Why school vouchers are bad

Rather than addressing the root of the problem—voucher programs leading to large student achievement declines—proponents hope to sweep the issue under the rug. President Trump and Secretary DeVos take a similar stance. DeVos repeatedly refused to commit to holding private schools that accept public dollars to any accountability provisions, including those that would ensure that schools report student achievement outcomes and even the most basic information on school enrollment.

While choice in the education sector can spur innovation and offer parents and children options to best meet individualized needs, evidence indicates that voucher programs do not improve results for students and will not achieve that aim. Indeed, vouchers will likely hurt student growth and lower overall outcomes. Looking forward, the federal government should focus its funding and influence on research-based education policies that have been shown to improve academic achievement.

Encouraging the replication of high-performing charter schools, expanding access to high-quality pre-K programs, or increasing the equitable distribution of teachers are all much better and proven educational investments. Unfortunately, President Trump and Secretary DeVos instead aim to divert public funding to fuel the expansion of voucher programs. CAP translated and compared the effect sizes of six studies in varying topic areas to provide the context needed to aid in interpreting these impacts.

The voucher studies included in this report are the four most recent and rigorous voucher program analyses to be released in the past five years. Other work analyzing voucher program effects has similarly divided these four current studies from prior work. The D. These three factors make the D. However, all four studies of voucher programs included in this report leverage rigorous—either experimental or quasi-experimental 72 —methodologies and are similarly important for education policymakers and practitioners to understand.

Importantly, all four studies also have similar findings of negative impacts on math scores and in one case, on reading scores as well. These studies serve to further validate the impacts found in each individual study. This corroborating evidence is notable, as the D. The additional five current studies with negative educational impacts described in this report, which serve to add context to the voucher study impacts, were all selected based on four parameters: the presence of in-school factors associated with negative impacts, rigorous methods, recent results, and representative of their field—that is to say, the statistical significance; negative or positive sign direction; and magnitude are similar to other rigorous studies addressing these topic areas.

In some cases, other similar studies may find an effect in reading but not in math, for example, but maintained the same sign, and similar significance and magnitude. The comparison in this brief focuses on only math impacts to allow for a comparable analysis of effects. Importantly, this analysis uses only one rigorous, well-regarded study on each topic. As noted in this paper, the days of learning conversion is an approximate translation, meant to add context and aid in the understanding of relative effect size.

Using research estimating the average growth from fourth to eighth grade on the National Assessment of Educational Progress from Eric Hanushek and Margaret Raymond, CREDO determines that one standard deviation unit of growth is the equivalent of days of learning. In this report, the days of learning conversion yields days lost rather than additional days of learning gained, as all the effect sizes are negative.

Similarly, CREDO has also used their days of learning conversion to yield days lost when describing the impact of attending online charter schools. While effect sizes are standardized and comparable, they are not always intuitive. Therefore, to provide context and aid in interpretation of important and negative voucher programs impacts, the authors translated effect sizes to specific changes from the 50th percentile.

More specifically, effect sizes can be interpreted as the new percentile standing of the average control group member if they had been in the treatment group. This interpretation assumes a normal distribution where the average control group member is at the 50th percentile. For example, a treatment group effect size of 1. Therefore, using readily available, online z-score calculators, 76 the authors translated each negative effect size into a specific percentile drop from the 50th percentile.

This translation to a percentile change from the 50th percentile allows the authors to make more easily understood and accurate comparisons across studies. For example, as stated in the paper, the D. It is important to note, however, that the standard deviation to percentile conversion is not linear, therefore, these percentile changes must always be in reference to a starting point, in this case, the 50th percentile. The authors wish to acknowledge several people who helped with this report.

We would like to thank Austin Nichols, principal associate at ABT Associates, Johanna Lacoe, researcher at Mathematica, and Dorothyjean Cratty, independent research consultant, who each reviewed a draft of this report and provided valuable comments that strengthened the framing and interpretations. Lindsay Bell Weixler, associate director and senior research fellow at the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, and Terris Raiford Ross, senior director of research and support at Leadership for Educational Equity, both provided helpful methodological recommendations and input.

Education, K Though we qualify for the public funds, we choose not to accept them knowing there are always strings attached. This is so hard to get through to people. I am an employee in a Catholic School here in Canada. Religious education is part of our daily cirriculum so it is just a natural fit for me as a Christian. I also beleive, all Christian education begins at home. Thank you for your thoughtful and urgent message to us.

Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. School vouchers are a bad idea for several reasons: 1. Nicole on September 25, at pm. Rachel C. School vouchers are certificates of government funding. It allows a student to attend a school that is chosen by their family instead of being required to go to an assigned public school.

Funding is usually reserved to a specific year, semester, or term. In the United States, some school vouchers can be used to attend private, religious, or alternative schools. Homeschooling expenses can sometimes be offset by voucher programs as well. It is an idea that is carried by the conservative mantle in the United States today, but was first introduced by liberals in the s.

School vouchers were initially proposed during the desegregation era in public schools to stop the effects that racial inequality was having on the education of children. The idea was to breakdown the monopoly that the public education system had created. The advantage of a school voucher program is pretty straight-forward.

Not every student lives in a place where the public school district provides a quality education. By having access to a voucher, families can make a better choice for the education of their children because they have more than one choice available to them.

The disadvantage of a school voucher program is also pretty straight-forward. There is no guarantee that an increased school choice will improve the educational opportunities for a child in some communities. School vouchers invite extra competition. When more students are in a community, demanding access to a private school, then more private schools are expected to emerge. This creates increased competition at a local level to compete for voucher dollars. That forces the school to maintain a high-quality education experience and keep costs low to create a student population.

Households with a school voucher get to choose what type of school their student gets to attend. That means families who want their student to be encouraged to pray openly can do so. Department of Education, 76 percent of private schools have a religious affiliation. Over 80 percent of students attending private schools are enrolled in religious institutions. Most of these religious schools seek to indoctrinate as well as educate. They integrate religion throughout their curriculum and often require all students to receive religious instruction and attend religious services.

In other words, vouchers force Americans to pay taxes to support religion. In America, all religious activities should be supported with voluntary contributions. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other Founders strongly supported the separation of church and state and opposed taxation to support religion. School vouchers are little more than a backdoor way for the government to subsidize religious and other private schools. Under most voucher bills, private schools can take taxpayer money and still deny admission to any student they choose.

Unlike public schools, private schools can and do discriminate against students based on various criteria, including religion, disability, economic background, academic record, English language ability or disciplinary history. Public funds should pay only for public schools that are open to all children and accountable to the people. Private schools are also free to impose religious criteria on teachers and staff.

Voucher advocates say that the U. Supreme Court ruled in Zelman v. This is true, but the advocates overlook an important fact: The Zelman case did not address state constitutional issues. Some three dozen states have church-state provisions in their constitutions that are even stronger than the U.