BAD NEWS ABOUT THE EFFECTS
OF SCHOOL VOUCHER PROGRAMS
Two recent articles in The Upshot, the New York Times research journal, cast extensive doubt on the advisability of vouchers in public schools. Both were written by Kevin Carey.
The first, entitled Dismal Voucher Results Surprise Researchers As Devos Era Begins, recounts the results of three major voucher studies conducted in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio in the past several years. All three studies found that students transferring to private schools through voucher programs lost ground in achievement.
In Indiana, as part of a voucher program that enrolled tens of thousands of students while Mike Pence was governor, researchers found that " “In mathematics, voucher students who transfer to private schools experienced significant losses in achievement.” The researchers also saw no improvement in reading.
Then, a few months after the release of the first study, researchers studying the Louisiana voucher program found that "Public elementary school students who started at the 50th percentile in math and then used a voucher to transfer to a private school dropped to the 26th percentile in a single year."
The third voucher study was conducted by the Thomas Fordham Foundation, and focused on a voucher program in Ohio. The findings, from a conservative think tank that has promoted school choice, "“Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools.”
As Carey writes, "But even as school choice is poised to go national, a wave of new research has emerged suggesting that private school vouchers may harm students who receive them. The results are startling — the worst in the history of the field, researchers say."
The second Carey article is entitled DeVos and Tax Credit Vouchers: Arizona Shows What Can Go Wrong. This one is about State Tax Credit Voucher Programs, which have been proposed several times in Idaho, including in this legislative session.
Tax credit vouchers are a way to get around the Blaine Amendment church/state separation laws in state constitutions.
As Mr. Carey explains, "State tax credit voucher programs have grown rapidly in recent years. The number of students receiving them increased to 256,000 this year, from about 50,000 in 2005. Arizona has one of the oldest and largest programs. It allows taxpayers who donate money to nonprofit voucher-granting organizations to claim a 100 percent, dollar-for-dollar credit against their state taxes (up to a certain limit). In other words, if a married couple donates $1,000 to a voucher-granting nonprofit, their tax bill is reduced by $1,000. The nonprofit then gives the money to families who use it to pay tuition at private schools."
If you have not yet read these two articles, we encourage you to take a look. Together, they form a nice primer on the origination and current status of voucher and tax credit programs.
