she said in French. “That’s always the problem.”

杜瓦尔说，如果没有政府补贴，他的许多学生将无法负担上学费用，这些学生将会回到公立学校。他认为，这也是公立学校应该支持补贴制度的原因：为了避免学生大量涌入，他们必须在没有补贴的情况下进行教育。
然而，对法国体制持批评态度的人士表示，将政府资金分散到这两个部门，意味着所有学校都捉襟见肘，尤其是一些公立学校，没有资源为学生提供所需的教育。据OECD的数据显示，法国在小学阶段的每位学生的花费约为7200美元，而美国的平均支出接近1.1万美元。(在中学阶段，差距并不那么明显：法国每位学生的支出为11500美元，而美国为12700美元。)
MorganeLeBris是一所公立小学Mur de Bretagne的老师，学校位于雷恩以西两个小时路程，她每天要管理一个由17名一年级学生和10名二年级学生组成的混合年龄班。6岁和7岁的孩子们坐在排成一排的办公桌前，LeBris在两个年级之间的地板上来回穿梭。
在十月一个周一的早晨，她鼓励6岁的孩子们用卡片练习拼出三个字母的组合。当他们思考用字母组合出“pro”时，勒布里斯转向7岁的孩子们大声念书给他们听。然后她叫了一个6岁的孩子上黑板写出答案，接着又转回7岁的孩子们读书。当给7岁的孩子们分发关于这个故事的记录表时她抬头看了看黑板上的答案。
这所学校有144名学生，就在该镇私立学校的隔壁。LeBris说，这两所学校之间一直都有交流。今年，她的学校流失五个学生，新增了一个学生。她并不讨厌私立学校收到政府资助。但她希望她有更多的钱，能让她的班级规模缩小些。
“我希望班上的学生少一些。如果不是27个，而是20个，我就能更好地工作，”她用法语说。“这就是问题所在。”